$25 E-Bay Performance Chips Are Crap

Ok, for people wondering about the performance chips you see on e-bay for around $25 here is a review from 3rdgenCLINT who actually installed one:

"Okay, I just wanted to let everyone know about this so they don't make the same mistake I did. I bought one of those performance chips off of ebay....it was like $25 w/ shipping included. Here's the BS, I take out the ECU and give it to this engineer friend that solders microscopic chips onto boards for a daily grind and doesn't f*ck em up......more than qualified for the job.....the 88 Si lude ECU is not an advanced board by no means in today's world so this job is a piece of cake for him. He installed the IC socket that came w/ it perfectly and I plugged the performance in, hooked it all up and gave it a go. Here's what happened ......I started the car and let it idle. everything was fine. revved it to 5 and 6K to make sure it could handle it, I pull out and go to drive around my block, as soon as hit this open stretch of road I decided to open it up, as soon as the tach reached about 4500 rpms it went nuts! The rpms immediately dropped to 4k, I floored it, no luck, the car would not go past 4k. It was like some f-ing rev limiter in a 02 civic or something! Took it out and replaced the performance rom w/ my stock rom. The socket you'll get is fine, the performance chip is bullshit. The stock Rom works fine in this new socket, drove it around all night tonight. anyway, just wanted to let everyone know ......I'm bout to email this thief and request either A. a real performance ROM or B. my money back. "

So yes those chips are crap, I would have someplace make you a chip made specifically for your car and the mods done to it.

More:
http://www.preludepower.com/forums/showthread.php?t=299662