Car Tuning & Styling

Car tuning (or car modding) is both an industry and a popular hobby, in which a car is modified in order to improve its performance and handling and better suit the owners driving style. more...

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As most cars leave the factory set up for average driver expectations and average conditions, tuning has become a way to personalise the characteristics of the vehicle to the owners preference. For example cars may be altered to provide better fuel economy, produce more power at high RPM or the ride comfort may be sacrificed to provide better handling.

Car tuning is related to auto racing, although most performance cars never compete. Rather they are built for the pleasure of owning and driving such a vehicle. Another major facet of tuning includes performance modification the car exterior. This includes changing the aerodynamic characteristics of the vehicle via side skirts, front and rear bumpers, adding spoilers, splitters, air vents and light weight wheels.

Areas of modification

Engine tuning

Engine tuning involves modifications designed to increase the power of the engine. These modifications can range from a simple chip tuning, to adding nitrous injection, to a complete engine swap.

"Tuning an engine" has many different meanings today. Traditionally, to actually tune an engine meant adjusting the timing and the air/fuel ratios. Today, many people consider tuning to be adding cold air intakes, exhaust systems, turbochargers, or any other part that could conceivably make the car faster. It is important to note that the two different meanings behind the word tuning refer to two completely different methods of making a car faster.

Adjusting engine timing and air/fuel ratios generally improves power and reliability of an engine without any futher modifications. On the other hand, tuning an engine becomes incredibly beneficial after already heavily modifying the engine with upgrades, like forced induction (including nitrous) or adjusting the internal parts to increase engine compression.

The second meaning is actually an incorrect use of the word tuning. Adding parts to increase horsepower and torque is not actually tuning, but physically modifying the vehicle and its engine.

Suspension tuning

Suspension tuning involves modifying the feathers/springs and shock absorbers of a vehicle. Here shorter feathers/springs and stronger shock absorbers are mostly used, in order to reduce body roll during cornering. Often the vehicle is lowered somewhat, reducing the vehicle's clearance.

For offroad vehicles, the emphasis is on lengthening the suspension to increase clearance.

Lowriders with hydraulic suspensions are another unique kind of suspension tuning.

Read more at Wikipedia.org