How Vehicle Performance Enhancements Work: A Beginner’s Guide

 The tuning industry can be pretty dark without having a basic idea of how an engine works, and how each of the tuning modifications affects its performance. Knowing this can help you understand quite a lot of what’s being done on tuner cars. If you want to know what horsepower, better fuel economy or better handling mean in your car, this article is for you. This article will take you through the basic components that make performance of your vehicle, and the different upgrades that you can do to improve each of the components.

1. Understanding Engine Performance

 The engine is the centrepiece of every vehicle performance upgrade. Not by chance: engines convert the chemical energy contained in fuel and air into usable power, by burning the air and the fuel and converting their energy into mechanical action. The higher the efficiency of the engine at transforming air and fuel into usable power, the more the usable power. This is why performance upgrade focus on improving engine performance either by increasing the amount of air and fuel the engine can take, or by improving how it combusts that chemical energy.

 Essentially, we need to grasp that power is created by either more displacement or more airflow. Displacement is the volume of air that an engine can draw down with each piston cycle – a big engine has more displacement than a smaller one, and bigger engines generally produce more power. Nowadays, though, the way to improve performance in racing engines is to modify them to extract more power from small displacement engines.

2. Air Intake Systems

 Upgrading the air intake is one of the easiest and might be the most effective ways to improve the performance of your engine. The more air the engine brings in, the more oxygen it has, and the more oxygen it has, the better the combustion will be. One of the top air-inlet upgrades you can perform is a cold air intake system. These systems allow the engine to take in cooler air. Cooler air is denser, which means that it burns better than warm air.

 Cold Air Intakes: This system replaces the factory air box with a less restrictive intake that pulls air from outside the engine bay and into the engine. This air is cooler and denser, which promotes better combustion and thus more power. 

 Ram Air Systems: These intakes suck air from the outside (objectively from the front of the car), taking advantage of the car’s speed to generate more airflow into the engine.

 A new intake system isn’t just a power upgrade. Lower resistance means a better throttle response, making your car feel more alert and responsive when accelerating.

3. Exhaust Systems

 Air needs to be able to flow into the engine and mix with fuel to burn, and then quickly be expelled, as exhaust gases, after combustion. Improving the exhaust is another route to increase performance by reducing restriction to exhaust flow.

 Cat-Back Exhaust Systems: These replace everything from the catalytic converter (or similar emissions-control device) back to the tailpipe. Because they improve exhaust flow, they further reduce backpressure. Again, increased engine breathing means more power production.

 Headers and Downpipes: This upgrade can improve exhaust flow, and is especially important for turbocharged engines where decreasing exhaust restrictions can lead to faster turbo spool times and more boost pressure.

 Aside from performance benefits, the sound of your vehicle can improve with the addition of a quality after-market exhaust system, which will tend to give it a deeper, more aggressive tone.

4. ECU Tuning and Reprogramming

 The brain of modern vehicles is known as the engine control unit (ECU) which controls the engine parameters, such as air-fuel ratio, ignition timing, boost pressure, and many other important parameters. Changing the ECU is the single most impactful vehicle modification you can implement. By changing factory calibrations, ECU tuning will allow you to improve its response in order to increase power and efficiency.

 Performance Tune: A performance tune alters the ECU back to what is essentially a stock tune, but allows for richer air-fuel mixtures and more aggressive ignition timing allowing for more power without litigation. Other upgrades such as intake or exhaust system make more sense when coupled with a performance tune.

 Economy Tunes: If you’re more interested in fuel mileage, then an economy tune will accommodate the engine parameters to limit fuel to max fuel savings with only slight loss of performance. 

 Custom Tuning: Advanced power gains can be had with custom tuning of the ECU, based on a bespoke specification of the complete vehicle’s set-up, to make the power more usable and responsive for the driver. 

5. Turbochargers and Superchargers

 To get the most dramatic performance increases, engines can be fed a bigger lungful of air using forced induction, such as in turbochargers (also known as turbos) and superchargers. With forced induction, a system uses output power to push much of the air in, compressing it before it gets to the engine. More air means more fuel and more power.

 Turbochargers: They increase intake charge pressure by pressurising the exhaust gases in the turbocharger. Spinning it up is done by the moving exhaust gases and this system can provide a considerable power boost over a certain engine speed range. However, turbochargers produce lag because the turbine needs to spool up before it can produce any effect.

 Superchargers: Unlike the turbocharger, superchargers are mechanically driven, eliminating the lag. However, they have a smaller effect on peak power because they consume some of the power of the engine.

6. Suspension and Handling Modifications

 Power aside, performance is also about handling – if want to make your car corner better, say, you should upgrade the suspension. 

 Coilovers (short for coil-over springs) – These are height-adjustable suspension components that let you lower the car. Lowering it drops the car’s centre of gravity and reduces body roll (swaying around bends), which in turn increases handling.

 Sway Bars: Often called anti-roll bars, they control body motion by making the chassis stiffer to resist body roll, which improves overall stability.

 Performance Tires Only one component of your car actually touches the road: your tyres. Go-performance tyres offer a better grip to the road which translates into better handling and acceleration.

7. Brake Upgrades

 The faster you make your vehicle go in a straight line, the more able it will need to be to stop again. You’ll want to increase performance of the braking system accordingly, as this will improve your stopping power and braking response.

 Big Brake Kits: These add-on brake rotors and brake calipers are meant to dramatically boost performance, with the capability of handling a lot more heat and stopping the vehicle more powerfully.

 Performance Brake Pads: High-performance brake pads offer superior friction and improved heat rejection to help maintain consistent stopping power in extreme driving conditions.

Conclusion

 For someone just starting out, adding performance parts to your vehicle may seem like a giant array of confusing add-ons, adding together to make your car faster. It’s actually pretty straightforward if you divide these parts into various categories. Whether you’re installing a new intake to improve airflow, an exhaust to improve flow, or an ECU tweak to improve efficiency, each of these modifications ‘makes the car go faster’. Remember that performance involves more than just power – a vehicle must handle superbly, as well as brake responsively. Improving these elements allows you to start your march into the world of modifying vehicles. After all, you’ve got to start somewhere.