Long Lost Days of Engine Tuning in the Garage

With the vehicles that are offered in today’s market you cannot for the most part make adjustments to the car in your garage.  This has everything to do with the computers and technology that is present on these vehicles which make for the right driving and controls for the various systems inside.  Most automakers are not suggesting or looking for you to make adjustments to your new vehicle and most changes will actually void the warranty of a new vehicle.  This means if you want to spend time turning wrenches or tuning a vehicle you have to do so while building a classic that was made before the introduction of computers into vehicles.

There is actually one type of engine that is being made to be tuned to some degree.  The Ford EcoBoost engine is showing up in nearly every single vehicle that is made in their lineup.  The idea with this is to offer more efficient vehicles for us to enjoy.  One of the advantages Ford is giving us on the vehicles with an EcoBoost engine is the ability to tweak the software to make them more performance oriented and give you a more advanced calibration to allow the cars to offer racing style tweaks and performance changes.

In order to make these changes you have to use the Ford Racking ProCal handset which will help you make your EcoBoost powered vehicle one that can give you a better ride than what it was advertised as it comes off the line at the factory. The thought behind this change is to allow you to tweak the electronics instead of pushing parts onto the vehicle that are not needed.  This allows the car to be upgraded without changing the drivability of the vehicle.  For real wrench turners this can be a bit of a letdown, but there are some cool parts to this tech update, you don’t void the warranty.

That’s right; you don’t have to make the decision between keeping your warranty intact and having a car that is updated to the tuning you want.  The handset will only cost you $595 to order it from Ford Racing and will come with the instructions you need to make the updates and give you the advantage over those who have chosen to keep their cars in stock form so you can easily beat them on the track and earn bragging rights even if you both have the same car.

To give you an idea of the upgrades that can be enjoyed, the Ford Focus ST will see an increase of up to 90 lb.-ft. of torque while maintaining the warranty.  If the Mustang or the Fiesta ST can both enjoy similar increases in power then this is going to be an item that will be an amazing increase for the EcoBoost family and without a doubt someone is going to find a way to use this item to take cars to crazy levels, but that will certainly void the warranty.  For those who don’t mind that will be an interesting venture into the specs, but for those of us who want to protect the warranty we can stick to the limitations offered.