Tuning for performance basics, Petrol & Diesel

The very basics of tuning is what is called power to weight ratio.For spending no cash at all you can make your car handle better and go quicker-simply get the clutter out of your car.A lighter car with the same engine will go quicker as it has less work to do to get it rolling and going.It will handle better as again it has less weight to deal with[ if you have a rear wheel drive you may need some weight on back end in order to get the power down however]. Next up is understanding what is required to make an engine work and how to make it go better.An engine needs fuel and air, therefore first stop is to get the fuel and air into and out of the engine as efficiently as possible, so look towards a good quality air filter and free flowing exhuast system.With this basic mod your engine now has a greater capacity to take the ingredients[ fuel and air] and process them more quickly, so it can do more work.more work equals more power equals quicker car. The basic idea then is very simple, try to get the engine to do more work which will equal more power. depending if you have a Normally aspirated car {NON TURBO} or Forced induction {Turbo charged, supercharged} the next steps may change.For normally aspirated {NA} you should be looking towards either a performance cam kit, or uprated fuel pressurre reg most likely. The camshaft controls the operation of your valves in the head, a longer duration of inlet valve opening will allow more fuel into the combustion chambers, an uprated fuel pressure reg allows a greater pressure of fuel into engine, both provide more of the ingredients an engine needs to do more work. This is just the very start point, we have not covered many other aspects which can improve an engines ability to work harder and do more, therefore generate more power.Throttle bodies, chips, lightened flywheel,better crankshafts, machined cranks, polishing and porting, increased engine capacity and so on.Even Nitrous!! For turbo charged cars [forced induction] of course air filters and quality performance exhausts again are the start point, then you can start looking towards cams, chips, lowering intake air temperature by means of larger capacity intercoolers, or charge coolers. Cooler air is denser and therefore carries more oxygen, more oxygen is more engine food, and again the engine will perform better with cooler , denser air getting to it. To be continued, thanks