Excluding cost prohibitive options like the $40K MTM supercharger, and there any good ECU chips available for the 4.2 V8 Q?

 

Here is one:
company:
unitronic chipped

http://www.unitronic-chipped.com/aud...fsi_350hp.html

 

Has anyone been able to actually get a chip from Unitronic for their Q7? I have tried twice. The first time, they only had a file for 93 octane gas. It was in fine print on their website and even the shop wasn't aware of it. Now they have a file for 91 octane but they did not have a file for my ecu. I spoke to Unitronic and they said they would call me when they had a file for my specific ecu. It's been months now. I don't think the Q7 is much of a priority.

 

Sounds like the typical "vaporware" sales pitch you'd expect from a fledgling software company. It's easy to post something for sale on a website to test the waters prior to investing in the development. In addition, the hp/torque gains seem pretty high for a naturally-aspirated engine. Don't know how they arrived at these numbers if they don't have a viable product to sell. Seems like a shady option from a shady company.

Are there any other ECU options available?

 

Well, I guess I'll take back what I said about Unitronic. I just called a local disti I found on the Unitronic site, and he called Unitronic to confirm both the Stage 1 and Stage PLUS software is available. The only downside is the installer I called said they need the car for an entire day to "run tests" and make sure the car is "safe" to take the upgrades. They also charge $45 for this required inspection, so when combined with the time/money of a rental car I'm at another $100. Hassle is the biggest concern at this point so I'll wait on the Unitronic for now.

Any other chips out there?

 

evomsit lists an application but it's $1400 for the V8 vs $600 for the V6.

 

Just flashed my 08 4.2 S-Line today with Unitronic. Stage1+

Its took 20 mins and I received an email verification from Unitronic as soon as it was done.

First Impression.
The torque is more usable. Throttle lag is gone and the car is easier to drive.

Previously i had my 04 Touareg flashed and i'd say the Q is pulling better and faster than the Touareg.

It was well worth it for me.

 

sprint booster, exhaust and k&n drop-in filters. that is about it with out spending too much.

 

On big sister motors of the FSI 4.2 in the S5, RS4, and R8; performance chipping don't yield that much of a bump. Approximately 15 HP/15 ft-lbs on a car this heavy would be hard to notice without placebo enhanced assessment. The Q7 is specifically tuned to deliver torque lower down than the HiPo FSI 4.2s and this motor is built with less thermal stress capable internals. The compression ratio is still pretty high, so talking consumer fuel consistency into account, the cost risk benefit of chipping is arguable. There may be strongly perceivable benefits in aftermarket devices which modify the throttle actuator signals to the ECM for hyped response inputs via the DBW system; as mentioned before as the Sprint Booster Power Converter. For plug and play, $300 seems like a worthwhile safe and reversible modification worth pursuing. Exhaust mods that eliminate the secondary cats (known as the main cats behind the ceramic primary cats and in front of the pressure equalizing absorption designed resonator would let the motor breathe properly and most likely give you the same power gains as via chip, but it may shift your torque curve higher on the torque rpm scale and be counter-productive at seat of pants, yet productive on the dyno. The stock mufflers flow pretty good already. Just $0.02.

 

I have recently chipped my Audi 2009 Q7 4.2L V8 FSI with my Unitronic Stage 1 ECU Upgrade and so far I have to say that I am quite pleased with the results.

Outright my first impressions on driving immediately after the ECU Flash was that the low end throttle lag/hesitation was removed and the Car is a lot smoother to Drive now and overall the engine and the drive feels a lot smoother and refined.

I cannot yet confirm about the Power output increase claims yet as the Dealer whom I visited in San Diego, CA for this flash did not have his Dyno machine working at the time to show me the results. But Power output increases if any are only very minor like 15 HP at the most.

My primary objective for performing this Flash was to improve the Fuel Efficiency of this Gas Guzzler. On an average I was getting about 15.5 MPG (US) with 10% City and 90% Highway which is Not Great ! So I decided to go the Unitronic way and give it a shot.

At first when I visted their Website, Unitronic claims to have a Standard Stage 1 Software for the Audi Q7 4.2L FSI applicable to 91 Octane Fuel type. But when I went to the Dealer, he contacted Unitronic on my behalf and Unitronic came back saying that they don't have the Stage1 ECU File for 91 Octane but they only have it for 93/95 Octane. So Unitronic requested the Dealer to download the Factory Stock ECU file from my Car and send it to them so that they could do some Custom Re-Write to the Stock ECU File and send back a Custom Tuned Modified ECU.

So, I had to patiently wait it out about 2 weeks before they sent it back and the Dealer told me that in his request to Unitronic he emphasized more on improving the Gas Mileage to Unitronic so that they could custom tune the ECU File to meet thay objective.

So far I haven't had a chance to drive around the car too much to reach any conclusive evidence if the Custom tune did indeed improve the Fuel Economy or not, but will keep you guys posted as soon as I have some stats.

Cheers
Aadrian