Performance Car Tuning

Performance tuning is the tuning of an engine to increase the power output, torque, and responsiveness of the engine as well as the reliability and economy. To performance tune the engine, it must be strong enough to endure the extra power, sometimes far stronger than the standard engine. Also when Performance Tuning the car you must take into account the transmission, suspension and the brakes to make sure that these match the power output and torque of the engine as this will affect the overall performance of the car and make it more reliable and competitive. Most people want to increase the power output of an engine. The main way that is used to do this is to increase the rate and efficiency of combustion in an engine. This is achieved by putting more fuel/air mixture into the engine, using a fuel with higher energy content, burning it more rapidly, and getting rid of the waste products more rapidly - this increases volumetric efficiency. The specific ways this is done include:

• Increasing the engine displacement. This can be done by "boring" - increasing the diameter of the cylinders and pistons, or by "stroking" - using a crankshaft with a longer stroke (in combination with pistons of shorter compression height, to maintain the original compression ratio), or both.

• Using larger or multiple carburetors, to create more fuel/air mixture to burn, and to get it into the engine more quickly. In modern engines, fuel injection is more often used, and may be modified in a similar manner.

• Increasing the size of the valves in the engine, thus decreasing the restriction in the path of the fuel/air mixture entering, and the exhaust gases leaving the cylinder. Using multiple valves per cylinder results in the same thing - it is often more practical to have several small valves than have larger single valves.

• Using larger bored, smoother, less contorted intake and exhaust manifolds. This helps maintain the velocity of gases. Similarly, the ports in the cylinder can be enlarged and smoothed to match. This is termed "Cylinder head porting", usually with the aid of an air flow bench for testing and verifying the efficiency of the modifications.

• The larger bore may extend right through the complete exhaust system, using larger diameter piping and low back pressure mufflers, and through the intake system, with larger diameter air boxes and high-flow, high-efficiency air filters. Muffler modifications will change the sound of the car's engine, usually making it louder; for some tuners this is in itself a desirable property.

• Increasing the valve opening height (lift), by changing the profiles of the camshaft or the lift (lever), ratio of the valve rockers (OHV engines), or cam followers (OHC engines).

• Optimizing the valve timing to improve burning efficiency - usually this increases power at one range of operating RPM at the expense of reducing it at others. For many applications this compromise is acceptable. Again this is usually achieved by a differently profiled camshaft. See also Four-stroke cycle Valve Timing, variable valve timing.

• Raising the compression ratio, which makes more efficient use of the cylinder pressure developed and leading to more rapid burning of fuel, by using larger compression height pistons or thinner head gasket, or by milling "shaving" the cylinder head.

• Forced Induction; adding a turbocharger or supercharger. The fuel/air mass entering the cylinders is increased by compressing the air first, usually mechanically.

• Using a fuel with higher energy content or by adding an oxidizer such as nitrous oxide.

• Changing the tuning characteristics electronically, by changing the firmware of the engine management system (EMS). This chip tuning often works because modern engines are designed to give a great deal of raw power, which is then reduced by the engine management system to make the engine operate smoothly over a wider RPM range, with low emissions. By analogy with an operational amplifier, the EMS acts as a feedback loop around an engine with a great deal of open loop gain. Many modern engines are now of this type and amenable to this form of tuning. Naturally many other design parameters are sacrificed in the pursuit of power. The choice of modification depends greatly on the degree of performance enhancement desired, budget, and the characteristics of the engine to be modified. Intake, exhaust, and chip upgrades are usually amongst the first modifications made as they are the cheapest, make reasonably general improvements (whereas a different camshaft, for instance, requires trading off performance at low engine speeds for improvements at high engine speeds), can often improve fuel economy, generally don't affect engine reliability much (because no moving parts are modified), and are in any case essential to take full advantage of any further upgrades.

• Manufacturer Detuned Engines - Changing the tuning characteristics electronically, by changing the firmware of the engine management system (EMS). This chip tuning also works because many manufacturers produce one engine which is used in a range of models and the power and torque characteristics are determined solely by the engine management system software. This allows the manufacturers to sell cars in various markets with different tax and emissions regulations without the huge development cost of designing different engines. Cross platform engine sharing also allows for a single engine to be used by different brands, tuned to suit their particular market.

Time To Give Your Musclecar a Tune Up

How to beef up your ride with more power Gazaam... You can start by making a few minor adjustments with your air filter, believe it or not a clean air filter makes a whole lot of difference. There are a number of different air filter's you can buy, some are very high tech and others are just to expensive. If you cant afford high tech just go with the simple generic brand, "to be honest it probably doesn't make a difference what brand you choose".

Have you tried flushing your block out, you should. With all that water of coolant sitting in there for who knows how long can really do a number on you engine rusting it from the inside out. It's really a good idea to flush it periodically maybe once every 3-4,000 miles just as routine as an oil-change. Just by flushing out all that old fluid and replacing it with new, you can greatly increase you gas-mileage by %10.

How often are you suppose to change those old spark plugs? Well according to the auto professional geeks every 30,000 miles. But why wait that long, do you usually wait intill your bill's are due before you pay them, not inless you have to. So if you can changing you sparkplugs will put the fire back in your beast, also helping with emission and may increase gas mileage aswell.

Fine tuning your distributor, Now this is an old trick that the old timers use, By spinning your distributor a few degrees to fine tune your timing can typically give a giant portion of horse power back in your ride, over time your motor wares down and slows down the timing also. But if your capable of doing this your self, you do not need any expensive equipment to do it, just a screw driver and some patience. With your motor running, after finding the nut-or screw that keeps the distributor from rotating you can turn it just enough to notice a difference right away. Now if you turn it to much in either direction you can kill the engine, but don't worry just gently put it back in place and fire your car back up. Once you get it where you like it, for the best results you want your car to idle right around the neighbor hood of 7,500 rpm's.

Most newer cars have an oxygen sensor, you can find this usually right bellow your factory outtake manifold and at the beginning of your exhaust system. These are call 0-2 sensor and they don't cost much to replace.

Slick your ride up with some grease, you want to find as many grease fitting as you can usually you can find these under the car. there are a few next to the rotor and some of the extending joints, ball joints and tie-rods. Just by doing this you can add an extra 5 years to cars life and give yourself added protection form seizes.

Giving your car just the basic tune-up's doing it yourself can save you allot of money and help protect your car keeping in good shape and running great.