What is The Difference Between a Tuning Box and Remapping and Which one is Better?
First of all, a Tuning Box is a plug-in device which effectively tricks the ECU into injecting more fuel without knowing it, Hence the engine gets more power. But a proper remap is where you read the contents of the engine’s ECU and modify the parameters in order to get more power. Basically, both these ways have their own advantages and disadvantages. So we want to walk you through the way they affect your vehicle.
As you may already know, Tuning Boxes are popular because you can plug them in and unplug them, so that you can put them on your new car with the same ECU. It wouldn't be possible, if the ECU or different connectors of your vehicle were not the same. The cost of them is higher than a proper Remap. Depending on the model of your car and its series, it has variable price. On the other hand, when you Remap your car on the dyno, you basically increase the torque and the horsepower of your engine by the right way.
How Do They Work?
A Tuning Box intercepts the signals from the sensors on the engine. On the other hand, Remap rewrites the software in the car's ECU. Let’s go into a bit more detail on the tuning box. It is very important to know that a Tuning Box uses the car's original software. As we mentioned above, it neglects the sensor signals and by manipulating the sensor signals, it forces the ECU to compensate for the signals in order to get the power to the target that we want.
For example, let’s say we want to get to 0.9 power of boost pressure, but the maximum pressure that the ECU will allow is 0.7. The tuning box will manipulate the signal sent from the boost pressure sensor down to 0.5 Bar. So, the ECU will compensate for this and increase the boost pressure by 0.2 bar to get it to what it wants. Which is 0.7. So the actual boost pressure is now at 0.9 while the ECU will see at 0.7 Bar and that is how a Tuning box gets the engine to make more boost pressure.
Remap is completely different. In remapping, we remap the tables that are in the car's ECU and depending on the software of your car’s ECU, the ECU will be full of maps for different things such as, Spark Advance, Lambda etc. In fact, it has been done individually and we program remaps by purpose to accommodate for the specific needs of each vehicle, the exact results will be assessed depending on the make, model and year of your car. So, that's the right way of tuning. To be honest with you, the way Tuning boxes increase power is questionable. For example, they increase the fuel pressure beyond any natural manufacturer's limit. So, they are not very good for injectors. Also it could be quite dangerous if you increase the fuel pressure to that extent.
Which one is Better For You?
To be honest with you, it depends on various things. Such as, the state of your engine, It depends on what you want to achieve. On a standard engine the difference between a Remap and a Tuning Box is probably going to be pretty small. But the thing to notice is, when you want to remap your car, you can consider what exactly you want. For example, for someone who wants to improve its fuel consumption, the only way to do this is Remapping. On the other hand, there might be someone who wants to increase the power as well as a good fuel consumption, Again the answer is Remapping. There are a bunch of things that you can do by Remapping depending on the customer's requests. Things like: Pop & Bang, Stage Tuning, Speed Limiter removing, etc. In fact, on tuned engines a Tuning Box is not suitable at all. A Tuning Box is designed to work with a factory software and the factory software is designed to work with a standard engine so if you've changed the turbo or you’ve changed the exhaust or even if you want to get rid of the CAT Cams or Oxygen sensor, you're gonna need a Remap.
You are not able to do any of these properly by a Tuning Box. The only advantage of a Tuning Box is that there's no warranty concerns, so the dealer can't see that you've changed anything in your car. The only thing you have to do is you take the cables on the Tuning Box of the car before you call the service. It's undetectable and obviously the Tuning Box is much easier to install. You can install it and remove it yourself.
We have gotten a car on the dyno in order to compare the results. We had run the vehicle with a Tuning Box tuned to the maximum on it, then we had run it with our hand-programmed software.
As you can see on the graph, first it made 113 horsepower at the PTO which was obviously nothing. Then we did manage to turn the Tuning Box slightly, and it made 135 horsepower at the PTO. One thing to note is, there was a bit of knock. When we put the tune file on, it made 151 horsepower. With a nice, smooth, consistent power and we didn't have to change anything really drastically to get that power.
🏁In conclusion, for tuned cars there's no debate that you're going to need a Remap because the Tuning Box simply won't work with a highly modified engine. Actually, it depends on you. If you want to have a Tuning Box with a higher price. On the other hand you can pay lower to us, in order to tune your vehicle individually every time. Considering the results and the efficiency, there is no need to say that Tuning Box is not compatible with a professional remapping which is only programmed for your car.
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