Why tuning?
Most people think tuning is about more power. It is, but that’s only part of it. When you tune an engine you almost always get two additional benefits: Economy and Drivability.
Economy happens because almost always the state where the engine produces most power is also where it is most effective, and therefore uses the least amount of fuel. Not unimportant these days. And pollutes the least. There are examples where you can make more power and get less economy. You can for instance go too rich on carburetor setting, it can be a good thing to do because it buys you insurance against a lean condition which can cause detonation, and if you do that you use more gas. And of course if you’re so happy about your new power you drive fast all the time, then economy goes out the window. But in general, if the ignition setting is off, you lose both power and economy. If the carburetor is out of tune, you lose both power and economy.
Drivability, what is that? It’s something that has become more and more important to us over the years. In fact we're willing to let go of a little performance if it gives us a car with better drivability. What is drivability? Well our ideal is an electric car(!). Or the cars in a Tivoli that you smash into each other. Why? Instant throttle response. No lag, only seamless power. We don’t want a car that’s fast, if at the same time when you need the power and floor the pedal, it bogs down and then comes after 0.5 to 1 second, that’s annoying. And we don’t want a car that’s pretty slow on the low rpms and then come on like crazy when rpms reach 4000. It may be fun the first time it happens, to suddenly get that kick from behind, but a better car would be the one that kicked hard all across the rpm band.
So to us tuning is about getting the best Performance, Drivability and Economy. And the way to get there is to tune for Performance, and if done the way we describe on these pages, Drivability and Economy will follow.