Superchips Bluefin

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uperchips have been recoding, or chipping, car ECUs for almost as long as car engines have used ECUs. Their current technology for Ford ECUs uses a small handheld device to recode the unit, rather than taking the car along to have the ECU reverse engineered. This is their Bluefin, which is only currently available for Ford cars that used the EEC-V unit. This includes most of their passenger cars since 1995 with one notable exception: the Escort. But if you drive an Escort you’re unlikely to be reading this.

Now the Bluefin has several advantages over the more conventional methods. The most obvious one is that you can recode the ECU yourself: you don’t have to take the car in to a dealership to recode it. It also means that you can return the vehicle to the factory code at any time - perhaps if you had a problem with a new vehicle, you can ensure that the car has the original algorithms when it’s in for warranty work.

The Bluefin can also read ECU fault codes, just as my OBD-II Scanner can, and can also be used to wipe all code from the ECU, thus disabling the engine. This is a little bit extreme!

At Ford Fair 2004, I took advantage of a special offer on the Bluefin, and Kermit now uses modified ECU code.

Operation of the Bluefin device is simple. You plug it into the diagnostics / OBD-II port of the car and follow on-screen instructions. First, it identifies what vehicle you have, and then it gives you instructions depending on what you want to do. To substitute Superchips’ ECU code for Ford’s code, first the device copies the original code, then replaces it with new code. The whole process takes under ten minutes.

Well, has it worked? Yes, I think so.

Superchips’ Claim

The Superchips website claims that the recoded ECU produces an additional 3 bhp over the standard Endura-E. This isn’t an impressive headline statistic. Neither is the headline increase in peak torque, which goes from 104 Nm to 110 Nm. There’s worse news in where the power and torque peaks - it’s at 5,900 rpm for power, and 3,100 rpm for torque.

However, inspecting the Superchips power and torque curves (illustrated) reveals some interesting statistics. Firstly, I am reasonably confident that the Superchips rolling road was not quite set up correctly. The standard Ka produces 59 bhp and not 68 bhp. But disregarding this, there’s every reason to believe that the curve is accurate, and the torque plot is also spot on according to manufacturers’ data.

Some useful points include that although peak torque engine speed has moved from 2,800 rpm to 3,100 rpm, the Superchipped engine is producing more torque from 2,100 rpm to 4,000 rpm than the standard engine was ever capable of. This also drops through when comparing the superchipped Endura-E with the standard 1·3 Duratec; more torque equals greater acceleration. This in turn equals that all 1·3 Duratec 8v drivers can eat Kermit’s twin exhaust under 60 mph in top gear.

Furthermore, at higher engine speeds, the chipped engine’s torque curve is much flatter, and the engine is much keener to rev beyond 5,000 rpm. Much keener!

On The Road

On the road, the main benefit is that the Ka’s more flexible, especially when encountering a gradient. Driven gently - as Kermit is for a significant proportion of my daily commute - it doesn’t feel noticeably quicker with the exception of ascending a gradient, especially in the upper gears at lower engine speeds. He can now accelerate up a modest gradient at 40 indicated in top gear, whereas before he needed to be in fourth gear.

At higher engine speeds, the engine’s response is much more linear. Again, it doesn’t feel all that noticeably quicker, probably because the response is more linear, however whereas before the engine wasn’t especially keen to rev beyond 5,000 rpm (perhaps because of restricted fuelling), now it’s still pulling well at 5,700 rpm. The limiter now kicks in at 6,000 rpm, rather than 5,850 rpm.

Is it enough to match the Duratec’s increased urge? Well, possibly not once you’re beyond 4,000 rpm, but it’s a significant improvement over the standard engine. It kicks 1·3 Duratec 8v butt below 3,000 rpm!

Fuel Consumption

The ECU recoding appears to have made a small improvement in fuel consumption. The difference is only to the tune or one or two miles per gallon, and it did take several hundred miles before we saw any improvement, but it’s there. It certainly hasn’t increased consumption.