The A-Z of vehicle remapping

Are you finding that your car is struggling to tow your caravan or that you are using more fuel when towing than you anticipated? If so, don't despair, the solution may not be as drastic as you think, as you don't have to change your car to solve the problem. Remapping is a tried and tested solution to increasing your engines power and fuel consumption. What's more it should not affect your insurance premium either as the insurers view it as an enhancement to your vehicle rather than trying to change its character to a hot rod or boy-racers dream! What is remapping? Due to the global nature of car manufacturers they will sell the same vehicle to many different countries. These countries can have different vehicle emission regulations, fuel quality and climate all of which require the engine to be set up slightly differently. Rather than put a completely different engine in for each country, manufacturers will use the same engine but programme the ECU to adapt the power and performance to suit. The ECU or Engine Control Unit is effectively a computer that controls fuel, ignition timing, idle speed, valve timing as well as other parameters that affect the engines performance. So by reprogramming the software that controls the ECU you can change the characteristics of your car or motor homes engine to cut costs, reduce CO2 emissions and lengthen the life of your vehicle. What are the benefits of remapping? By remapping the ECU it can produce some pretty dramatic results and deliver a very quick return on your initial investment. As well as expecting an increase in power of between 15% and 30% remapping also offers fuel savings of 8% - 12%, which can amount to a significant saving over the life of your vehicle. What's more this is achieved without affecting your vehicles CO2 emissions and consequently the road tax you pay. How do I get my vehicle remapped? Here at Phantom we have spent many hours assessing and adjusting ECU software to ensure it works with specific vehicles. In addition, testing the remapped vehicles in real-world conditions ensures our conversions really work. This has enabled us to develop our own Staged tuning packages that use specific hardware and software combinations that we guarantee will provide results.