We exclusively interview Lachlan Riddel, owner of ChipTorque. The percentage of chips that don't work and the blindman's bluff of chip re-programming are some of the topics covered Part 2 of this interview.
AutoSpeed: A number of years ago I asked you how many of your chips worked, and you said 'Well, there's a bell-shaped curve, and on that curve there's going to be some that don't work.' You nominated a figure of 30 per cent that didn't work.
Lachlan Riddel: I don't recall the thirty percent, but I do recall the discussion.
AutoSpeed: Would you like to name a figure now?
Lachlan Riddel: All of my chips will work. I would expect to receive perhaps 10 per cent of them back as being unable to provide a power gain in a car that is compliant with the level that we expect, purely because the manufacturing specifications on an engine - there are engines that will always work at their best with either the original manufacturer's program or a variant which, for example, has less ignition timing or more fuel than our off-the-shelf chips. In the circumstances where that car was provided to us for a custom chip, I have almost no doubt that we would be able to get at least some tangible gain out of it. If I didn't, we provide our money-back guarantee.
AutoSpeed: If I were to ring you up and I was to say that I had a certain car - let's say a Nissan 200SX - with a certain exhaust and a certain turbo and a certain upgraded intercooler, and I were to ask you to provide a chip for that car, you'd be happy to do so?
Lachlan Riddel: I'd probably ask you a fair bit more detail. I'd probably ask you if you have access to a chassis dyno to actually give me some reliable figures for it, and if I were to go ahead and provide something sight-unseen on a vehicle, it would be my best guess based on all of the information that you've given me and based on the likelihood of providing you with something that will meet your requirements. If I don't feel it's possible, I won't provide the chip to you. I'd rather say 'Bring me the vehicle, freight me the vehicle, or take me to the nearest possible chassis dyno facility that I'm happy with that will actually allow us to do a custom program to suit the vehicle.'
AutoSpeed: But that's going to be very expensive. How much would it cost for me to fly you to Adelaide, for example, to re-program my 200SX?
Lachlan Riddel: It will cost you approximately $800 for the chip and it will cost you in the vicinity of $3-400 to have me there to re-program your car. I'll do it amongst a number of other vehicles that I'll do at the same time.
AutoSpeed: OK, that's too expensive for me. Why don't you send me five chips and I can just plug them in one after the other and see what the results are. I have access to a chassis dyno and an Autronic air/fuel ratio meter.
Lachlan Riddel: In the case of the 200SX I may want a little more knock sensor information. If you can access a Nissan Consult or similar tool -
AutoSpeed: Only a dealer's got that! No aftermarket person's got that tool, that I am aware of.
Lachlan Riddel: You're looking at at least one....
AutoSpeed: Oh! No other aftermarket person has one...
Lachlan Riddel: If you don't have the knock information and you have access to a chassis dyno - and in the case of a 200SX you've got the ability to adjust the timing somewhat - if you were insistent and I couldn't make any other arrangement that suited both of us, I would perhaps send you several versions and ask for reliable engineering information from the chassis dyno to give us our best assessment. We'd make the best assessment of the information given.
AutoSpeed: I try them all and I don't like them. They don't seem to give the gain that I had thought that spending that money would do....
Lachlan Riddel: Certainly, I'd have no immediate option - if you're not willing to have me customise the chip on site or bring the vehicle to me - other than to refund your money and say 'I am sorry that I can't assist you with the grounds that you've given me.'
AutoSpeed: That would in fact occur in that situation? A money-back guarantee?
Lachlan Riddel: Oh, certainly. The thing that I can't control is your usage of other facilities - the chassis dyno - but certainly, in terms of the chip and the testing of our modifications to the program, most certainly.
AutoSpeed: Let's take a few steps backwards. Let's say that you have a car brought to you that you've never seen before. Obviously at one stage that would have happened with every car for which you currently sell chips - there would have been a time when you did not have knowledge of that car. There's a vast amount of data in the engine management software - and the software program that you use gives you access only to numerical data which you can map. But at this early stage you don't know what those maps are for, do you?
Lachlan Riddel: At that point in time, if I have no other information from any other facility in the world, then no, I'll have no knowledge of what's inside - other than an obvious hex dump of the information.
AutoSpeed: Part of your entry into that knowledge will be to map the data so that you can find maps where you think, 'Well, that looks like a fuel map', or 'That looks a bit like an ignition map'.
Lachlan Riddel: Yes, that would certainly be a reasonable place that I would start. Before that I might look at how the control software works to actually ascertain whether I am going to be able to modify any of it without the car becoming upset with any of those changes.
AutoSpeed: And then you might say, 'Let's pull this number up a bit and see what happens on the chassis dyno'.
Lachlan Riddel: If I am doing that, the first thing that I will have done is enter into a contractual arrangement with the customer to say that your car will be used as a test vehicle. Should it break, then so be it.
AutoSpeed: A rather cruel analogy of this process is that you're in a dark room with a large animal. You can't see the animal, but you're equipped with a pin. It seems to me to be an extraordinarily random way of going about learning how something - with perhaps 5000 variables - by dragging one up at a time and seeing what happens. You're pricking the elephant in that dark room - but whether you've got his nose, or whether his eye you don't know..... He yells each time - analogous to the fuel getting richer each time - but you don't really know why the fuel gets richer. You don't know where you're poking the pin....
Lachlan Riddel: I appreciate the analogy..... I'll be honest and say that off the top of my head, I can't quickly give you a better one that more describes the process that I use. (But) if I felt as blind as the analogy that you have described, I wouldn't start the job.
AutoSpeed: Why don't you feel as blind as that? What is it that gives you better vision?
Lachlan Riddel: Access to information from other manufacturers and other modifiers of engine management the world over. If I can get information on it, I normally do.
AutoSpeed: What's a specific of that?
Lachlan Riddel: I have affiliations with people in Switzerland who have large data banks on Porsche for example. If I am going into a cold system that I don't know - like the new 3.3 version of Bosch Motronic - I will ask the questions and if appropriate, I will pay for the information from them.
AutoSpeed: What's a specific question and specific piece of information which would be useful in that process?
Lachlan Riddel: Do you have the disassembled version of volumetric efficiencies, spark table, knock modification algorithms, checksum algorithms, total fuel requirement, air/fuel delivery, desired air/fuel ratio, idle speed parameters, etc? In simple language if I don't know how the system works. If I can't interpret how the system works immediately - and if I have access to another manufacturer or persons who have done the job previous to me on the same derivative of engine management system but not for an Australian version car - I will see whether I can acquire their listings. Where the fuel map table is, what it looks like, how it functions, what type of limits are on its operation and on its use.
AutoSpeed: Do you sell chips for any cars that you haven't seen?
Lachlan Riddel: Occasionally for customers in New Zealand where they have a derivative of a Skyline that I've never seen. They'll provide me with the original binary code from the EPROM and if it fits into the type of code I expect, and they can test it at their end on the chassis dynamometer - or wheel dynamometers as they use over there - then I'll provide a test sample to them and they can test it. I've also provided chips sight unseen to Hyundai Motorsport Canada for their Motorola Cup racing series. They tested them exhaustively and then came back to me with a barrage of engineering information on what they suggested should be done next in the process. In due course they actually flew me to Canada to do their testing on-site and to complete the programming. They're the rare examples where I'll provide a chip for a car sight unseen.
AutoSpeed:The current interesting engine management system is for the 5.7 litre Commodore, with its apparent learning arrangement to compensate for changed power outputs. What is your state of play with that particular engine management?
Lachlan Riddel: We're still disassembling the software. At the point at which we feel we can provide a reasonable gain that warrants the investment in money, and that we've tested it to be a reasonable and prolonged gain, then we'll provide software for it.
AutoSpeed: One last question. It may sound an odd but in interviews with chip people, we've never managed to get a straight answer. Can you provide a chip for a Liberty RS that is absolutely standard in every respect but has an increased rev limit?
Lachlan Riddel: I can, but the first question I would ask is 'why?', but yes, there's no problem at all, I can provide a chip with a higher rev limit.
(Editor's note: No other Australian chip company has said that they can do that, implying that in fact they don't know where within the chip software the rev limiter actually is!)
www.chiptorque.com.au
ChipTorque's Lachlan Riddel - Part 1
