Is it Safe to Add an Engine Performance Chip to Increase the Horsepower of My Motorhome?

by John Dabbs
(Florida)

I have a Country Coach 2006 with a 400hp CAT engine, is it safe to install a power chip to increase HP, but mainly for fuel economy, but extra HP would be nice.

Thanks John

ANSWER: Greetings John thanks for submitting your question on our Ask An RV Question Page.

Since the advent of Computer Controlled Engine Systems there have been companies that have created after market Performance Modules and Performance Chips that purportedly will increase the horsepower, miles per gallon, etc. of both Diesel and Gasoline engines.

The first thing you have to understand is that when you install one of these chips or modules on the engine of your Motorhome you are modifying the way the engine was designed to run by the engine manufacturer. By doing this you are taking some risk of possibly causing problems with the engine.

That being said, there are a lot of RVers that have installed these engine performance chips/modules with great results and others that have encountered some problems or have not gotten the results they expected after installation.

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I am afraid that there is no way I could tell you with 100% confidence that nothing bad will happen to your Motorhome’s engine if you install one of the available performance chips or modules.

I hope that some of our visitors that have done these modifications on their Motorhome's engine will jump in here and give us input on what results they got. I would be interested to find out what engine they have and what brand module or chip they used to modify their engine.

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