Each is different and tailor-made for its respective make and model. Instead, we’ve selected several exemplary tuning box kits for specific vehicles. For this reason, it is difficult to objectively list the ‘best’ tuning boxes on the market today. Each car is different, and many tuning boxes exist with different maps and specifications for each. The precise tuning box you want depends largely on your vehicle. The Best ECU Tuning Box Kits: 3 Excellent Options You will have to sign a vehicle compliance waver before purchasing these products. Such vehicles are banned from highway or street use in most states. But the short answer is that a tuning box will achieve similar results as a flash but without voiding your warranty.īe aware that many tuning box kits, like the VR Tuned ECU kit seen above, are for racing only. What’s the advantage of an ECU tuning box kit? After all, can’t you just reflash the engine at an ECU tuning shop and get the same advantages? An ECU tuning box kit is the key to unlocking your car’s hidden potential. Manufactures want to sell cars in many different states to many different customers, so they program vehicles to stay comfortably within legal limits. They are physically capable of churning out much more power, but various federal and state regulations require them to never exceed certain level. All street-legal cars have certain limitations on power, torque, fuel consumption, and so on. In this way, a tuning box can allow your car to blow past the limits programmed by the automotive manufacturer. Finally, the tuning box relays this signal back to the engine. The ECU then commands the engine to increase power output beyond its normal limits. The ECU will receive the signal and be tricked into thinking that the engine is not running at its maximum power limit, even when it actually is. If you want the car’s engine to put out more HP and torque, have your tuning box intercept signals from the engine and modify them to understate the current power output.
Now, installing a tuning box is sort of like pulling a fast one on your ECU. But man, do they do wonders for a car’s performance! Source: eBay.
What is ecu tuning how to#
When the ECU calculates how to adjust a certain parameter (fuel intake, for example), it relays a signal back to the tuning box, which then sends it to the engine.įigure 2: Admittedly, ECU tuning boxes aren’t much to look at. The tuning box modifies data from the engine and sends it to the ECU. The ECU is the ‘brain’ of the car and decides what to do based on that sensor data. Basically, your car’s engine has sensors that detect all the relevant metrics of the engine’s performance. The ECU monitors and controls things like fuel intake, timing of the ignition, valve timing, and other fundamental functions of the car’s engine.Ī tuning box works like a middleman between the car’s engine and the ECU. What is a tuning box kit, you ask? Well, every automobile these days includes an electronic control unit or ECU (also called an engine control module or ECM). Today we’re going to be looking at the best tuning boxes to boost your engine power, performance, and fuel economy in one neat package.įigure 1: The VR Tuned ECU Tuning Box Kit V2 depicted alongside an Audi SF 3.0L engine.