Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, upgraded engine and gearbox mounts play a huge part in terms of response time between applying power and the initial fleeing of power coming through this applies to acceleration and deacceleration, combined with lower arm and rear beam upgraded bushes can transform a vehicle handling and power delivery.

Yes, upgrading from the restrictive intake and cat-back exhaust fitted from factory can have a big improvement on power figures even before a remap, when both items are fitted and then further refined with a remap a great driving improvement is noticed along with a much better soundtrack.

No rolling roads/ hub dynos cannot hurt the vehicle or the engine, in fact it is 100 time safer than driving the vehicle on the road due to the fact the vehicle is strapped down there is no bodywork risk, and the vehicle being attached to various sensors and data logging devices means we can actually see things happing before they cause a major issue. You run much higher risks driving on the road not knowing what is going on inside the engine until it can be too late.

Yes, it is true and to explain this we need to understand that a rolling road/ hub dyno etc are only designed to stop us tuners from risking our lives and more importantly our driving license to tune vehicles. Dynos main job is to literally be a rolling road, the power figures they produce are an estimated power reading. The reason dyno readings can vary are down to many different factors but mainly down to air quality and air temp readings the dyno is receiving from their weather stations. In brief a vehicle ran on a cold winter evening will produce a different power to the same vehicle being run in the high of summer middle of the day. However some more advanced dynos can average this reading and if the same car is run on the same dyno one run in the winter one in the summer the onboard system of the dyno will average the readings.

No your driver modes such as ECO, NORMAL, SPORT/DYNAMIC they are all just that driver settings. This are adjustment setup by the manufacturer to give you on the fly adjustment to your driving experience, for instance ECO mode will only give 60%throttle to the engine when your foot is full down and steering gearbox will feel relaxed and soft, then in SPORT/DYNAMIC mode the throttle will be around 90% when your foot is only halfway down and again the steering and gearbox will be much sharper. That being said your engines ecu file remains unaffected in any mode and as such you will have more power in ECO mode the system will just adjust to make you still feel the same relaxed driving experience.

In short no not really and this is due to the fact 99% of all modern DCT/DSG technology gearboxes are so advanced that they far exceed that of the manual counterparts. Aside from this the gearboxes’ own computer will analyse the power and torque coming from the engine ecu and adapt to cover the added power, a gearbox remap is only really advised after stage 2 and after stage 3 it is advised to look at upgrading the clutch packs in the gearbox. Once a stage 1 engine remap is performed the gearbox will self adapt change gear smoother and feel more direct purely due to the engine upgrade.

Yes 99% of all modern day vehicles now produced are well below there tolerance and due to mass production and keeping costs low manufacturers now use one or two engine types across the range, for instance BMW 320/325/330 are now all a 2.0t 4cylinder engine with few differences mainly turbo size and a manufacturer remap, so at stage 1 and 2 you are just unleashing the hidden performance safe within the tolerances of the standard engine.

Unfortunately not , due to the engine needing to flow more air and fuel it would not be safe to push the engine harder with out the relevant upgrades, there is many differences that ‘look the same’ for instance ford focus ST and RS model both have the same running gear but a RS stage 1 will be much faster than a ST stage 1 and this is mainly down the minor differences between the two i.e. turbo and injectors, therefore the engine is capable but the parts around it need changing to benefit from the stage 2 software.

Yes it is strongly advised that you should be using higher quality fuels once having your engine optimised, its not an old wife’s tale the better quality fuel actually helps with the ignition cycle and the combustion process, poor quality fuels with lower RON rating will induce Knock/ pre-detonation this is bad but can sometimes be cured with using the right fuel and good servicing walnut blasting is a worse case fix. In easy terms its like a human trying to run a marathon drinking river water for a while you will be ok but as the time goes by you will start to get sick, well engines work the same, put in good fuel and you will get great results.

Yes of course , from stage 1 and beyond we can take care off all your needs in house, from software to hardware pops and bangs to springs and coil overs. All under the same roof we will give you the full run down carrying out a complete health check and then advising you on how to get the most from your car or any repairs that may need doing, we don’t just tune the engines we do the chassis as well. If its springs or coil overs /corner weighting strut braces even roll cages. We can cater for the custom side too.