I think there may be something wrong with my car.. very wrong. i think i may have narrowed my problem down to the clutch slipping, BUT i have no premise to prove this problem to.
If you live in NYC/ Northern NJ, i'll buy you gas and perhaps some taco bell =) if you let me drive your car or drive me around in your car for 10 minutes. *warning* i will ask you to floor your car constantly at different RPM's and gears..
i need to figure out if its my clutch, pinging, or my turbo thats causing this problem.
please help.
brian

I notice a chugging, hesitation or something similar. It is hard to describe. I don't believe it is pinging or clutch slippage. Garrett will replace the chip with one that doesn't advance the timing as much. I cannot recall why this matters but people on the board were very helpful when I described this problem. Try doing a search on pinging or my name Paul Z and you might find the postings.

Paul

99.5 1.8TQMS, Garrett.

hopefully i'll be able to test drive someone elses car, or have them drive my car and let them asses my problem before i install the antisurge and ping chip..

I had some hesitation initially, but it went away the second day the chip was in. I guess that was the ECU recalibrating for me. It also sounds like the chip works differently in different cars- some cars tolerate it well, others need a slightly toned-down version to work well. I've been running Texaco 93 from the same gas station w/o problems.

TM
1.8TQMS GIAC chip

I hope I get this right ;-)

Garrett (and other tuners, I'm sure) has multiple different versions of the same basic chip. The one I received was the normal 1.0 bar version but if my particular car was more prone to pinging (due to environmental or mechanical variables), they would install their 1.0 bar chip that works better in cars that are more prone to ping.

<A HREF="Mailto:andy_hedin@hotmail.com">Andy Hedin</A>
'97 A4 1.8Tqms, Garrett 1.0 Bar, ABT Filter, APR/Borla Exhaust, Euro Headlights, more...