One of the more confusing bits of terminology you might hear when you first take an interest in car tuning is the concept of the “Stage”. While the basic idea of stages is simple, how these terms get thrown around isn’t necessarily, so today we’re going to take a quick look at how this works.
To keep things short, we’re going to focus on turbocharged petrol engines. Non-turbo engines can use many of the same techniques to gain power, but without the easy power gains to be had from increasing boost. Diesel engines use most of the same tuning methods but have slightly different emissions control equipment.
What is stage tuning?
A stage represents a set of upgrades fitted as a set. As you might expect, a stage is how far you’ve gone with tuning part of your car. Stage 2 represents a more tuned car than stage 1. Where things can get a bit confusing is that what each “stage” means can vary from car to car, and even from tuner to tuner.
What one tuner considers to be stage 3 on a turbocharged Golf might be quite different from stage 3 on a normally aspirated BMW, for example. Worse still, what one tuner considers to be stage 3 might be completely different from another tuner working on the same car. There are some general rules of thumb, though.
What one tuner considers to be stage 3 on a turbocharged Golf might be quite different from stage 3 on a normally aspirated BMW, for example. Worse still, what one tuner considers to be stage 3 might be completely different from another tuner working on the same car. There are some general rules of thumb, though.
Stage 1
Stage 1 tends to be a series of modifications that can be fitted on their own to a standard car. This would include remaps that don’t require any additional hardware, intake and exhaust upgrades that leave the original catalytic converters in place. You could make all these modifications on their own, and for good power gains too.
Doing them together will see the remap software giving you bigger benefits than it would on its own. One thing we would note – it’s not as simple as totting up the separate gains for each bit of hardware and the software together. Engines are complicated things and how everything interacts together is not 100% predictable.
Doing them together will see the remap software giving you bigger benefits than it would on its own. One thing we would note – it’s not as simple as totting up the separate gains for each bit of hardware and the software together. Engines are complicated things and how everything interacts together is not 100% predictable.
Engine remapping
Upgrading a modern car often starts with a remap. This is the process of uploading slightly different software to the computer that controls the engine. This controls the fuel, spark, timing, and turbo-boost of the engine. By adjusting these settings, more power can be unlocked from the engine.
Remaps come in a few forms. Once upon a time, the norm was soldering a new chip onto the ECU, hence the term “chipping” a car. Now on most cars, this can be done via the diagnostics port, and the use of a laptop. We do that kind of remap in-house at our fitting centre and also offer tuning handsets. These are a really clever bit of technology that basically packs most of the hardware you need to remap a car into a handset not much bigger than a TV remote. You can use these yourself at home, which is an impressive level of convenience.
For some cars, remapping isn’t possible, but we offer a tuning box. These achieve the same end results, by modifying the sensor readings your ECU is seeing from the engine.
Depending on the engine, you can see significant power increases from the software alone. The current Golf GTI goes from 245HP to 295-313HP while the current Fiesta ST climbs from 200HP up to 233-252HP. However, not every car will gain this much power, it depends heavily on the engine and how much “spare” the manufacturer left in.
You could just pop a remap on and call it a day. The software only gets better and better as you remove limiting factors from the car’s engine and give the software more room to breathe.
Remaps come in a few forms. Once upon a time, the norm was soldering a new chip onto the ECU, hence the term “chipping” a car. Now on most cars, this can be done via the diagnostics port, and the use of a laptop. We do that kind of remap in-house at our fitting centre and also offer tuning handsets. These are a really clever bit of technology that basically packs most of the hardware you need to remap a car into a handset not much bigger than a TV remote. You can use these yourself at home, which is an impressive level of convenience.
For some cars, remapping isn’t possible, but we offer a tuning box. These achieve the same end results, by modifying the sensor readings your ECU is seeing from the engine.
Depending on the engine, you can see significant power increases from the software alone. The current Golf GTI goes from 245HP to 295-313HP while the current Fiesta ST climbs from 200HP up to 233-252HP. However, not every car will gain this much power, it depends heavily on the engine and how much “spare” the manufacturer left in.
You could just pop a remap on and call it a day. The software only gets better and better as you remove limiting factors from the car’s engine and give the software more room to breathe.
