A Concise Guide to Car Tuning for Beginners
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW STARTS HERE
Having your car tuned might not be something you have ever considered before. However, a growing number of people want to unleash the full power of their vehicles. If you are new to the industry, you are probably thinking what exactly is car tuning?
CAN IT GET ANY BETTER?
Car tuning is the improvement of a vehicle’s overall performance in response to user needs. The practice is growing in popularity as more people realise that tweaking the car’s settings is possible, which improves performance without making physical modifications. This might sound a little too good to be true, but it isn’t!
One of the best ways to improve car performance is by making software modifications, otherwise known as engine remapping. The modifications to a vehicle occur in the Engine Control Unit (ECU), a tiny computer that controls ignition timing, the air and fuel ratio and the boost pressure of the vehicle. When engine remapping is done correctly, it enables a car’s full potential to be unlocked, which means more power and efficiency.
cars performing better than when they left the factory?
You might be thinking ‘why aren’t cars tuned to the highest settings when they are made in the factory?’
When a new car leaves the factory, it’s performance may well be slightly muted, this can be done for a number of reasons, often to allow for a higher bhp (brake horsepower) model version to be sold for more money with the same mechanical components, to meet certain marketing criteria, or tax bands. It is cheaper to build one engine and restrict the power for the entry-level vehicles with software. Manufacturers need to sell cars that perform well but with a range of power options to suit all customers and budgets. As long as their car gets them from A to B and lasts a long time, many drivers will be happy. However, some want a more powerful vehicle. This is where car tuning comes in; it unlocks the car’s full, previously untapped potential regardless of what the original factory bhp may have been.
What modifications are available?
Ignition timing
For those who may not know, ignition timing is the timing of the release of a spark relative to the piston top dead centre in a spark-ignition engine. When cars are made, manufacturers must balance efficiency and reliability, international fuel grades, operating climates, weather conditions, and more. This means that when you buy a car, it may not be as efficient as you would like it to be. By tuning ignition timing, you can unlock the untapped performance potential of the vehicle.
Boost
Turbo engines are growing in popularity each year. In the past, they were cars unofficially reserved for car enthusiasts and were not mainstream. Nowadays, turbochargers are fitted to the majority of new vehicles due to their efficiency. Turbo forces more air into the engine, meaning the car has more power behind it. Adding boost to an engine is one of the best ways to give your vehicle more power.
Torque Control
Torque control is the main way that a vehicle manufacturer will limit the power and performance of a vehicle, allowing them to have one engine fitted to a range of vehicles of different power and performance. Tuning can literally upgrade your vehicle to the higher bhp version and more by moving the torque limiters and controls.
If you’d like to have your vehicle tuned, The VIEZU team can help you. We have many years of combined experience in the automotive sector and our vehicle tuning and automotive performance upgrades are designed and tested thoroughly, which enables you to feel confident in our recommendations. Contact us by phone on +44 (0)1789 774444 or email us at info@viezu.com and a friendly member of our team will be in contact with you.
