'Chip' your car, Budget upgrade
'Chipping' is the process of changing the way your car's engine management software tells the engine to behave, so to speak. It can be done because modern engines are built with very high tolerances these days so that they'll run without problems when they're badly looked after; you know, using cooking oil instead of diesel and not bothering with servicing - stuff like that. Chipping 'remaps' the engine, changing things like the ignition timing and turbo boost pressure to make the engine more frisky; the same sort of thing as giving David Hasselhoff a couple of pints.
It works with both petrol and diesel engines, and the returns can be quite astonishing. For example, take a BMW 530d to Superchips (www.superchips.co.uk) and in exchange for £435 the Beemer will return with an extra 46bhp and a mighty 97lb.ft of extra torque - that's on top of the 367lb.ft it already has. Yikes.
