Toyota’s Hilux has been by far one of South Africa’s bakkies, and the new model generation continues this trend. With the arrival of the new Q-Chip, which allows the tuner a host of new options by which to perfectly optimise your vehicle, the Hilux 3.0 D-4D, turbodiesel, has been put through the test mill again. But before we get into what this method of tuning means to you, how and why it is done, on the right are the figures as independently obtained at Gerotek using Racelogic VBOX test equipment on a 4x2 Double Cab derivative.

The Power Plug is not to be confused with the mostly, overseas sourced and local condition non-specific, performance tuning chips and re-flash method of tuning that most performance enthusiasts seem familiar with in which the OEM ECU code is simply generically re-written with a hand held programmer via the vehicle’s OBD port.

With the Power Plug / Uni chip, all the changes occur within this unit and are electrically communicated to your vehicle’s engine control system. No changes are made within the OEM computer, and thus all the engine safety parameters as set by the manufacturer remain in place.

This is exceptionally important, especially when taking into account the tough, local, South African conditions, such as high altitude, long distances, high speeds, high temperatures and the various qualities of diesel.

And once the Power Plug is installed, it leaves no electronic “footprint”, and this also applies should you want to remove the unit, unlike when you program the OEM ECU with a re-flash programmer, the ECU knows and records that it has been reprogrammed.

Even if you re-flash your OEM back to stock prior to service work, the OEM ECU dutifully reports how many times it has been re-flashed whenever the dealer checks via their diagnostic equipment, and if it reports something different than what the dealer’s records reflect, some difficult questions could arise.