TUNING | How it Works

Summary

Highlights

• Tuning used to be as simple as adjusting screws on a carburetor, similar to tuning a guitar 🎸.
• The introduction of ECUs marked a significant shift, taking tuning from mechanical to digital realms 💻.
• OBD II ports, standardized since 1996, play a crucial role in diagnosing and tuning modern vehicles 🚗.
• Modern tuning has expanded the potential of performance adjustments without physical modifications 🔧.
• Novices are advised to approach tuning with caution, as improper adjustments can lead to engine damage ⚠️.

Key Takeaways

• Tuning has evolved from simple mechanical adjustments to complex computer-driven modifications 🚗💻.
• Early tuning involved adjusting carburetors, a process somewhat akin to tuning a musical instrument 🎶.
• Modern tuning utilizes ECUs, allowing for precise control over engine performance through software adjustments 🔧.
• OBD II readers have standardized diagnostics, simplifying vehicle maintenance and tuning 📊.
• Despite advancements in tuning technology, the process requires expertise and can be risky if not done correctly ⚠️.

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Car Tuning The chapter discusses the origins of car tuning, emphasizing the long-standing desire of car owners to enhance speed while manufacturers prioritize reliability. It explains that cars are built with components meant to ensure consistent performance, but tuning involves adjusting these variables to optimize engine performance. The historical comparison to tuning musical instruments highlights the intricate, skillful process of car tuning.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Carburetors and Tuning Basics This chapter discusses the basics of tuning carburetors in engines. It emphasizes the importance of adjusting the mixture of air and fuel to optimize engine performance. A proper fuel-to-air ratio is crucial: an excess of gas makes the engine run 'rich,' while too much air makes it run 'lean,' affecting how the engine idles or revs. The chapter also briefly mentions the role of the choke in tuning.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Advanced Tuning Concepts The chapter discusses advanced tuning concepts for car engines, focusing on the role of carburetors and the adjustment mechanisms involved in optimizing engine performance. It explains how tuning is essential for ensuring the proper mix of air and fuel and highlights the importance of correctly adjusting timing belts and ignition timing. Torque curves are mentioned as a tool to determine the optimal engine performance.
• 02:00 - 03:00: ECU and Electronic Tuning The chapter discusses ECU and electronic tuning in the context of automotive engines. It touches on the evolution from mechanical modifications, such as changing cams, lifters, and push rods, to modern electronic tuning. In the past, altering engine performance involved hardware changes to shift performance peaks. Today, tuning the engine electronically allows for optimization at these new performance points. The chapter also mentions the need to retune the engine when additional components like a blower are added, in order to maintain the right air-fuel mixture due to the change in engine variables.
• 05:00 - 06:00: OBD Systems and Diagnostics The chapter examines the evolution of OBD (On-Board Diagnostic) systems and automotive diagnostics, focusing on how engine tuning and performance have changed from their initial factory settings. It discusses the limitations of tuning for optimal performance at only certain points within the engine's operational range. The narrative then transitions to the late 1970s and early 1980s when manufacturers began detuning engines to reduce horsepower in favor of improving fuel economy. This change was also aimed at preventing car owners from easily tuning their vehicles for enhanced performance.
• 08:00 - 10:00: Modern Tuning and Safety The chapter 'Modern Tuning and Safety' discusses advancements in automotive tuning technology, particularly the introduction of early Engine Control Units (ECUs). These devices were used to ensure efficient air-fuel mixture by measuring the oxygen levels entering and leaving the engine. By controlling a solenoid, they managed the carburetor's adjustments, limiting the need for manual tuning intervention. This shift effectively reduced the owner's ability to modify the air-fuel mixture unless they altered the ECU's settings.
• 11:00 - 12:00: Sponsored Message and Conclusion This chapter explores the evolution and importance of Engine Control Units (ECUs), also known as Engine Control Modules (ECMs), in automotive technology. It discusses how tuning began to take shape, enabling advancements such as computer-controlled variable valve timing and ignition timing. Initially, ECUs controlled only the fuel mix, but their role expanded as fuel injection technologies were refined.

TUNING | How it Works Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 - Since we've had cars, car owners have been trying to make them faster. Most manufacturers have been trying to make them more reliable. Cars come from the factory with a bunch of stuff designed to make it run a certain way. So how do you make it faster? Tuning! Tuning is trying to get the right mix of variables for peak engine performance. Back in the day, it was actually quite similar to tuning a musical instrument.
• 00:30 - 01:00 You tweak some screws and you'd listen. If it sounded right, you did a good job tuning. And if not, it mostly meant tuning a carburetor. The carburetor's where the air and the fuel mix before they go into the engine. Too much gas and not enough air makes the engine run rich. Too much air and not enough gas makes the engine run lean. So it'll either rev too high or idle or it'll sputter out if it's not tuned right. The choke, wait a minute.
• 01:00 - 01:30 We'll talk about carburetors in a different episode. We're talking about tuning, the degree to which these flaps can open and let in air, is determined by a screw. And the chamber where the gas and air mix is also tweakable on a car. A tuneup meant that a mechanic would make sure your timing belt was adjusted properly, your ignition is happening at the right time, and that the right mix of air and fuel is getting in the engine. We looked at torque curves before. An engine performs best right here.
• 01:30 - 02:00 We've also talked about cams, and lifters, and push rods. But back in the day, if you wanted to change this peak, you had to change out some hardware. And essentially, you're moving the peak maybe from here to here. This new configuration meant you had to tune the engine to work optimally at this point, thanks to the new hardware. Same thing with adding a blower. You have to tune the engine to get the right air fuel mix into the engine because you're changing another variable
• 02:00 - 02:30 away from how it was set at the factory. But even when you're making your engine perform better, you're tuning it for this optimum spot at one place on the curve. You couldn't really do much about performance in these red ranges or these. Then something happened in late 70s and early 80s. Manufacturers were tuning down engines to make less horsepower and get better fuel economy. And to stop people from tuning your own cars,
• 02:30 - 03:00 they put these little caps on top of the carb adjustments. And make sure the air fuel mix was staying efficient. They use E, C, Us. Early ECUs mostly measured oxygen, going into the engine and coming out. They used this signal to control a solenoid that would determine how much the carb would open or close and how much fuel would be getting next with the air. They were effectively taking the tuning out of the hands of the owner. If you wanted a different air fuel mix, you had to either trick the computer
• 03:00 - 03:30 or reprogram it. This is when tuning as we now know it started taking shape. It also opened the door for computer controlled variable valve timing and computer controlled ignition timing. What? By the way, the ECU's the same thing as an ECM, or an engine control module. The ECU really only controlled fuel mix in the early days. But it started becoming more important as fuel injection started getting refined.
• 03:30 - 04:00 Later on, manufacturers added transmission control modules. Eventually, they started putting them together with ECU in the same chip, which makes a powertrain control module. But forget all these alphabet soup. Most people now just refer to the whole thing as the ECU. Now, we know that the ECU's a little computer that gathers information from sensors placed all around your car. Then it gets sent in from wheel speed sensors, engine sensors, O2 sensors, zero flow sensors, temperature.
• 04:00 - 04:30 Oh, there's so many sensors. Relax. The ECU takes all of it and does millions of calculations every second to determine how to control everything from the air fuel mix to transmission shift to the engine's redline. The ECU also identifies problems while it's sorting through all that info. As ECU's becoming more common, engine and emissions equipment became increasingly electronic and complicated, car manufacturers started putting diagnostic ports
• 04:30 - 05:00 to make it easier to figure out exactly why the engine light was on. But there was no industry standard. So they used whatever kind of port they felt like. To figure out why the light's on, you might had to connect some pins to the port, or gently caress it, tiny screw on the ECU. Then you'd wait for the warning light to blink out a code. And then you'd look up the fault that that code corresponded to. Or maybe you could buy an expensive proprietary scan tool, and/or computer to make things a little easier on yourself.
• 05:00 - 05:30 But every manufacturer had their own idea what these ports should look like. And eventually, the government mandated that all cars came with a standardized on board diagnostic system so they can better monitor emissions. And keep a car running clean. So from the 1996 model, every car is equipped with a universal OBD II port. Why am I talking about OBDs? Because an OBD reader can tell you all about the little things going on inside the engine
• 05:30 - 06:00 and that can help you tune your car. We mentioned all the things that go into tuning a car. Valve timing, ignition timing, air fuel ratios, and more. And now, these things are determined by a computer. Tuning programs the computer to optimize engine performance by changing any or all of these variables. Let's look at that torque curve again. With old school tuning, you could change an engine's performance
• 06:00 - 06:30 but you're really only gunning for the best performance right here. Big cams, open valves, lots of variables, lots of gas. When you're jetting a carburetor, you're tuning it for this spot. When you tune the distributor, you're tuning it for this spot. And everything else was off. But now, because so many things are controlled electronically and valve timing can be varied, we can change things like ignition and valve timing without changing hardware and make it better at different RPM.
• 06:30 - 07:00 So we can't do too much to this part of the curve because that's where the engine performs best. What we can do is fudge some valve timing. Intake fuel injection. In ignition to make it look a little bit more like this in the low end. Budge a bit more and make a little bit like this in the high end. With engine controls, we've widened our peak performance from about a 15 RPM range to a 400 RPM window. That's... pretty good.
• 07:00 - 07:30 The spark in the cylinder is kinda like a wave. It got more force as it gets going. We wanna make sure we're getting the most force to the crank when we got the best mechanical advantage. As the speed in the engine changes, the point where this optimization occurs changes as well. And that is why ignition timing can be so important. In the early days of electronic tuning, people had to figure out what meant what in the ECU coding. So they changed half the values in the ECU and see if it changed safe fuel.
• 07:30 - 08:00 If it didn't, they changed the other half of values and it would change fuel. Then they'd just keep changing half and half and half again and again until they found the value that affected fuel. Then they'd have to start all over again to maybe find ignition timing. Crazy. Nowadays, all that legwork's been done. And it's easier to know what to change in your ECU's coding to change what you want in the engine performance. I mean, not for me. I don't know how I could do that.
• 08:00 - 08:30 Other ECU tweak seek out performance without adding physical mods would be raising rev limits. Fiddling with launch control settings and removing undefeatable traction and stability control programs. But don't screw around with these things unless you really know what you're doing. The people who do know what they're doing are really good at it. I'm talking like Beautiful Mind stuff. You shouldn't tune your engine unless you're a professional engine tuner. If you wanna try around with a car you're not gonna try,
• 08:30 - 09:00 do it as a hobby. There's guys who've been doing this since the early days of ECU. And they're still learning stuff. Whoo, that's a lot to talk about. You wanna take a break, click on the subscribe button. So how do we know that all the variables were changing? In fact, what's happening under the hood? We go back to the OBD. This is a FIXD OBD II reader. But the guys that fixed are constantly pushing to see how intuitive they can make these interfaces. This transmits live data from your car's ECU
• 09:00 - 09:30 to your phone or tablet. So when the car's running, it can display and record a ton of data. After you apply a new tune with FIXD live data, you can closely monitor and ... All of these things are tractable and recordable and mappable with FIXD. That helps you make sure your new tune is safe for your vehicle.
• 09:30 - 10:00 And if you think there's any improvements that can be made in the app, you can let the developers know. They're constantly looking for ways to make it better for people who use it. Ann OBD II reader can also cue unit of things that are hurting your performance outside in the tune. If one of your sensor's is malfunctioning or clogged, it's gonna screw up your performance because the ECU doesn't have an authentic picture of what's going on. You don't use these OBD sensors to tune the car. You need a separate computer for that and big brains.
• 10:00 - 10:30 But an OBD II with a good interface will let you know what's going on inside of it from the tune. But what about those chips? They're clean, they can eat you out an extra 25 or 50 more horsepower without doing anything else. Look, most car companies are factory tuning their cars for optimum performance about a wide powerband. They want you to have a well performing car. Unless you're adding some hardware and like a blower or maybe NOS injection,
• 10:30 - 11:00 there is no way you're cranking out an extra 50 horsepower from ECU alone. If you have hardware like intake, an exhaust, or headers, injectors, well, the engine's gotta be recalibrated and that is where tuning comes in. So a chip with no hardware? It's bad news. Hardware with no tune? You're in trouble, buddy. Good tuning companies use in cylinder pressure sensors or knock sensors to keep from blowing things up.
• 11:00 - 11:30 Good tunes are warranted and tested for thousands of miles and tracks. Tuning. Click the subscribe button so you never miss an episode of Science Garage. You might have noticed I've mentioned FIXD in this episode. And that's because this episode is brought to you by FIXD. I also think it's a pretty cool OBD II reader. Go to fixdapp.com/donut and enter donut at the checkout for 10% off your order. Click the link in the description to get your FIXD today. Thanks, guys. We couldn't do this without you.
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