hello.
what is the difference between these tuning boxes and those cheap ebay things? just concerned about it wearing out engine components.
how does it work?
also is there a graph to show the difference between a 135bhp a500 2010 with and without the box in?
thank you
Quite often the "chips" that are on eBay are resistors, intended to be wired into your car's temperature sensor in order to trick the ECU into believing that the outside air is colder and therefore denser than it truly is. This will usually result in the car running slightly richer under full throttle. These produce little if any power gain on most cars, whilst also negatively impacting fuel economy and reliability.
Our units interface to your car's Boost and MAP sensors. The unit will dynamically modify the pressure signal from these sensors when required. This means that at idle and whilst at cruise the box does not change any values. When at full throttle the box will deliver a dynamically modified (lower) boost pressure value back to the car's ECU. The ECU will in turn change its output to the turbo control valve and hold the wastegate closed for longer until the desired boost pressure has been reached. This increase in boost pressure causes a good increase in power and torque throughout the rev range.
In terms of component wear, the turbo is being pushed a fair bit harder especially on the higher settings, though they can take quite a lot of punishment. I would say that if you drive the car hard with a big boost increase, you shouldn't expect that the turbo will do minicab mileage, but it will last a perfectly reasonable length of time for a performance road car.
Other than the turbo, everything else is under a little more load, but no more so than it would be on a higher output stock vehicle. If you drive the car harder with increased power you can expect to wear out everything from suspension components to tyres to clutches that bit faster. Hopefully that won't come as a surprise to most. I have attached a couple of dyno graphs of A500's with our box fitted. I do have more but not immediately to hand.
I hope this helps,
Best regards,
Edd
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