But in theory, these factory settings could be altered, allowing more available power more quickly. This would result in a performance gain, but naturally have an adverse effect on range, drivability, as well as the overall lifespan of the motor. If the insurance company is unable to continue insuring you, you’ll need to cancel and find another insurer that is. This means paying a cancellation fee and potentially losing any no claims bonus you may have accrued that year. As long as you remove your tuning box before a dealer visit, there should be no trace it was ever installed.
Even a Small Business with a 1 litre engine can receive good power gains from a remap, especially if it has a turbocharger. Because the software being installed is rarely written by the vehicle’s manufacturer, it will most likely void any warranty you have on the vehicle. At the end of the day it’s not the manufacturer’s decision to push the engine to its limits and if something were to go wrong you could end up paying for an engine rebuild yourself. The software company that wrote the map will also be unlikely to cover these costs too. That’s why it’s so important to go with a trusted company that has a lot of experience. With this being said, ECU remapping surely increases the overall performance output of a vehicle and make the driving experience much better than before.
Many manufacturers will immediately void any warranty from vehicles that have been modified. For this reason it may be worth waiting until your vehicle is out of warranty before making any alterations. Remapped vehicles get the most benefit when there is a turbocharher or supercharger installed as the main changes that are made to the software are fuel compression, fuel/air mix and boost pressure. Remapping a naturally aspirated engine means there is little that can be configured. This means you will likely not receive much of a power gain.
Depending on the map you have installed, some vehicles will benefit from a valet mode, and immobiliser mode, which you can activate with a switch device. Immobilser mode means the car will not drive even if a thief manages to steal your keys and start the car. Without the switch, the car will simply not be driveable. You may need to buy higher octane fuel following remapping. Now the tuner can very easily fool the ECU and make more power by only changing injector duration.
The map is released for retail only after it’s been refined. Yes, some tuners do cut corners and are looking for fast and easy gains, but the experienced tuners do things properly, and that takes time and money. Car manufacturers make this map keeping in mind the reliability, emission norms, drivability, and quality of fuel. This often means that these ECU maps are quite conservative and a lot more power can be extracted from the same engine by uploading a new map. This process of uploading a new map on the stock ECU is called remapping or reflashing.
Most modern cars these days have a turbocharger fitted to the engine. An engine works by mixing compressed fuel with air and then igniting this mix inside its cylinders. Turbochargers and superchargers increase the fuel compression therefore allowing more fuel to fit inside the cylinders before igniting. It is more fuel efficient to increase power this way rather than just having a larger engine to begin with. This is why we are seeing more 3, 4 and 6 cylinder engines and fewer 8, 10 and 12 cylinder engines. Most manufacturers also tend to release facelifted versions of each model of car they produce after a few years before they release completely new versions.
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