Everyone who owns a car sometimes thinks: ‘If only it were a bit more economical’ or: ‘If only it were a bit faster’. There is a solution for everyone who considers this. In addition to normal tuning (more powerful air filter, modified exhaust), which is fairly risky if you have little or no understanding of cars, there is an option to chip tune your car. But what exactly is chip tuning, and how does it work?
What is chip tuning
Chip tuning is a way to improve the performance of your car’s engine. In this way the engine can be made more economical, more powerful, faster and smoother. So it is actually a way to optimize your engine.
How does chip tuning work
Every car engine has a maximum in performance. This performance is extensively tested in the factory, so that no errors can occur when the engines are installed in the cars and the cars are sold. For this, a so-called ‘safety margin’ is set for each engine. This actually means no more than that the performance of an engine is limited to such a level that there are no problems with the engines. This is partly done so that the engine can still function properly under severe conditions and with poor fluids (oil and fuel). It is often the case that this safety margin is well below the maximum limit of what the engine can actually handle.
The technical story
In order to understand how chip tuning is applied, it is necessary to have some technical knowledge. Every engine that receives fuel by injection contains a so-called ECU module. The abbreviation ECU stands for Electronic Control Unit. This module controls a number of important things, such as the injection of the fuel, how much fuel the engine should receive, when ignition takes place and when the gases are emitted. This has the function of revving the engine, getting enough fuel and getting enough power from the battery. This ECU module sends all this data to the so-called EPROM chips. As mentioned above, a safety margin has been programmed on this ECU module. This safety margin is also applied to the EPROM chips.
What happens when chip tuning is applied?
If the choice is made to apply chip tuning, this must be done by a reliable tuner who understands the business. If this does not happen and it goes wrong, it can have serious consequences for the engine! So always pay attention to who you have your car chiptune with.
So limits are set on the ECU module for each type of performance. When chip tuning is used, these limits are optimized to higher numbers, so that you get a faster, more efficient and smoother engine. The engine will therefore generally work more pleasantly.
All advantages, aren’t there any disadvantages to chip tuning?
Chip tuning seems very nice, but there are sometimes some disadvantages. It should be noted here that these disadvantages do not always apply, or sometimes not at all!
Not always more economical
In general, the engine is about 5 – 10% more efficient after chip tuning. A condition for this is that the same driving style as for the chip tuning is applied. The problem here is often that when the engine gets more power (and that happens with chip tuning), that extra power will also be used. And note, the more power the engine needs, the more fuel is injected into the engine. In this case, consumption will be more instead of less. Do you apply the same driving style as for the chip tuning? Then there is no problem and the engine is guaranteed to be more economical!
The margin of safety
As described above, a safety margin has been applied to each engine to allow the engine to perform under extreme conditions with poor fluids. The engine is therefore ‘safe’ below the limit of maximum performance. As soon as chip tuning is applied, the performance of the engine is further increased, thus reducing the safety margin. The performance is thus closer to the limit of maximum performance. In case of bad fluids, poor / no maintenance or extreme driving behavior of the driver, this can cause damage to the engine. Again, the only applies again, if there are good fluids in the engine, the car gets its maintenance and no extreme driving behavior is applied, then this is no problem.
Wear
Because the engine can use more power, there are parts that run faster or are used more, and so they can wear out faster. Take the gearbox for example. Due to chip tuning, the maximum speed at the clutch is higher, and thus the gearbox is loaded more. Sometimes even overloaded. Of course, this applies not only to the gearbox, but also, for example, to the drivetrain.
Guarantee
In some cases, the factory or dealer warranty will lapse when chip tuning is used. You can easily prevent this, or at least be aware of it, by informing your dealer about this before applying the chip tuning.
Software updates
Software updates are regularly offered for cars with an on-board computer. The result of this may be that the chip tuning is no longer compatible with the new software. In this case, the tuning will have to be reprogrammed at the tuner.
In short, pay attention to the pros and cons before you start chip tuning! Do you regret the tuning afterwards? Then in most cases it can still be turned back in consultation with the tuner.