Supreme Performance Chip
4.0 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
Supreme 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
Supreme Performance Chip 4.0
Date: 7 February 2020 by Julius
Tags:
CAN OBD Performance Chip Vehicle Tuning Scams Analysis Reverse
Engineering Supreme Scam Greatlakesauto
This
article involves reverse engineering and analyzing the OBD
chip "Supreme Performance Chip 4.0" in order to identify if it
functions as advertised
or not.
It
is advertised like this on the Ebay product page: "Our Version 4.0
performance chip is Dyno proven with the highest gains on the market!
Our chip delivers you optimal power through our PROVEN & TESTED
programming for your vehicle.We have extensively tested every vehicle
model that is offered for our performance chip. You simply plug our
performance chip into your OBD port, then get ready for proven
performance!"
The seller greatlakesauto has 100% positive feedback on ebay, but there
are conflicting opinions about this product elsewhere and we know ebay feedback is easily manipulated.
A major problem we see right away is the outrageous claim of 50-60HP power
gains:
50
- 60HP gains are very difficult to obtain from such a simple upgrade,
and if true, would instantly be noticed by the driver. This alone
should be a clue to anyone considering this product.
Looking deeper, we see an obviously faked dyno run graph, this one
claiming gains of 116 horsepower! Really?
There is no way a part this simple could deliver this amount of
horsepower gains. We are beginning to suspect a major scam.
COST
The
price for the Supreme Performance Chip 4.0
on ebay was $61.44 USD:
However, the
product we last reviewed which looks IDENTICAL to the Supreme
Performance Chip, could be found on
aliexpress directly from
the manufacturer in
CHINA for $1.97 USD:
The
Supreme Performance Chip ebay advertisement even left the true name on the photos
as "Super OBD Performance Chip", the last product we verified as a scam:
As if this isn't enough: but wait, there's more!
The photo which allegedly shows employees tuning the vehicle nowhere
shows the product they are selling, but instead shows a Kess
programming dongle:
The Kess programmer is a widely known and used LEGITIMATE programming
tool which has nothing to do with the product the seller is offering
for sale.
You can find more information about the Kess programmer on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=kess+programmer
Here is yet another misleading photo on the ebay advertisement showing
a Kess programmer - where is the Supreme Performance Chip?
The seller even went as far as to list the product on a website
prdistribution.com, which appears confusing to users, as it gives the
feel of a legitimate newspaper / article source which makes the product
seem more trustworthy:
The truth is, the website prdistribution will feature ANY product if
paid, as they simply write / post articles after being paid by the
seller. They offer different packages to help them get the word out
about their products. This bunk about community choice awards also
attempts to improve the product's legitimacy. They
have done the same on several other sites such as 24-7pressrelease.com,
techgeek365.com, sportsgossip.com, thesportsdaily.com and others,
adding fake reviews and paid written articles with the purpose of
fooling the consumer into believing that this is a genuine tuning
device.
Also notice the supreme
performance chip product above. Does it look similar to another product?
The Supreme Performance chip and the previous scam product we
reviewed look identical on the outside, but are they indeed the same
inside?
INTERNAL ANALYSIS
We
purchased a Supreme Performance chip for our testing
and disassembled the outer plastic shell. The inside was identical to
the previous Super 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 :
The circuit boards on both the Super OBD scam chip and the Supreme
performance chip were 100% identical.
Just like the previous SUPER OBD scam chip, the Supreme Performance
Chip 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 Tuning box has been proven
to
contain. From these facts, we can clearly see that the Supreme
Performance Chip is nothing more than another NITRO OBD light
flasher
scam with a round reset button added!
To
confirm this, we connected the Supreme Performance Chip to a
vehicle and drove
for over two weeks, doing multiple fill-ups and noticed
0 difference in fuel economy, performance or any other vehicle
behaviour. There was no change, absolutely NO WAY there was a 60HP gain.
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/4959s0P3TO8
Both the Nitro OBD tuning scam (Left) and the SUPREME Performance
Chip (Right) blinked in EXACTLY the same interval!
Same board components, same blinking interval, same scam.
CONCLUSION
From
our research as well as testing we find that the Supreme
Performance Chip by Greatlakesauto is nothing more than another Nitro
OBD scam. Nice try!.
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