Tuning Your Car? – What to Start With?

Thinking of having your Car Tuned? This post will give you some insight into where you should start and what kind of improvement you should expect!

So, obviously it is impossible for RS Tyres & Autos to give advice on this news post for your specific vehicle! If you are looking for specific advice or looking to tune your car with us contact us on 01744 613 573 or click here to book your car in with us!

Even though we are unable to offer specific advice on this new post we can give you some broad stokes on where you should start with regards to tuning your car.

Here are 5 starting points you should consider when tuning your vehicle!

Remapping is a fast and inexpensive process, designed to remove limitations on your car imposed by the manufacturer, depending on your vehicle you can add large amounts of BHP and torque simply by changing the settings built into your cars ECU. A lot of the time you will also find that remapping increases your fuel efficiency and decreases wear and tear on your engine.

Increasing your cars ability to take in air can dramatically effect its performance, it will give your car a better fuel to air mixture meaning, you need less fuel to maintain low revs and at high revs you produce more BHP and Torque. The process of upgrading your air intake is a fairly simple one, RS Tyres and Autos would usually start by upgrading your air filter with an after market air filter, these are designed to filter out any contaminants without reducing air flow increasing the amount of air available to your car, after market air filters tend to be fairly inexpensive and easy to maintain. Next we would look at upgrading your air intake system to a cold air intake system; cold air intakes are designed with dual inlets and filters that monitor and maximise your cars ability to “breath” making engine performance better, this type of work is a little more expensive than just changing your air filter but the amount of improvement in your cars performance is worlds apart.

A lot of people are surprised that upgrading your exhaust system can increase your vehicles performance a heck of a lot, it is your exhausts job to remove waste gasses from your cars engine created in the combustion process. If these gasses are not expelled fast enough (especially at high revs) a problem is created called back pressure, this back pressure slows down your cars performance.

Your stock exhaust system (as with most things in life) will have been installed by the manufacturer with compromise in mind. Government standards and customer expectations for how quiet cars should be are increasingly strict, so stock exhausts are designed to favour quietness, and cost over performance and fun.

Put in the simplest possible terms, an upgraded exhaust system replaces some or all your car’s stock exhaust system with improved pipework and performance.

It’s just common sense that a light car will move faster than its heavier counterparts. There are 2 ways to reduce the weight of your vehicle:

1. 1. Remove Unnecessary Items – This costs next to nothing as it is simply taking things either off or out of your car to reduce weight, some examples include the Spare Wheel, Seats (except the drivers), Remove Door Cards, Strip the Interior, Empty the Boot, Drive with Less Fuel, Leave the Wife at Home, Kick the Kids Out, Get a Smaller Dog, Remove Belongings like Gold Chains and Clothing, Lose Weight…every gram counts!
   2. Replace Heavy Components – Some people really go to the ends of the earth with regards to shedding weight from their car, replacing some components can be inexpensive and easy others can be expensive and difficult, here are some examples of lightweight alternatives for your car: Carbon Fibre Bonnet, Alloys, Poly-carbonate Windows, Upgraded Braking System, Racing Seats, Plastic Body Panels and many more!

These things will make the car more aerodynamic and help the engine to use more power.

A catalytic converter is a component of the exhaust system on a petrol car, it is designed to reduce the amount of emissions and pollutants expelled. Some people who are interested in car performance remove the catalytic converter completely, It isn’t illegal to remove a catalytic converter in the UK, but the car is unlikely to pass its annual road-worthiness (MoT) test if it’s been removed. RS Tyres & Autos does not remove catalytic converters as doing so makes any MOT Certification invalid and may cause the driver to incur fines, however; We can upgrade your catalytic converter to a performance version used on a lot of racing vehicles which dramatically increases your cars performance without compromising your MOT Certification. Upgrading your catalytic converter is probably the most expensive way to increase your performance on this list, the other four steps cost much less money and in most cases improve your performance much more!

So there you have it! 5 ways to get your started on improving the performance of you car! If you are interested in increasing your cars performance via Tuning or Remapping contact us on01744 613 573 or click here to book your car with us!