Superchips vs. Hypertech vs. 2* Advance

[shailey]

I want to start this off with a couple of things being said. First off, I want to thank Hypertech and Superchips for stepping up and helping out the Nissan Titan Community. It is nice to know that just a couple of short years ago, there was absolutely NO CHANCE of getting programmers for our trucks to now we have a nice selection of computerized power adders.
Next is the customer service that I have received. It has been beyond top notch as my truck has definitely been a problem child to tune. For some reason mine is always a problem no matter what I do to it.

Next I want to apologize to Scott at Superchips. I know that because of me he has one pair of ruined underwear due to my horrible, tasteless joke, but I had to do it. I will tell the story real quick. We had a little problem with the tuning, so I was working directly with them in real time. On the 3rd try, they hit the nail on the head. So I called in and here is how it went…EXACTLY:

Scott answered by saying, “Well, how is it?”
Me: “Man, my engine just blew!”
Scott: “WHAAAAATT!!!!!”
Me: “I am just kidding.”
Scott: That wasn’t right.
Me: I am sorry, I love to joke around. As you can tell we do things differently around our place and I love to joke and play.
Scott: Yea, you guys are different alright
Me: I am from Tennessee, I can’t help it. LOL

Anyway, back to the programmers. I will start off with the manufacturer’s selling points of Superchips and Hypertech. If they are wrong, PLEASE correct me and I will update it immediately and notify with a post that an update has happened.

Selling Point of the Superchips Cortex
1) Easy to use, plug, program and play
2) Real time support from engineers
3) WOT restriction removed
4) Powertrain warranty - 2 Year limited that includes engine long block and internal parts and transmission internals which also includes sun gears and torque converter.
5) Tow Safe Mode
6) Stock, 87 Octane and Performance Tunes available
7) Rev Limiter and Speed limiter Adjustment
8) 30 Day money back guarantee
9) Detect and remove diagnostic trouble codes
10) Updates through internet
11) Data Log 0-60 times (coming soon)

Selling Points of the Hypertech Max Energy
1) Easy to use, plug, program and play
2) 24 Hour Program support
3) WOT restriction removed
4) Limited Lifetime warranty on unit
5) Stock Regular and Premium Tunes available
6) Updates through internet
7) Rev limiter and speed limiter adjustment
8) Detect and remove diagnostic trouble codes

Manufacturer Power Claims on the Dyno
Hypertech - Premium Tune PEAK: 9 HP and 9 ft. lbs. of torque
87 Tune PEAK: 5 HP and 5 ft. lbs. of torque
Premium Tune MAX GAIN: 23 HP and 23 ft. lbs. of torque
Regular Tune MAX GAIN: 19 HP and 17 ft. lbs. of torque
Superchips - Premium Tune PEAK: N/A
Prem. Tow Mode PEAK: N/A
87 Tune PEAK: N/A
Premium Tune MAX Gain: 25 HP and 27 ft. lbs. of torque
Prem. Tow Mode MAX: 15 HP and 19 ft. lbs. of torque
87 Tune MAX GAIN: 10 HP and 12 ft. lbs. of torque

My Dyno Findings
I will start by saying that these dyno's are only the 2* advance and Superchips. The Hypertech is incomplete as of right now.

The dyno finding back up 100% what I found in my 1/4 mile times and what I told Superchips I was feeling with the premium tune. I felt the truck take off strong and then I told them that the premium tune felt like it was pulling timing or just not producing the power that the 87 tune was. Well, look at my a/f ratio's...that confirms what I felt and it also confirms why the 0-60 from the premium was a little faster, the 1/8 mile was almost the same and the 1/4 mile was slower. Jeff has not emailed me the dyno's yet so I will put them up as soon as they come in.

Mods: 33" tires at 35 psi., Stillen intake, Stillen longtubes, STOCK exhaust, 2* advance (removed for the programmer runs), full street trim including car seats

Condition of the runs: 3rd gear, corrected. Jeff and I have done a couple of hundred dyno's together and I have done hundreds more dyno's, so we have a pretty good system that works. Since I can remove the speed limiter, I chose not to. WHY? Because I wanted to do this test under the same pretense that most others would. The run that show 298 does NOT have peak hp. Notice the broken line? When we checked it under mph, it actually showed 307 peak, so the 298 is a misleading number. That was the 2* advance run and it is proven with all the runs together, you can see them all lumped together.

How I did the runs: Pulled in, hooked it up and went. I had driven 204 miles today mostly interstate before the dyno. But the part that wasn't interstate driving was the 1/4 mile runs.

Results:
2* Advance: 307 hp, 361.9 tq. A/F Ratio, right at 12 (broken line)

Superchips:
87 Tune: 312.1 hp, 368 tq, A/F Ratio, 12.9-13.0 (these numbers are NOT on the screen shots, but will be on my dyno that is emailed to me
91 Tune: 312.6 hp, 369.1 tq, A/F Ratio, 13.5

Biggest influence on these numbers I feel? My headers. I do not think that a truck with stock exhaust manifolds will run this lean. Nathan's truck is running a lot better on the performance tune than it does with the 87 tune.

Summary: If you have longtube headers, do NOT run the premium tune, it runs very lean. It produces PLENTY of power with the 87 tune. Once again, Nathan is finding that with his stock exhaust manifolds his truck is doing considerably better with the premium tune.

Time Comparison with 93 Tune
Date tested: 8/27/08
Temperature: 82* to 86*
Humidity: Approximately 70%
Elevation: Approximately 860 ft.
Barometric Pressure: 30.04 (beginning of runs)
Wind: 15 to 20 mph

Characteristics of the Runs: For some reason, I am having a very difficult time launching the truck and am not willing to spend a lot of timing trying. So after a couple of bad launches, I just got it moving and then hammered down.

2* Advance:
0-60 mph: 6.73 seconds
60 ft.: 2.36 seconds
1/8th Mile: 9.98 at 74.2 mph
1/4 Mile: 14.93 at 94.8 mph

Superchips Cortex 87 Tune WITH Headers
0-60 mph: 6.38 seconds
60 ft.: 2.51 seconds
1/8th Mile: 9.71 at 76.1 mph
1/4 Mile: 14.49 at 96.7 mph

Performance Tune WITH Headers
0-60 mph: 6.31 seconds
60 ft.: 2.45 seconds
1/8th Mile: 9.68 at 76.2 mph
1/4 Mile: 14.58 at 96.0 mph

Summary: The premium tune doesn't like longtube headers. But Nathan is finding that the stock exhaust manifolds LOVE the premium tune.

Time Comparison with 87 Tune
Date tested: 8/23/08
Temperature: 74* F to 76* F
Humidity: 91% down to 83% by the end of the tests
Barometric Pressure: 30.11 flat

The order I did the tests are as follows: 2* advance, Hypertech and then Superchips.

Mods on the truck are as follows: Stillen longtube headers, Stillen CAI, stock exhaust, factory 5 spoke wheels with 33” Toyo’s, 2.5” lift on front 1.5” on the rear.

How I did the test: 1300 rpm launch and then floored it. Was there wheel spin? YEP!!! That is evident by my 60 foot times. I decided on this so there wouldn’t be any difference in launches, which can happen when trying to achieve a good launch. So I KNOW that the times could come down by doing good launches. There was about 20 minutes in between each run due to programming and allowing the truck to cool down.

Runs done: 0-60 and 1/8 mile. I did NOT do any ¼ miles because cops have been absolutely rampant here and the place I decided to do the runs this time were close to home to keep heat soak from happening. So I wasn’t comfortable going THAT fast.

2* advance:
0-60 mph: 6.58 seconds
60 ft.: 2.31 seconds
1/8th Mile: 10.93 seconds at 39.7 mph.
Characteristics of the run: Good launch, but I had to get on the brake hard, THP pulled out in front of me.

Hypertech Max Energy WITH headers:
0-60 mph: 6.53 seconds
60 ft.: 2.75 seconds
1/8th Mile: 9.93 seconds at 74.7 mph
Characteristics of the run: Truck spun through first and the shift to 2nd went to a lower point in rpm range than ideal

Superchips Cortex WITH headers:
0-60 mph: 6.33 seconds
60 ft.: 2.70 seconds
1/8th Mile: 9.80 seconds at 76.6 mph
Characteristics of the run: Truck spun, but grabbed while still in first.

As you can see, the launches were significantly different once I removed the WOT restriction. The 60 foot times went up quite a bit due to the wheel spin. BUT, once they hooked up, they pulled real hard. If I tried to launch the truck like I would in a race, I am certain that I would get the times down like I did with the Bullydog.

Fuel Economy
2* Advance: Typically around 380 to 420 and I would normally put around 23 gallons back in. THat works out to typically between s16 and 17.5 mpg.

Superchips: First tank (that had 2 0-60 runs on it). After my runs on Saturday, I went and topped the tank off so I could start my fuel economy from there. I went 471 miles until my light came on and I stopped to get gas about 3 miles later. I put back in 22.67. So that adds up to 20.78 mpg. Now I will say this, about 95% of those miles were on the interstate between 68 and 72 mph. But needless to say, I am beyond impressed.

What the future holds

I will be shipping the Hypertech to Nathan to do more fuel economy test as well as performance on his G-tech. As everyone knows, I don’t drive my truck often anymore and since these tests are over, I will be putting this thing up again. He will be able to put more miles on his quicker than I will and will be adding his findings later on down the road.

I have chatted briefly with Darnell about this and we are going to look into the fact that maybe my headers play a little bit of a role in the time as well.

However, I will be driving to Missouri and then to our cabin in Kentucky this coming weekend and I will be using the Superchips on that trip because of the tow safe mode. I will be towing my boat home from Kentucky and will be able to give the titan community a real world test of the fuel economy with the tow safe tune.

Now then, this is an informative thread and is not meant to start arguments or have people come on here and start claiming that I am being biased or anything like that and if you are going to do that, keep your comments to yourself and go back to the other forums.

[The_Homewrecker]

Excellent write up!
Thanks for the information

[Daytona Coupe]

A very nice write up, Shailey!

[DawgBone]

Wow - good start! I can't wait for part II...

[jjohns91]

Good write up, can't wait for the final parts of the test...One question though, the 2* advance run was cut short by the police?

[titanss]

You planning to add the Bully Dog info to this thread or maybe start a new one with all Tuning the options for the Titan?

[shailey]

Yes, the 2* run was cut short by the police. When I slammed on the brakes, I was almost at 70 so I got the 0-60 part, but didn't quite make it to the 1/8th.

I think we are going to do another post that has all of this info in it along with the BD and VK Pro-II. We have started compiling things in the admin section already to do just that.

[suddenurge]

Thanks for running the tests Stephen! Now I have to ask the important question. You have run all four different programmers, so which setup would you give the performance edge to?

[SLOride]

Originally Posted by suddenurge

Thanks for running the tests Stephen! Now I have to ask the important question. You have run all four different programmers, so which setup would you give the performance edge to?

i would also like to know? and for the money, in your opinion who gives the best HP bang for the buck?

[rabbim]

thanks for all the work past, present, and future....i can tell how diligently you are trying to be fair to all the products you are testing and i appreciate that....i for one would not mind at all if you were little less restrained and discussed all the pluses and minuses of the available programmers

[Memphis_Buckeye]

Thanks for devoting so much of your personal time into this. I think I can speak for many others when I say it's well received and much appreciated. Can't wait to hear the rest of the story!

[shailey]

I will give my full opinion Tuesday night after everything is complete. I know which way I am leaning as of right now, but I will wait until everything is complete before I decide.

[suddenurge]

It's ok to post how you're leaning, we won't tell....lol.

[titanss]

Shailey is the Master of giving us all of the testing info for performance bolt on's for the Titan.

Exhaust: http://mightytitans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5482

Intakes: http://mightytitans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5483

[src4usarmy]

Thanks for the info and I can't wait to hear the rest. I would also like to know which would be the top for power and mileage.

[silverstar]

awsome writeup again. man, a 2.7 60' time, the truck must have been fogging for mosquitos on that run! HAHAHA i'm going this wed. night to test my hypertech out. good luck tuesday.

[jestep]

another nice write-up Stephen, come get me for lunch and we can race my BD against the others and see how there compare.. I will be free most of the week coming up...

[sligsta]

Sweet write up Stephen. Did you do multiple runs with each and post the results of the best runs? I know I've asked before but 4x4 or 2wd?

[DawgBone]

Originally Posted by sligsta

I know I've asked before but 4x4 or 2wd?

2wd

[gratefullife]

Thanks for the information, Stephen. Look forward to the rest of your review and the compiled information.