Personally i have been looking into these "cheap" remap options a little, here are my thoughts
1. cheap off the shelf remap/chip jobs are always crap, slightly uprated generic maps might gain a little, but should be avoided.
2. a proper remap needs to be setup to each engine, to do this you need to be monitoring fuel and det.
3. i have seen a few posts from people saying that the remaps they do, don't touch the ignition advance, WHY????? this is mental, this is FREE POWER being left on the table.
4. the superchips name, i will never trust, after hearing about the superchips "chip package" that was available to early impreza owners, which amounted to a FCD (fuel cut defender) and a bleed valve ??? WTF?
Personally i suspect they (these "mappers" are not touching the ignition advance because they are scared/not knowledgeable enough to prevent the blowing up of an engine, due to crap det/knock control, preferring to leave the stock ignition map in place and try and optimise the fueling instead to give a small gain.
I mapped my last car myself using an Apexi PFC ECU, and did a jolly good job, so i understand how and why remaps can have benefits, adding ignition advance, and using a higher ron fuel can give you free power and torque.
When somebody pays for a remap on these cars and then can still use 95 ron fuel, that to me is just a big fat waste of time.
When i did my first Subaru Map i took things very conservative, basically setup the fuel map first, making sure it was hitting the right AFR`s across the rev range, after this i started adding ignition advance, in small amounts, constantly tweaking and logging to make sure it was safe, until i managed to get approx 9-10 degrees more advance while on boost, granted this is not the same type of engine and turbos give better gains, but it netted me around 30bhp and around 45lbft LOL this is comparing my rolling road runs from before adding the timing on my "fueling correct base map" to my "fueling correct ignition added" final map, it helps that my mate owns his own rolling road
This was mapped right to the extreme of 99ron fuel, i could not use 95 ron anymore, and could only use 97 ron on light throttle, i was actually considering adding some meths to the fuel to allow a few more degrees advance but stopped the project as it was getting toooooooo insane to drive on the roads IMO
Now regards to the ZS180 and adding more advance, i suspect it can take a bit, after all its specced to make its max power on 95 ron, it may be that the silly design of the VIS system is preventing the engine from making more top end power, if people only seam to be getting mid range gains, then this could be why, to be honest, midrange gains will give better street performance anyway.
Somebody should make/design a simple replacement inlet manifold with no hocus pocus valves in it, and try mapping the car properly for it, i suspect you would get more top end gains.
Has anybody took a 180, fitted the exhaust/filters and then had it mapped for a proper higher ron fuel?