Car tuning tips - the hidden cost of car tuning

Find out about "Welcome to Car Tuning Tips"

This is a project I have been planning to get around to for ages. Tuning is a big hobby of mine and I learnt a few lessons the expensive way! Here are 5 important lessons for people undertaking a tuning project.

 Lesson 1) All tuning modifications will expose a weakness elsewhere in the car. Whenever you increase the power or performance of one part a weakness will manifest itself requiring an upgrade or repair. The bigger the performance increase the greater this effect.

 Lesson 2) Don't beleive everything you read on the box. Often manufacturers claims of power gains are optimistic at best. You will often buy a part for a 1.0 shopping car and the box will declare up to 10bhp power gain and show  a graph of the power increase. When you look closely you see that this is based on a car which had 300 bhp to start with and has had other extensive modifications done to it.

 Lesson 3) You get what you pay for. If it sounds too good to be true then it most certainly is. Don't expect a part from ebay that costs 20% of the normal price to be anywhere near as effective.

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 Lesson 4) It get expensive. When you start tuning up a car it will most certainly break down. A part will not always fit and you will have to remove another part to get something to fit or work properly.

 Lesson 5) The more mods you do the better the power gain for each one of them will be. A new exhaust will give say 4bhp more, a new induction kit may provide 5bhp but when you fit both you can look at an overall power gain of 12 bhp. The same is true of most other modifications although it is worth pointing out that some mods will not work well together at all.

I plan to maintain this site as a guide to help you avoid the mistakes I made and learn from the experience I have gleaned along the way. I do not claim to know everything - I do not even claim to know much at all but what I do know I will pass on and when I learn something new there will most certainly be a new entry made noting this fact.

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4 Responses to “Welcome to Car Tuning Tips”

  1. A_latif says:

    Hi there, thanks a lot for all that wonderful hard work of yours. I am starting my career in tuning cars, and trying to learn in different ways, and your website helped me a lot in simplifying lots of information. Thanks thanks thanks a lot

  2. adam says:

    hi i am a mechanic but want to go onto tuning cars for a living but am struggling to find courses to give me the qualifications do you know of any thanks

  3. mat says:

    i am much the same as adam want to get into car tuning but am having a hard time finding courses to learn how to tune a car as well as use a dyno. any suggestions?

  4. admin says:

    I suggest you join a tuning forum like the one at http://www.torquecars.com/forums and spend some time with tuners and car modders, you’ll pick up lots of tips and hints.