SuperOBD Performance Chip Review / Teardown
To
begin, if you have not already seen the tests by quarkslab on reverse
engineering the Nitro OBD2 performance chip scam, check it out here: https://blog.quarkslab.com/reverse-engineering-of-the-nitro-obd2.html
We
point you in this direction because this scam has been flooding the
internet for a few years now, and has given birth to numerous others
with varying colors and logos. We provide our analysis below of the
SuperOBD performance chip and show what is inside. To accurately
understand the big picture you should first read the above quarkslab article
in its entirety. It is proven based on several different articles and tests that the Nitro OBD module is a verified scam.
There are also several youtube videos proving the details of the 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 SuperOBD Performance Chip
Date: 6 February 2020 by Julius
Tags: CAN OBD Performance Chip Vehicle Tuning Scams Analysis Reverse Engineering SUPER OBD NITRO
This
article involves reverse engineering and analyzing the OBD chip called
the "SuperOBD2 Tuning Chip" in order to identify if it functions as advertised
or not.
It
is advertised like this on the Amazon product page: "Super OBD2 is a
Plug&Drive Ready device to function the increasing the performance
of engine.Super OBD2 is easy to install. Just plug it into the OBD2
connector of cars. Super OBD2 fits all car from the year of 1996.It
works based OBD2 protocols as remaping the Car's computer ECU. After
driving 200 km road total, Super OBD2 adjusts itself to the
car,according to the drivers' habits and always keeps remaping the ECU
to increase the performance of engine. What does Super OBD2
make?According to your driving habits, Super OBD2 makes new map in the
car's computer ECU to increase the performance of your car.As you
driving much more KM/Mile, it renews the map."
There
are a lot of
testimonials
on the internet about this device being a fake, while other people say
that it really works. We wanted to reverse engineer it to check
for
ourselves. One issue we already see with the product is the claim that
it 'fits all car from the year of 1996'. Most legitimate tuning devices
must be custom made for one specific vehicle application.
COST
The
price for the SuperOBD2 Tuning Chip on Amazon above was $35.94.
However, some digging on the overseas website aliexpress shows the
price is much less when purchased directly from the manufacturer in
CHINA, $1.97:
Armed
with the fact that the well-known Nitro OBD scam chips, like the
majority of them, were also made in China, and the fact that the ad
above shows "Nitro OBD" in the title, we know the Super OBD Box is
related to the Nitro OBD scam chips, but how close are they?
INTERNAL ANALYSIS
We
purchased one of these Super OBD2 OBDII Chiptuning boxes for testing
and disassembled the outer plastic case. The inside was identical to
the Nitro OBD verified chiptuning scam.
Verified Nitro OBD scam chip circuit board, courtesy manocao https://mhhauto.com/Thread-EcoOBD2-and-nitroOBD2-Good-or-Bad?page=2 :
SUPER OBD2 Tuning Box Circuit board we examined, they are identical:
In
addition, the original Nitro OBD scam circuit board has three surface
mount LEDs present. The Super OBD2 circuit board on the right also has
three surface mount LEDs. They both have a diode supposedly for
'circuit protection', as well as a 5V surface mounted voltage regulator.
The
final proof is the presence of the PIC16F59 chip, mentioned in many
videos proving the Nitro OBD tuning box scam. The PIC16F59
microprocessor is made by the US company Microchip, and has a memory
size of only 3KB. This is way too small to contain a vehicle map table
as claimed by the manufacturer:
Most vehicle maps are 512KB or larger, depending on the vehicle model and configuration:
https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/69265/ecu-tune-file-formats
While this
small memory capacity could not hold vehicle map data, it would hold a simple light flashing
routine, which is exactly what the NITRO OBD has been proven to
contain. From these facts, we can clearly see that the SUPER OBD2 OBDII
Chiptuning Box is nothing more than another NITRO OBD light flasher
scam with a round reset button added! The manufacturer even compares
the product to it's earlier cousin, the Nitro OBD Tuning box:
To
confirm this, we connected the Super OBDII Box to a vehicle and drove
for approximately three weeks, doing multiple gas fill-ups and noticed
no difference in fuel economy, performance or any other vehicle
behaviour.
To
confirm further that the programming inside the microprocessor is
indeed the same as the verified Nitro OBD scam, we connected both
modules to a 12V power supply on the bench and noted the blink
intervals of the led lights:
Blink Test Video: https://youtu.be/NzdWdQw2UpQ
Both the Nitro OBD tuning scam (Left) and the SUPER OBD2 Tuning Box (Right) blinked in EXACTLY the same interval!
Same board components, same blinking interval, same scam.
CONCLUSION
From
our research as well as testing we can safely conclude that the SUPER
OBDII OBD2 Chiptuning Box is nothing more than another Nitro OBD scam.
Fun light blinker, crappy tuner.
Different circuit board version of the same scam:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB810U7j77k
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