What is performance tuning?

Performance tuning in simple terms is the ability to make the hard components on your vehicle work together and to get the fueling and timing to work in synchronicity with those parts.

For example: a small turbo used with a ported head and cams which would pull better higher in the RPM range will not work well together, as the cams and porting may not help the turbo spool up down low where it works best so by the time the cams and headwork start to work well the turbo is running out of steam.

Getting the hard components in your car to work together allows full advantage of the components used to be utilized.

By understanding these concepts, I am able to get the components in your car to overlap their strengths to give you optimum performance.

Some of the other elements involved in tuning are fueling, ignition and boost control. These elements are manipulated to work optimally with the engine, turbo, intercooler and other hard parts involved.

What is chip and ECU tuning and do I need it?

To tune a Chip/ECU, I basically take the programming from your ECU (this is done in many different ways) search thru the file & find areas in the file which represent specific areas of control in your engine management system, such as fueling, timing, boost and rev limit.

Chip/ECU tuning is then used to manipulate the files in your ECU to optimize these elements to work the best way possible in conjunction with the hard parts used in your car. This allows you to maintain engine longevity & emissions while delivering top performance from your vehicle.

If you have made hardware changes to your car at a certain level it is important to re- tune your ECU. The best way to find out if you need this would be to run your car on a dyno or log data while driving (examine your air fuel ratio) and understand where your ignition timing and boost are set. You will need to get base data as a starting point, and determine if ECU tuning would help improve the performance of your car.

If these elements are not set up correctly, engine damage can and probably will occur and you definitely need to get into tuning your ECU. If you have changed major components affecting the way your engine breathes and what the intake air temp is, you probably need ECU tuning.