Custom Stage 

 

Often we are asked what a custom stage is. Its a very misleading meaning if not used right. Some of our colleagues throw out the word custom easily trying to impress clients. We need to debunk this myth once and for all. 

 

When we refer to a custom stage, it means it can either be performed on stage 1 or stage 2. Stage 3s are always customed out and tailored to each engine otherwise the bigger components wouldnt be able to work together. So at stage 3, we put more work into dialling in each and every upgrade the owner made to his car. 

The word "custom" itself takes us to something thats individually made to work on one application only and that means it cannot be re-used on another car. We all know that each engine is different that the other, and they always perform a little different. When lets say a manufacturer quotes that a car is 115 horsepower, is because after they tuned the car with the parameters they wanted, they dyno tested 10 or more cars and then took the average horsepower of the cars to come up with a number. We are often being asked how do we know if our tunes perform with what we put on the website. Its the same with the manufacturer, they dial in their preferences and then the car performs  the way they need. As the manufacturers, we are trying to tune the car to as much as possible without sacrificing longevity. In order to do this, when a car that we never tuned before comes to us, we need to develop the tune on it. This is where custom tuning comes to play. When we do custom tuning, its not possible to do within 1-2 hours, we need most likely a few days. 

 

So lets take an example.  

 

A client comes with a 2021 car we never tuned before and has an engine we never seen before, because even if its 2021, the engine might be running for years. We would also like to add to this point, that we get asked a lot from clients if we ever tuned their car. The answer is we dont tune the car per se, we tune the ECU in the car. Manufacturers use the same engine on different body types, so while we develop a tune, it doesnt matter if the engine is used on a hatchback or an suv, the changes we will perform would be the same. So with that out of the question, we go back to tuning an engine and an ECU we never saw before. First thing we need to check is if we have access to the ECU, by one of our tools. If our tools dont access the ECU, it means we cannot read it, so we cannot write it either, therefore a tune isnt possible. So if we have access to the ECU, we will read the ECU and then have a file. That file is chaotic and we need to identify the maps we need to change in order to perform the tune. That on its own will take days. After we have identified the maps we need to alter, we will start carefully altering the contents of the file and writing it to the ECU. After each write we will need to drive the car and get some datalogs of it in order to see if everything is in check. We might have to do this 5-20 times, depending on the complexity of the ECU and the car. Modern cars are pretty complex so we need to test it extensively in order to see its working properly. This sounds scary huh ? Its not when you know what you are doing. So by all means, you understand that the word custom means it needs a lot of time. When some of our competition tells you they will do a custom tune for your car and then in the same sentence they say it will be done in 2-3 hours, then you will know its not a custom tune. Even to the cars we already tuned, and developed a file for, its impossible to use a previously custom file, as it will definitely wont work. 

 

So basically a custom tune is a series of incremental increases into which we datalog every change until we get to the goal we set. It takes many days to complete, but gives the optimal results for our specific engine. As you can understand the prices of the custom files are different as well, and need to be discussed prior to doing it.

 

Now that you understand what a custom tune is, dont let anyone fool you in order to extract more money or to impress you more.