Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip Review / Teardown

 

Before reading further, if you have not previously seen the tests by quarkslab on reverse engineering the Nitro OBD2 performance chip scam, check out the details here: https://blog.quarkslab.com/reverse-engineering-of-the-nitro-obd2.html

We point you in this direction because this NitroOBD scam from China has been flooding the internet for a few years now, and has given birth to NUMEROUS copies with varying colors and logos. Ever since unscrupulous sellers discovered they could sell these light blinkers as ‘tuners’ at a high price, the market has been overwhelmed with them. We provide our analysis below of the Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip and reveal what is actually inside this product. To accurately understand the big picture you should first read the above quarkslab article in its entirety. It has been proven based on several different articles and tests that the Nitro OBD module is a verified scam. Don’t just take our word for it!

There are also several youtube videos proving the details of the original Nitro-OBD light flasher scam and some of it’s variants:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgXwfBTKLGU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-l9ohTjvkw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdoIjt2mMEQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OIO1tJPEy8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1OmGDE1FLA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytwlDVaFbec

 

Reverse Engineering the Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip OBD Tuner
Tags: CAN OBD Performance Chip Vehicle Tuning Scams Analysis Reverse Engineering Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip Tuning Module OBDII Tuner Scam

 

This article involves reverse engineering and analyzing the “Spitfire Performance Chip” in order to determine if it really works or not.

The Spitfire Performance Chip comes in a seemingly unique smoke – colored case, but we have seen previously that many chip scams have also used unique looking designs. There was no website located for the Spitfire Tuning performance chip, but it is available on ebay. As with all ebay ‘performance chips’, we are very suspicious with any and all claims, as this marketplace particularly seems to be replete with chiptuning scams. One major reason for the amazing number of these chip scams is the ease of which these sellers can have feedback changed / removed, either by bullying customers or having ebay remove it. It is no revelation that ebay ‘protects’ most large sellers who bring in large revenue and fees to ebay. A look at the seller feedback from the ebay seller ‘spitfire_tuning’ shows this phenomenon as well:

 

 

Note the amount of feedback in the above screen grab – over 1700. With this much feedback, wouldn’t it be likely to have a few neutral or negatives? All seem to be positive, aside from this one negative feedback shown. It is this way with many of these large ebay sellers it seems. Comparing this single negative feedback to the screen grab below, taken later proves feedback is being changed from negative to positive:

 

 

Not only has the feedback been changed from negative to positive, the feedback itself has been changed from claiming the chip didn’t even turn on, to not being able to tell if it made a difference in power. In addition, a new neutral feedback has been added since we took the first screen grab above, but it may not be up for long. This sums up our earlier claim that most feedback on ebay as well as other online marketplaces cannot be trusted. It can be changed either by bullying the customer to change it for monetary gain as we have seen before, or by having ebay change it. Either way, ebay protects these large sellers as they bring ebay big bucks in seller fees.

***UPDATE***

Checking this seller’s ebay feedback a few weeks after this article was completed yields another example and proof that ebay feedback cannot be trusted. Here we have a screen grab of feedback on 4-28-2021. Notice the obvious negative review where the buyer states “traveled more than 300 km and there are no changes in the dynamics and fuel consumption”:

 

 

Compare the above screen grab with this screen grab taken only two days later, on 4-30-21:

 

 

Notice the negative feedback has been COMPLETELY DELETED, suggesting once again that ebay sellers have a mechanism to contact ebay and have negative feedback removed if the buyer does not change it from negative to neutral. Most buyers would never notice this, as the negative feedback reviews only stay public for a few days and are then removed quickly. Ebay has been caught here protecting this seller because they pay ebay hefty seller fees! As we stated before, you cannot trust these garbage products for sale on several online marketplaces!

Need more proof? Here is a link where buyers complain that their negative feedbacks have been removed by corrupt ebay sellers:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/How-Powersellers-get-valid-negative-feedback-removed-And-how/td-p/23615552/page/6

Think this is only the case with ebay? Nope! Amazon has also been known to harbor TONS of fake reviews and some products show reviews not even related to the product you are viewing!

Aside from this ebay seller page, there is no information on the company or source of this tuning module. We need to dig deeper into the module itself to get some answers.

 

 

 

CASE / PACKAGING

 

 

 

The product box is unique in that it is not the now infamous NitroOBD clear blister pack case, nor is it the solid square box we saw in the previous Powertune Engine Tuning module scam. It is much thinner and smaller. Could this module be legit?

The Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip itself DOES match the same shape as all the previous light blinker scams, but is this one different?

What are the manufacturer’s claims about this performance chip? Here is a screen grab of their claims:

 

 

Wow, as usual, we see outrageous horsepower claims of +63HP on a Ford Mustang by using this module! These claims are troubling, as they are inline with previous light blinker scam chips – outrageous power gains. They also have a ‘guarantee’ statement, which begs the question: if the product is indeed great, why the need for this statement?

 

 

As has been the case with several previous scam chips, the seller also claims the module comes pre-programmed for your specific vehicle:

 

 

Let’s get this straight – the chip is ‘custom programmed’ for our vehicle, yet it is compatible with all vehicles made since 1996 (where have we heard this before)?:

 

 

 

COST

The Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip is listed on the ebay marketplace for $58.49. If this is indeed a REAL tuning performance chip, it may be worth the cost. If not, as we suspect, it is just another overpriced nitro-obd light blinker chip from China, worth a few dollars at most. What is inside this module?

 

 

 

INTERNAL ANALYSIS

We ordered a Spitfire Tuning performance chip and disassembled the outer plastic case cover. Inside, our suspicions were immediately confirmed when we saw an all-too-familiar circuit board design. The Nitro-obd light blinker board:

 

A comparison between the Spitfire Tuning circuit board (right) and the well-known Nitro-obd light blinker scam (left) confirms the true identity of this chip:

 

 

The only difference, aside from the component locations being moved around, is the colors of the LEDs on the circuit board. The Nitro-obd scam chip (left), and most of it’s variants examined so far, have three LEDs with colors from top to bottom of red, red, green, while the Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip (right) has three LEDs with colors top to bottom of yellow, red, red.  What is going on here? This is trickery to hopefully prevent it from being compared to the now numerous Nitro-OBD scam chips.

Digging a bit deeper, the Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip circuit board design looks all-too familiar. It resembles a more recent scam chip than the Nitro-Obd scam. Comparing it to the recently evaluated Thorton Chip scam proves without a doubt that this is most certainly a piece of cheap junk from China:

 

 

These two boards are EXACTLY the same. All parts are identical as well as their placement – it is the same circuit board from the same manufacturer – China. We have already proven in an earlier article that the Thorton Chip scam / aka OBDII CAT chip is directly from China and they didn’t even bother to change the box or design of the chip! The Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip is identical to the Thorton chip scam / OBDII CAT chip internally, even the LED light colors are the SAME! (orange, red, red) – only the outside logo and plastic case have been changed! This is literally another $3 light blinker!

It is now perfectly clear that the Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip is just another Nitro-obd light blinker scam chip. However, all previous Nitro-OBD scam products we examined used the PIC16F59 microprocessor. What chip is used for the microprocessor (brain) on the Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip?

 

 

 

As you can see from the above diagram, our old faithful chip, the PIC16F59 microprocessor is the same module being used as was in the previous Nitro-obd light blinker scam modules. No big shock, but we were hoping for a bit more from the Spitfire chip. We know from previous articles that this MCU has too small of a memory size to fit a legitimate tuning map so a much smaller program, like a light blinker program, must be present instead. Not a good sign for Spitfire. It seems spitfire is not the spitting image of tuning bliss!

Here we see that the Spitfire tuning performance chip has identical components to the original Nitro-OBD chip scam, and the supplier of Spitfire Tuning admits in the screen grabs above that the module works on all gas vehicles 1996 and newer. This supports our previous view that the module is in fact universal and is a one size fits all device which fits on any vehicle because it is simply a scam.

From these facts, we can clearly see that the Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip is not what it claims to be. Our suspicions were correct. It has been shown to be just another of the now numerous light flasher scams with a different colored case, lights and logo!

To be fair, we connected the Spitfire Tuning chip to our test vehicle and drove as suggested, with a result of no noticeable changes whatsoever. (Big shock), but lots of pretty blinking lights!

For further proof that the programming inside the Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip is indeed the same as the numerous verified Nitro OBD scams we previously reviewed, we decided to examine it with a realtime bench test. We connected both modules, the original Nitro OBD scam module (left) and the Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip (right) to a 12V power supply on the bench and noted the blink intervals of the led lights (OUR BLINK TEST):

 

 

To verify the pattern is indeed exactly the same, you can watch the bench test yourself here:

Blink Test Video: https://youtu.be/9leJ3cI7uuA

 

Both the Nitro OBD tuning scam (Left) and the Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip (Right) blinked at EXACTLY the same blink rate! Same programming, same blinking interval, same scam (but different colored lights and case!).

 

CONCLUSION

From our research as well as testing we find that the Spitfire Tuning Performance Chip is just another of the many light blinking boxes like the NitroOBD and SuperOBD light blinker scams. Our instincts early on were correct. The spitfire chip isn’t worth a spit!  Don’t CHIP in your hard earned money for this – you’re better off to buy a BAG OF POTATO CHIPS!

 

 

 

If after all this, you STILL are considering purchasing this product, here is our response:

 

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