Dastek, the home of the Unichip: The Unichip is a fully programmable piggy-back computer that enables a skilled tuner to optimally tune a vehicles engine. The Unichip is the world’s first and original piggyback computer that has been in ongoing development for almost 30 years, the original Unichip was developed for normally aspirated petrol engines, something that till this day cannot be done by most chip/tuning companies.
Most “petrol heads/car fanatics” has an idea about what tuning is but many confuse this with modifications. The word “tune” comes from the word “tone” which is how something sounds. When a song is in tune it means all the notes are correct and working together correctly. If a piano is in tune it means all the different notes are adjusted correctly and working together properly. If you tune a piano it doesn’t mean you cut the legs shorter and fit longer strings! You simply adjust everything to work together as good as it can.
Tuning a vehicle is not fitting white speedometer dials, wings, skirts or even different camshafts or exhausts! Tuning is simply adjusting the three things an engine works with to be at the best possible combinations for all conditions.
Optimized tuning is what Dastek and its network of trained dealers over South Africa can offer the 4×4 enthusiast.
When the Unichip is connected to your vehicle (wired in, Plug & Play or with a EasyConnect harness) a skilled tuner will optimally tune your vehicle with the Unichip on a dynamometer whilst monitoring temperatures, emissions and power, to get your vehicle to be as light as possible on fuel when you drive calmly and to make as much safe power as possible when your foot is flat on the accelerator.
So the first question that comes to mind is: Why did the factory not optimally tune my vehicle when it was built. Just like the piano example your vehicle was built in a factory, mostly in a mass production environment, where time does not allow for each individual vehicle to be optimally tuned.
The second issue is that the manufacturer needs to develop a map for the vehicle with the best and worst possible fuel qualities and prevailing conditions in mind from the warmest countries with the worst fuel to the cooler countries with super clean fuels, this limits what they can set the engine for.
So, is the Unichip tuner smarter than the manufacturer and all their engineers? Not at all, but your Unichip tuner has more information, he knows what fuel quality you have in your country, he knows what the prevailing conditions are. With this data and the Unichip’s ability to fine tune the vehicle’s signals the Unichip tuner can optimize the engine’s performance.
Optimized safe power from a properly tuned engine thanks to Unichip!
For some additional fun the team at Unichip developed multi-map systems, this enables up to 5 tuned maps for a vehicle. Map one: Idle only or a valet map, map 2: standard settings (so you can feel how the vehicle runs without the optimal tune. Map 3 Eco or a gear control map for automatic transmissions. Map 4 Power or towing and map 5 Power+ or “play time”. Other functions include timer functions, temperature functions and CAN Bus monitoring, all adding to the fun factor but keeping engine safety the priority.
Tuning your vehicle will normally give you the best bang for your buck, on the average turbo diesel SUV or “bakkie” the Unichip can safely extract 10-15% more power and run very safe. Spending more on modifications like exhaust systems, intercoolers and other items will add a few percentage points on top of the Unichip’s original gains, when adding these additions the Unichip can be reprogrammed to accommodate the changes.
With the Unichip’s abilities we soon realized that it can also be applied to safeguard fleet vehicles, thus the Dastek IVM was born, a device that uses the abovementioned functions to monitor temperatures, speed, rpm and even safety belts. Limiting speed, authorizing drivers and many many more functions can be activated to protect your fleet. In conjunction with our GPS partner GeoInt we can even limit your fleet vehicles in the specific speed zones the vehicle is traveling in real-time.
For more information, technical questions or want to order a Unichip: please feel free to contact us by clicking on the link below:
