BMW tuning might be one of the surest ways to make your car go faster. Although tuning may make your car faster, you should know how to modify it and how fast it could get. To get the most power out of your BMW, you can take various approaches depending on how much faster you want your car to be.
Make Your Car Faster
An internal combustion engine burns gas to make the power that helps propel it. It needs air, gas, and ignition to complete the combustion cycle. Increasing any or all of these factors and the rate at which the combustion cycle happens might increase the energy it produces. Tuning is modifying a car with the goal to increase its power and/or efficiency.
Mapping The ECU (Engine Control Unit)
An ECU is responsible for engine operation. It possesses the instructions needed to run an engine. You can alter these instructions to make the engine produce more power than a stock BMW.
ECU mapping is also known as chip tuning and occurs in 3 stages:
Stage 1
The first stage is suitable for a stock car, and you do not need any hardware modifications. You may use bolt-on parts that you can fit from the comfort of your home or shop. This stage might add more horsepower and torque if done right.
Stage 2
The second stage complements the first one. It requires hardware input and is mildly aggressive to the engine.
Stage 3
The last stage relies on hardware input. At this stage, you change the engine’s internals to enhance effectiveness. This stage might create the most significant increase in horsepower and torque figures for the wheels.
Stroking the Engine
Stroking an engine increases the distance its pistons cover. Your mechanic may attain bigger strokes by changing the pistons, crankshaft, and connecting rods. An engine that has been stroked is often referred to as a stroker engine. Stroker engines may have more cubic capacity (CC) than stock engines.
For example, the M54B25 engine is 2500cc from the factory. Installing a 3.0 stroker kit may make it a 3000cc engine and may help in making more power than the original 2500cc version.
Boring the Engine
You might also add more power by increasing the diameter of the piston bore. Doing so enables the engine to burn more fuel at the same time. Boring an engine may increase its cubic capacity helping it have a greater combustion ratio. A bigger CC engine might make more power than small CC engines. Boring your engine might make your car faster as it may produce more power from the same number of cycles owing to the increased stroke ratio.
Increasing Air Intake
A BMW may also be tuned to go faster by increasing the air going into it. Your mechanic can upgrade the air intake and filter to a cold air intake. You may also achieve the same goal by installing a larger throttle body in your BMW. Both approaches ensure that air flows into the engine freely for a more efficient combustion cycle. Factory intake manifolds restrict the free flow of air into the engine. Installing a performance-based air intake might enable more fresh airflow into the chamber to help your car go faster.
Increasing Combustion Efficiency
You might also increase a car’s performance by enhancing the efficiency of burning fuel. Your mechanic may install spark or glow plugs with a wider heat range (colder plugs) for more precise ignition timing. You might also have to install performance ignition coils to match the needs of the new plugs.
Changing the type of fuel you use by switching to high-octane rating fuel and upgrading your fuel filters are other ways to promote efficient combustion.
Improving Exhaust Gasses Emission Efficiency
Tuning can also be done by improving your BMW’s exhaust system. Changing exhaust headers and removing catalytic converters might minimize constriction and enable the free flow of exhaust. It might also limit engine scavenging by increasing the fuel/air mixture in subsequent cycles.
Reducing the Car’s Weight
Removing most comfort features like heated seats, air conditioning, and airbags is a promising way to reduce weight. Fabricating carbon fiber parts to replace heavy body panels such as hoods, trunks, and fenders might help lower weight. Upgrading your wheels to magnesium alloy rims could also reduce the weight of your car. Weight reduction might help the car go faster by increasing the power-to-weight ratio.
BMW Tuning Services
BMW tuning might make your car faster than when it came from the factory. In some instances, a tuned BMW might even be faster than the flagship model. A Stage 2 tuned BMW e90 320i might be faster than a stock BMW 335i with the right mods. When you Stage 3 tune your 320i BMW e90, it might become faster than the E90 M3.
How much faster your car might become depends on how you decide to tune it. You might combine the methods above for maximum power gains.
