What Is Engine Chip Tuning?

Engine Chip Tuning Details

Have you ever worked on a classic car? Even if you personally haven’t done the work, you’ve probably known someone who spent hours and hours making tiny changes to the carburetor valves, tweaking the camshaft position, or adjusting the spark plugs. If everything went correctly, the arrangement of these parts would lead to a dramatic increase in horsepower, fuel efficiency, and other traits.

Back then, these factors were controlled by mechanical means. Today they’re controlled by computers, and those careful tune ups have changed from mechanical to digital, and that’s engine chip tuning.

Electronic Control Units

Usually these are known simply by their acronym: ECU. An electronic control unit is the generic term for any of the electronic modules or systems that are scattered around modern cars. And there are a lot of them. In fact, a modern car can have well over eighty different ECUs scattered around the vehicles that control everything from the engine to the brakes to the dash console.

All of the ECUs can be tweaked or replaced by people with the right knowledge and equipment, which is usually professional mechanics. But when it comes to getting the most out of your engine, you’re only concerned with one kind of ECU.

The Engine Control Module a.k.a. the Engine Control Unit

A quick search of acronyms might confuse you, and with good reason. The computer that controls your vehicle’s engine can be known by both the Engine Control Module (ECM) or the Engine Control Unit (ECU)—the same acronym that’s used for Electronic Control Units.

Whatever you call it, that computer controls how well your engine works. Fuel/air mixture, timing, speed governing systems, and more are all managed by the software in the module. As long as the various engine components, such as the fuel injector, are hooked up correctly, adjustments to the computer change how those components work.

Engine Chip Tuning

Manufacturer installed software is made to run the engine conservatively. This helps give the engine a certain amount of wiggle room to account for infrequent service, poor quality fuel, and the engine variations between various vehicles.

Engine chip tuning adds new software into the mix. Chip tuners are installed into your existing system and allow the settings to be changed. The right adjustments can increase the power, fuel efficiency, produce cleaner emissions, and more. These software tweaks are made to specifically fit your engine and are unique to the vehicle, especially if you’ve customized the engine at all.

As a note, remember that engine chip tuning can cause major changes to how your car runs. While other car customization's can sometimes be done in your own garage, engine chip tuning is best left to the pros. Your engine may also need to be more frequently serviced afterwards, so make sure you take that into account.

Why You Should Leave Engine Control Unit Repairs to the Pros

Engine Control Unit Repair Pros

Modern cars can have over 80 separate computers scattered around the car, but one of the big ones is the engine control unit (ECU). Also known as the engine control module (ECM), this controls most of the key engine functions, including the fuel/air mixture, spark timing, and more.

From the outside, an ECU looks like a box due to the housing that protects the circuitboards. If you have a certain amount of mechanical aptitude, it can seem like all you have to do to repair it, replace it, or tune it is to unplug it and plug a new one in. But this can create some big problems.

Here are some reasons why you should leave this job to the pros.

They Know What to Adjust

Whether you need a complete replacement or just want a chip tuning module added, you need to check all of the variables. Even small changes in the settings or software can have big consequences, including causing the whole engine to break down.

Even if the computer is exactly the same, all of these variables need to be double-checked. If the job is to install an engine remapping chip, then these variables need to be adjusted to make sure that they’re all within the right areas. Plainly put, a pro will make sure everything’s working together nicely.

They Have the Equipment

The best a home mechanic can hope for is to plug a chip tuning unit in and hope everything works out. If there’s anything wrong, then it could seriously damage your engine. There is equipment that can perform a full diagnostic and check all of the above variables, but it’s not exactly in the budget of the average car owner.

Pro shops have the resources needed to buy that equipment. They also have extensive training in how to use that equipment. As a result, you can count on them to make sure everything’s set up correctly down to the last detail.

They Have the Experience

Even if you’re the most avid car enthusiast, odds are good that you’d only own a handful of cars that need ECU work. And if you mess this procedure up, you could be looking at a very expensive repair bill.

But not the pros. Over their years of experience they’ve tuned and remapped hundreds of cars in a wide variety of makes and models. They know the ins and outs to safely make any repairs of modifications. They also know the pitfalls to avoid.

When you come right down to it: doing your own ECU repairs or modifications is taking a big risk with your very expensive car. You’re much safer to spend the extra amount necessary to get it installed by the pros.