Performance or Racing Mods

Car tuning is both an industry and a popular hobby, in which a car is modified in order to improve its performance and handling and improve the owner's driving style. more...

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As most cars leave the factory set up for average driver expectations and average conditions, tuning has become a way to personalize the characteristics of the vehicle to the owner's preference. For example cars may be altered to provide better fuel economy, produce more power at high RPM or the ride comfort may be sacrificed to provide better handling.

Car tuning is related to auto racing, although most performance cars never compete. Rather they are built for the pleasure of owning and driving such a vehicle. Another major facet of tuning includes performance modification to the car exterior. This includes changing the aerodynamic characteristics of the vehicle via side skirts, front and rear bumpers, adding spoilers, splitters, air vents and light weight wheels.

Areas of modification

Engine tuning

Engine tuning as of late has been marketed as the replacement of basic engine components with after-market versions that perform the exact same functions as those replaced while promising an increase in power output. In literal terms, this is NOT tuning.

Tuning is, on modern fuel injected engines, the electronically controlled management of ignition and injector timing & spray duration to achieve a desired, well burning ratio of air and fuel. The car's engine control unit (ECU) dictates these actions according to the constantly changing information fed to it from a variety of sensors located up and downstream of the combustion process. There is a sensor in the intake stream which measures the density/quantity of oxygen entering the engine, as well as a sensor in the exhaust stream to measure how much of it was used during combustion. The engine's operating temperature (and often intake air temperature) is also measured, the values of which are all used in computing a tune to maintain the manufacturers specific target fuel-to-air ratio.

Tuning an electronically controlled management system is only necessary when major components of the engine have been changed. For example, fuel injectors have a limitation on how much gasoline can be supplied to the combustion process. If you turbocharge your vehicle, the turbocharger forces more air into the cylinders than they are capable of drawing in on their own, which requires fuel injectors with a much higher flow rate to compensate with the proper amount of fuel. The ECU however will apply the stock fuel map to the new injectors as if they were the originals, causing too much fuel to be sprayed. In this condition the car will not run well, or at all. This is where legitimate tuning comes into play. There are a variety of computerized products available to handle significant changes like this, ranging from Air/Fuel controllers, to piggy-back ecu's, to completely replacing the original system with an advanced 100% customizable stand-alone management system.

Read more at Wikipedia.org