Can a novice car owner remap their car’s ECU?
The current trend of remapping the car engine has become a common practice adopted by most of the car owners who are planning to buy the new car to drive by selling their existing car. It is a universal truth that every machine depreciates due to normal wear and tear, and therefore your car’s engine is no exception. Your car engine is like the heart in the human body, and due to regular pumping and hectic work schedule, people of today’s generation have to undergo different types of heart surgeries to enjoy a healthy life. Similarly, as your brand car ages, its performance declines and as a result, power and torque generation efficiencies are reduced, followed by a decline in fuel efficiency figures.
The problem becomes complex for the car owner when he has to invest a large part of his income in the maintenance of his car. To get rid of this problem, the person half-heartedly tries to sell his beloved car. But interestingly, today, thanks to great technical advances, owners can remap their car’s engine control unit (ECU) and enjoy driving their beloved car like they had before.
What is ECU Remapping?
In simple words, it can be defined as the process where the configuration or program of the engine control unit is rewritten by erasing the existing configuration. Doing this results in greater efficiency in power and torque generation, which helps improve your car’s fuel efficiency figures.
Today there are various car modifiers which by making use of the necessary remapping tools improve the overall performance of your car.
Can I reassign my car myself?
It would be interesting to know that the cars manufactured today are far ahead of their predecessors and today their performance can be more easily improved with the help of computers. Interestingly, going through this, there are many car enthusiasts who prefer to remap their car in the end by purchasing the required car ECU remapping software from any of the online modifiers. But, now the question arises whether it is possible for a layman or a person with substantial knowledge of computers to reassign your car’s engine control unit.
Well, an answer to this question in simple words is “NO”. This is mainly because all of us are mostly hobby drivers who consider car cleanliness, filling gas and air pressure and checking engine oil, brake oil and coolant level sufficient for the car maintenance. While the fact is that car maintenance goes beyond all this and also involves the maintenance of various other components including clutch system, brake system, suspension system and many more. Anyway right now we are discussing about remapping car engine drive so back to our topic if you are planning to remapping car yourself then there are certain factors you need to learn about before trying new project .
Understand engine operation:
The car engine runs on the mixture of fuel and air. Although there are various parts that help generate the power inside the engine, the wheels and the different components including the clutch, gearbox, pistons, drive shafts and connecting rods make your vehicle run smoothly on the road. highway.
The fuel and air mixture is a critical combination. Excess fuel will not ignite while too much air will cause the mixture to explode like a bomb which could damage the engine and other parts. When determining the settings for these mixtures in an engine, manufacturers determine different types of parameters that result in a smooth flow of these elements throughout the engine. When you reassign the engine control unit, the new settings are determined according to certain parameters.
Risks involved in remapping the ECU yourself:
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Due to lack of knowledge, your car engine may be damaged;
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Although engine remapping is not covered under warranty, attempting the same thing without notifying the original manufacturer could void your car’s warranty;
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Your car keys may stop working;
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The overall performance of your car could be affected.
Benefits:
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Improved power, torque and fuel consumption efficiencies;
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You can enable the unrequired features like auto gearbox shift points, DPF, traction control, launch control, EGR, etc.
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Enjoy the enhanced functionality of components such as brakes, suspension system, exhaust system and more.