Also if you wait for the package deals APR runs around 4 times a year, you can get a fully loaded chip for $499 with 4 programs and all the bells and whistles changeable through your cruise control stalk. I got mine flashed back in July for my 2001.5 and there is a noticeable torque hump in the lower RPMs. As before the chip, it tends to run out of breath in the upper RPMs which I hope a test pipe might remedy. But it is only a KO3 so it may be wishful thinking.

The biggest learning curve is launching the car. Like Mike Hood says, let up on the clutch right before it grabs then blip the throttle a couple times to 4000 rpm and on your final blip, floor it and release the clutch fully at 4000 rpm and hang on!!! If you've launched correctly, you'll notice no engine bogging and a "throw you into the back of your seat" feeling. You'll know when you've done it right when you are like WOW, a smile from ear to ear and start to get all giddy.

Doug

 

You could look into GIAC as well, iirc all of their chips come preloaded with 6 maps (not a base of two and then an extra charge for three and four different maps like APR) only thing is when I looked up their website last, all they listed was pricing, but showed no numbers or graphs. I know there's a few folks on here that have gone with GIAC, maybe they will chime in here and shed light on more specifics about going with GIAC.

 

FMD:

When you stay first time in the mountains, did you just move to a mountainous area from a lower elevation?

I ask because I move from Phoenix Arizona which is at sea level, to Denver Colorado which is 1 mile up. When I first got here the car seemed really sluggish going up the mountains. A friend said it might because the car sensors (not sure what they are called, don’t know a lot about the engine stuff) had not acclimated to the lower oxygen cotenant at 10-12k feet where the ski areas are. I got a tune up, and after that it has run fine.

But the biggest part is just getting used to driving in the mountains. I travel up to 7-10k feet at least twice a month to go skiing (part time job as ski instructor). The car certainly has to push its self, but once you get used to the feel for the gas and know the grade, my experience is its mostly just knowing when to accelerate slowly and steadily up the grade rather than gun it and have the car (mines an auto) drop down to next lower gear and lurch forward. It’s more like a smooth progression on the gas as the grade gets higher.

You will get less gas mileage through, just fact of driving up hill for a long distance, but keeping the gas steadily on rather than on/off or mash it to regain the speed you just lost, seems to help with that as well.

The best way I can describe it is when you learn to drive a stick and have to stop on a grade, you learn to keep enough pressure on the gas to keep from stalling.

Same thing with mountain driving, as you do it more you learn, almost second nature, to give some slight gas with ever more pedal pressure as you head into the grade lightly increasing it as it gets steeper. Once you get the hang of it, it should be just a smooth progression from increase in gas pedal to decrease as you go down the other side. Rather than a jerky, drop down, get up to speed, shift up to hire gear.

Not saying that won’t happen sometimes due to traffic, but for the most part after a few trips you will be able to feel when the car needs a steady increase rather than just feel the car all of a sudden seem sluggish, that usually happens because you did not increase the speed enough before the grade overtook your current forward momentum and you then had to mash it to make up. So steady increase on gas all the way as you head up the hill.

Just my experience from driving up to the mountains for the past six years.