HP to Dollars.....is it worth it.?

[IamJEEP]

What's a good HP to $ number? JetChips claims 12hp and 10lbs of torque for thier stage one programmer (for the 3.7L). It runs between $230-$300 depending where you buy it. I found it for $230 so that's roughly $20 per hp......Is that reasonable?

Now i have read bad reviews for JetChips, but this is not about reviews, just about hp/$ values.

[Sal-XK]

It depends I guess bro but paying hundreds per 1HP gained is not to bad. Once your really into it and hunting for HP gains that number can turn into thousands for 1HP gained real fast.

[Doc in AZ]

Speed Costs money.... how fast can you afford to go?

12 horse power and 10 ft/lbs of torque... rather than looking at the horsepower gain calculate the percentage. If you had only 12 hp to begin with and were doubling it for that price its not bad. But if you have 300 hp then adding twelve is like spitting in the ocean... you feel like you contributed something but no one really notices.

[strokeZ]

I have a Jet chip. All I can say about it is that it gives me better throttle response. As Doc says - no noticeable difference in HP or torque. If you are looking for cheapest $/HP then you need to look at forced injection. Case in point - the supercharger I installed in my other car gave me 57% increase in HP and a 43%increase in torque. In terms of $/HP it was $48 / HP - now that is real value that you can feel in the seat of your pants. I have looked and looked for either a turbo kit or supercharger kit for the XK - lots of Mopar stuff but no one that has tuned one of these to our ECU's. You can be adventurous and try it yourself OR you can try and get a tuner to do it for you. If I had to guess - and this is just a guess - I would say after the Jet chip, CAI and cat back I might have eeked out 15-20 hp - pretty expensive ponies....

[Sal-XK]

Speed for sure costs money. There will be no plug and play cheap option for your engine.

[strokeZ]

You are right Sal - even if you did find a FI solution for our vehicles, you then have to worry about all the other components that might be effected. I could have gone with a stage 2 or stage 3 supercharger for my other vehicle at a slightly lower $/hp value but then I would have needed to swap the clutch and rear diff to handle that much of an increase. My '07 stock is something like 248 hp - and I would be happy with an increase up to 330 hp - but you either take very small steps for a lot of $/hp or you bite the bullet and pay gobs of cash for a huge increase. I would estimate that a properly tuned FI system would get my 4.7L up to near 400 hp if not more. For our vehicles I would give up top end or 0-60 times for gobs more torque. Can't get one without the other tho!