Cheap Diesel Performance

Pib, on 2012-02-11 16:41:32, said:

As FYI, I ordered a standard Racechip for my Toyota Fortuner  D4D 3.0L  Monday night at around 7:30pm Bangkok time.   Didn't go with the Racechip Pro because I couldn't see paying another 100 Euros for maybe another 4 to 5% of power over the standard Racechip.

Now here is some important money saving information if ordering either the standard Racechip or Racechip Pro...and you just may need this savings to help pay the Thai customs charges on this end.   As you will notice on the Racechip website their chip prices include a 19% VAT (Germany). While googling looking for posts on the Racechip I came across a post on an Australian blog site where the guy said if you are buying/shipping a Racechip from outside the European Union be sure to tell Racechip this during the ordering process and the 19% German VAT will be removed. Even through your address on the order is outside the EU you still need to tell them to get the VAT removed...cool, effectively a 19% price cut.

I emailed Racechip to ask if this is true and they responded within a minute saying yes. They said I would place the order as normal but in the order Comments Section enter "Without Tax" since I don't live in the EU and they would send me a Proforma Invoice with the updated total price (i.e., VAT removed). So, I placed the order, initial order reflected the full price but the Proforma Invoice showed up about 30 minutes later with the reduced price (i.e., no 19% VAT), I then paid by PayPal, and the Racechip is on its way to me in  Bangkok.

So, this lowered the standard Racechip price by 19% from 129 Euro to 108.40 Euro plus 45 Euro shipping  for a total of 153.40 Euro or approx 6,197 Baht based on the exchange rate of the day. If I had ordered a Racechip Pro the price would have been reduced from 229 Euro to approx 185.40 Euro (7,490 baht) plus 45 Euro shipping for a total of 230.4 Euro or 9,308 Baht.

Using the UPS tracking number sent to me by Racechip the shipment to Bangkok used UPS Express Shipping and the shipment arrived Bangkok early Wed morning (only around 36 hours after being shipped...fast) and was put on the UPS truck for delivery to me on Wednesday.  Unfortunately, I received no delivery on Wednesday and I got a UPS notice via email Wednesday night they could not find my address and they were requesting a corrected address...and I needed to provide the correct address to the shipper (Racechip in Germany) who in turn would update the UPS shipping address.  I emailed Racechip Wednesday night identifying the shipping problem and provided an “expanded” address by including my moobaan/community name and moobaan sub-soi number.  The original address I provided was correct and Thai Postal system and other shipping companies have never had a problem finding my address...maybe I got unlucky with a new/in-experienced UPS driver.

Racechip emailed me back within minutes saying they had provided the updated/expanded address to UPS and sorry for the delivery delay.   Note: to date in all my email correspondence to Racehip they have always literally responded within minutes...and it’s not an automated response...it a real person with a real full name. This include emails “before” I ordered when I was just asking a couple of general questions...trying to determine if I really wanted to buy a Racechip. So far, all my email correspondence has been around 7pm-10:30pm Thailand time which is 1pm-4:30pm Germany time.  Yeap, in my case at least, Racechip responds super quick to email, but my emails have arrived during their normal work hours.

Ok, I go to bed and get up this Thursday morning and the UPS tracking site still shows the status of needing a correct address.   So, I call UPS in Bangkok to discuss the problem...they say their system still does not show in updated address so I give it to them and ask them if they will deliver today...they say they will get back to me. They did call me back in about 30 minutes and say delivery will occur today/Thursday around 4pm...and it did occur at 2:30pm...but the driver had to call for additional directions.   So, even with a one day delay in UPS trying to find my address the Racechip still arrived in less than 3 days/72 hours of ordering....or more accurately it took 67 hours.  This UPS pre-delivery call-back also identified there was a 2,060 baht Thai customs charge on the shipment, with the bulk of that charge being a 30% Thai import duty and 7% Thai VAT. After receiving the Racechip and looking at the Customs Details of Charges form the charge looked like high level math...it  involved a 30% Import Duty based on declared value (108.40 EUR) plus a 230 baht freight fee plus a 44.51 insurance fee for a total of 4,735.26 baht ....then a 7% VAT was applied against this total...then another 200 Baht Disbursement Fee and then another 7% VAT on the Disbursement Fee...and they used a exchange rate of a little over 41 baht/Euro (Thai bank TT Buying Rate is only around 40.4 Baht/Euro)...with all the Thai customs duties/fees dust settled it amounted to 2,060 baht.   I always knew there would likely be a Thai customs charge based on previous shipments of different things I’ve bought but I was hoping to escape with only the 7% Thai VAT...but so far on the particular things I have ordered approx two thirds of the time I have been hit by the core 30% import duty plus 7%VAT plus a few add on small fees...when the dust settles it comes real close 40% to cover the various Thai customs charges/fees.   Oh well, that’s one of the joys of living in Thailand...hopefully the Thai govt will use the import tax money well like building higher flood prevention walls.

Now, that I had the Racechip in hand, I installed it on Thursday afternoon...piece of cake to install it...easy and quick...you actually spend more time figuring out exactly how you want to secure the harness and Racechip with the provided tie straps than anything else. If you can unplug and plug in a table lamp, you can install a Racechip. The Racechip default settings for my vehicle were 9-B which is identified  on the invoice...which I had also confirmed in an email to Racechip below ordering...just checking out their customer support before ordering...and I did open the Racechip before installing it to confirm the Racechip was set to 9-B.

With the default/factory settings for my vehicle, the Fortuner started just fine/as normal and there is a very noticeable power increase starting at 2000 RPM.   Now don’t worry about the vehicle pressing you against you seat every time you accelerate through 2000 RPM...that surge in power only occurs under medium-high to high acceleration; not so much during low to medium acceleration.  Now you still feel the power increase at 2000 RPM under low to medium acceleration but it’s not predominate...it seems to be a smoother increase in power.  It has no effect on your ability to control the vehicle...you just notice the vehicle gets more peppy at around 2000 RPM when accelerating. I ran on the default factory setting the rest of the day and did about 20km in city and highway driving...no problems.  The next morning when starting the vehicle with a  cold engine, once again it started just fine/as normal. When starting my Fortuner it has always been a very quick start...the starter cranks for around a half a second (or less) and the vehicle is running...hard to hear the starter even cranking.   With the engine still cold I wanted to do a specific test which was to start driving almost immediately...just as soon as I could get out of the driveway and then accelerate up the moobaan/village soi.   Before installing the Racechip I would always hear just a little valve clicking; with the Racechip installed the valve clicking was noticeably less...I expect the Racechip was probably allowing a  little richer air/fuel mixture.

Ok, ran the vehicle for another 30 minutes or so and everything is fine.   In the booklet that comes with the Racechip it identified two Performance Level settings of Performance Level One “C-E” and Performance Level Two “D-F”...these two performance settings are for those vehicles which come with a default setting of 9-B like my Fortuner 3.0L Diesel.   Other vehicles with different default settings have difference Performance Level Settings.   I decided to go right to the Performance Level Two settings which increases Setting 1 and Setting 2 rotary switches by 4 clicks each..or at the half way point on both switches.  I figure if I got an engine check light I would just crank the settings down to Performance Level 1 and try again.   Once again, the vehicle started fine/as normal on the higher performance settings when both hot or cold, no smoke from the tail pipe, etc., but I did not notice any difference in power from the default/factory settings.

The Racechip web site states the Racechip factory setting for each vehicle provide approx a 20% power increase and each rotary switch increases/decreases the power by a +1.5%/-1.5%.  So, by me going to Performance Level Two which is a 4 click/letter/number increase that would be 4 times 1.5% for 6% on top of the default/factory 20% for a total of 26%.  And I'm not saying I really got a real world 26% increase in horsepower/torque/performance, I'm just using Racechip's advertisement/installation math.   As mentioned I didn’t notice any power increase between default factory setting and the Performance Level 2 setting.  Maybe there was a performance increase which could be seen on a dyno, but I could not feel any in the seat of my pants/driving...only so much the human senses can detect when it comes to increases or decreases in horsepower/torque. And I haven’t drove it enough yet to see how my fuel mileage is going to be affected.

By late next week I should have an OBDII USB device which I will hook-up to my laptop and OBDII connector on the vehicle (directly under the steering column) in order to read/see detailed OBD information on engine temp, fuel pressure, O2 sensor, timing,   etc...etc...etc.   Some OBDII software (freeware) also gives estimated horsepower and torque readings....I’ll probably try various OBDII software packages to see which one I like the best and gives the most information....all OBDII software is not created equal.   One of the first things I going to look at is how the Racechip affects my common rail fuel pressure and the Air/Fuel Mixture Level.   From looking at a service/repair manual for trouble codes, the engine light will come on when the Air/Fuel Mixture is +/- 35% of nominal....and a test which can be done with a specific kind of OBDII tester is to for a short period to change the mixture to +25% rich and then to a -12.5% Lean to ensure no trouble code occurs which would cause the engine trouble light to come on/go into limp mode.   So, test OBDII/Engine Check Light tests tell me that Toyota considers a “rich” mixture less than a +35% as being OK...and I expect since the Racechip raises common fuel rail pressure which effectively pushes more fuel into the cylinders with the same amount of air coming it, that the mixture will probably be somewhat richer than what the ECU would normally maintain.   I’m still looking for the nominal common rail fuel pressures at different RPMs...I found the data once somewhere...but need to find it again. I give some more feedback regarding my on-the-road and OBD testing  later on...I definitely want to collect some more definitive/numerical data versus only going on how it feels while driving.

So far I'm happy with my Racechip, but I haven't drove with it that much yet...need to do more driving/testings.  I'll give more feedback later once I have more driving/testing under my belt.   In closing don't forget that ordering tip if you want to save 19%...you just may need that savings to help pay offset the Thai customs charges...and if you get lucky and don't get hit with any Thai customs charges then you should then be very, very happy with your Racechip buy.  Cheers.

Pib, on 2012-02-11 16:41:32, said: