Racechip

[IS200d F-Sport]

Hi guys I'm looking a bit of advice.  I bought a racechip to give my IS200D a bit more power and to be honest it simply doesn't work. Bit throughs up the engine management and traction control lights when installed and makes the car run horribly. 

 

Has anyone had any experience with this product. 

[ColinBarber]

are you sure they haven't sent you one for the 220D my mistake?

[Linas.P]

To be honest I would be amazed if it was anything else. Plug-in so called "piggy-back" chips are mostly scam, not all, but MOSTLY scam. In theory they could work on certain cars and on more popular cars they do, for example BMW 320d or Golf GTI ones often do mostly what they claim to do, but what happens then - sellers simply take generic chip and advertise it to all makes and models.

So I am sorry to say it, but such results are expected. And by the way, what Lexus did to resolve horrible IS220d with exploding head-gaskets and everything - they detuned the engine from 179hp, to 150hp in IS200d. They not done it for fun, they done it for a reason and that reason was simply the fact that 2AR engine is crap and can't reliably make the power without exploding. What you doing by trying to chip it, is to undo what Lexus done to resolve the problems and arguably make your car worse. I just want to warn you that IS200d and IS220d are just not the cars suitable for chip-tuning.

Are racechip in particular scam? No - it seems they at least recognise that none of their products work on IS250/IS-F and the promises they make about IS200d are kind of realistic. Basically their chip brings IS200d to the power of IS220d (179hp). Do you know what else would do that? £20 IS220d ecu from breakers, just don't forget to order few sets of head-gaskets as well at the same time. 

I am sure racechips have some sort of "quality guarantee"? So I advise returning it whilst you can and leaving your car alone before it get's you into serious trouble. 

1 hour ago, ColinBarber said:

are you sure they haven't sent you one for the 220D my mistake?

Wouldn't have made a difference, piggy backs would work on principle of intercepting and "falsifying" sensor data (like showing that there is more or less air, then there really is) and most of the sensors are the same between IS220d and 200d. So the cause is most likely that chip isn't meant/ programmed for Lexus IS at all and just simply scrambles the wrong signals. Now I guess yes - argument can be made that IS220d ECU may accept higher values in some cases and putting IS220d chip on IS200d may cause some sensor data to ready outside of allowed limits triggering engine light, but I still doubt it, because according to racechip themselves they can get 193hp from IS200d and 208-227 from IS220d. 10-20hp difference would still be minor enough based on sensor data not to trigger any faults, sure IS200d may not make 227hp (to be fair I doubt even IS220d does), but it should throw any errors. Why am I saying it - that is because looking at workshop manual Lexus doesn't even differentiate between IS200d and IS220d for sake of trouble shooting i.e. all expected sensor data is the same, so even if it is faked by chip it would not matter. What causes error on IS200d, would cause error on IS220d as well.

[Mr Vlad]

Seconded. If you want a diesel and a 2.0 litre then it has to be bmw derived. My personal experience is with a MG ZT diesel I had some years ago. BMW engined but detuned by BM but improved by Rover c/o a superior turbo. My car was rated 135bhp. After a plug-in dedicated black box (ronbox) and an egr bypass my car ran 165bhp. And boy did it show. 30 more ponies made a big difference and yes some superb plumes of black smoke when booted hard. Oh how I laughed when this happened but I was going faster than anything close lol.

Get rid of your diesel pal. Get the is250. It's a far far superior car.