Superchips Flashpaq for JK, Initial Impressions

[JPop]

OK, so I get my first opportunity to run the Superchips Flashpaq this evening. Plug it in before I had returned to stock the Hypertech settings. Unfortunately, the data acquisition isn't installed and pretty much I guess it's one of those things that you need to download. So no opportunities to even remotely do anything but use the Butt Meter for performance gain.

I drove to the park so I could kind of enjoy the outdoors on a beautiful day and upon arrival made sure I was outside of the vehicle before I had the Hypertech do the return to stock thing. When it was finally complete, I got to plug in the Superchips Flashpaq. One thing that has always stood out between the two programmers is the backlit display and although there was plenty of light, it always seems like I'm doing this sort of thing at dusk.

With the Superchips good to go and ready to take on the tuning setting I took a quick peak around at the other settings. The only thing I saw that was different than what I had read about or expected was the varied fan speed for coolant temperatures. Played around with the settings to make the fan come on at the slow setting somewhere in the 180s and high at 210.

With a tank full of 94 Octane I opted for the 93 Octane Performance tune. The Flashpaq pretty much runs through installing the tune at better than twice the speed of the Hypertech. Went through the usual ignition on and off sequence but was left with a blank screen just about where the sequence would have you turn the ignition to the on position. A few miles from home, I didn't want to brick my Jeep so I patiently waited. After about 5 minutes, I gave up flipped the ignition to the on position and the program completed (I'll call there support in the morning).

My plan had been at this stage to take a couple of jaunts down the freeway with a GPS and make sure my speedometer was dialed in. Upon completion of doing the program the speedometer calibration had failed. I tried again to no avail and decided I would just take a couple runs up my usual hill where I have measured 330' times with my truck and also made a couple runs without measured times with the JK.

Without my speedometer and ready to see how well the old butt meter was working I dropped my JK into 4 wheel drive, proceeded to my usual starting point, stopped popped the clutch out and made a WOT run up the hill. As I approached where the 330' spot is I was already out of gear with a pretty big grin on my face. Never would have needed to shift with the Hypertech and the jump in performance was more akin to what I got out of my Hemi Ram after installing a Flashpaq on it.

At this point I had to get something to eat, took a couple highway onramp blasts, headed to the local watering hole for a burger, but it was definitely haunting me that I had a quicker jeep but no speedometer. Garbaged down a burger and washed it back with a beer in close to record time.

With a full belly I went outside returned the vehicle to stock, took a short cruise with an again functioning speedometer and then proceeded to redo the 93 Octane tune. This time everything took fine and with a working speedometer I did the GPS calibration of my speedometer. Only needed to do a 1/4" change from my measured tire settings and all was good.

That's all I have for now. My JK is without a doubt quicker and pulls harder. It has a little sound of toughness emanating from under the hood that wasn't present before. It moves quickly through the soft spot in the low rpm range and if I were to single out any one thing, the torque has dramatically improved on the low end.

I'll try to run some more tests over the next few days and get the data acquisition portion downloaded so I can quantify what I felt was a pretty dramatic improvement in power. I'll also talk to their support in the morning as the blank screen in the process could definitely hang someone up who hasn't used their product. It definitely wasn't a perfect debut, but it provided all the power I had come to expect from Superchips.

[Sunburst-Kid]

Hey JPop, Thanks for the great initial review. Not only is it good for the sake of the initial butt-o-meter, but it is an honest review that even states the less than great quirks that you first saw. Just for others that may be interested, I think this goes a long way towards verifying your credibility on this forum and that you are not in Superchips back pocket.

Great job JPop.... and keep the review coming.

[jeepnxj3]

I think I am sold on this. Where did you pick yours up Jpop? Cheapest I found was $319 at a non-vendor site.

[gt4660]

Hey J pop,

Who did you order yours from?

thanks

[AlmightyCrash]

I want one.

[JPop]

I initially placed my order with Summit Racing as they were the first to have it SKU'd up and not that far from home. When I saw the expected ship date get delayed, I called Superchips and had a couple of conversations with them and decided to place my order direct so I could cut out any delays in receiving the product. I rather would have ordered it from NorthRidge or Quadratech, but I was a bit anxious and had reason to call Superchips anyway as I am awaiting the idle adjustment feature to be released for my Dodge Ram.

Again the install wasn't exactly smooth and flawless but I'm pretty sure it's one of the first ones out there. It seemed to handle everything OK after the initial glitch with the speedo, just that they are missing one of the dialog screens that tells you what to do. I'm sure that's an easy remedy from there end and an oversight on the final release.

The one thing I was disappointed with was that it doesn't ship with the data logging and acquisition installed. It was the portion that was going to quantify my results with and I kind of feel that I let people down a bit because I needed to revert to the butt meter. I'll try to get it downloaded this evening and then do some tests over the weekend. I also think I'll need to load up around 500lbs of steel shot bags to throw in the back as I need to slow my Jeep down a little so I don't need to do a first to second shift on my 330' uphill blast.

Anyway, a couple bugs to work out and I'll be talking to Superchips this morning. I'm still pretty stoked about the whole thing and feel like I got the power I was hoping for when I initially bought the Hypertech. Competition in any market place is good and I'm sure at the end of the day we will have even better products from both Hypertech and Superchips.

[odelay]

Can you put everything back to factory standard after you finished messing around for dealer service/warranty etc?

[JPop]

Hey JPop, Thanks for the great initial review. Not only is it good for the sake of the initial butt-o-meter, but it is an honest review that even states the less than great quirks that you first saw. Just for others that may be interested, I think this goes a long way towards verifying your credibility on this forum and that you are not in Superchips back pocket.

Great job JPop.... and keep the review coming.

Honestly I did and still do feel a little forsaken by Hypertech. I wanted their product to work for me but it just didn't happen. Superchips isn't a perfect product either, but what I did know from my past experience is that I received excellent support and there was never any thinking about if I had better performance after installing one of their tunes.

I carry no grudges and bear no crosses. Hypertech has said that because of my use of headers my Jeep is outside the realm of what their product can deliver. It is what it is and now time for me to move on. I do hope they examine what happened in my case and learn from it. There was lots of routes to travel and unfortunately the route they chose led me to part ways.

So thanks for the kind words and endorsement. I certainly didn't set out to shill for Superchips although I'm sure it had that appearance. I just wanted my Jeep to runa little stronger and have seemingly found the level of performance I was hoping for.

[JPop]

Can you put everything back to factory standard after you finished messing around for dealer service/warranty etc?

Yes, I had to move back to sock yesterday evening after my initial issue with my speedometer. After I had returned to stock and then reprogrammed my selected tune the speedometer worked fine.

[swanny297]

Keep us posted with some actual numbers - I think this may be the next MOD.....