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Can a novice car owner remap their car’s ECU?

The current trend of reallocating the car engine has become a common practice adopted by most of the car owners who plan to buy the new car to drive by selling the existing car. It is a universal truth that every machine depreciates due to its regular wear and tear, and therefore your car engine is no exception. Your car’s engine is like a heart in the human body, and due to regular pumping and hectic work hours, people of today’s generation have to undergo different types of heart surgeries in order to enjoy healthy lives. Similarly, as your brand’s car ages, its performance declines, resulting in low-power and torque generation efficiencies, followed by a decline in fuel efficiency figures.

The problem becomes complex for the car owner when he has to invest a large part of his income in the maintenance of his car. To get rid of this problem, the person tries to sell his beloved car by half. But interestingly today, by going through the vast technical developments, owners can reassign their car’s engine control unit (ECU) and enjoy driving their beloved car as they had before.

What is ECU remapping?

In simple words, it can be defined as the process in which the configuration or program of the engine control unit is rewritten by erasing the existing configuration. Doing so results in higher torque and power generation efficiency that helps improve your car’s fuel efficiency figures.

Nowadays, there are several car modifiers that, by making use of the necessary remapping tools, improve the overall performance of your car.

Can I reassign my car myself?

You would be interested to know that cars manufactured today are far ahead of their predecessors, and today their performance can be more easily improved with the help of computers. Interestingly, when going through this, there are many car enthusiasts who prefer to remap their car in the end by purchasing the required car ECU remapping software from any of the online modifiers. But, now the question arises whether it is possible for a layman or a person with substantial computer knowledge to reassign his car’s engine control unit.

Well, an answer to this question in simple words is “NO”. This is mainly because we are all mostly amateur drivers who consider car cleaning, filling gasoline and air pressure and checking engine oil, brake and coolant level for car maintenance. While the fact is, car maintenance goes beyond all this and also involves the maintenance of various other components, including the clutch system, the brake system, the suspension system, and many more. Anyway, at the moment we are discussing car engine unit reassignment, so coming back to our topic if you plan to reassign the car yourself, there are certain factors you should learn about before trying the new project.

Understanding how the engine works:

The car engine runs on a mixture of fuel and air. Although there are several parts that help to generate the power within the engine, which makes the wheels and the different components, including the clutch, gearbox, pistons, driveshafts and connecting rods, make your vehicle work no hassle on the road.

The fuel and air mixture is a critical combination. Excess fuel will not ignite, while the abundance of air will allow the mixture to explode like a bomb that could damage the engine and other parts. When determining the settings for these mixtures on an engine, manufacturers determine different types of parameters that result in a smooth flow of these elements through the engine. When you reassign the engine control unit, the new settings are determined according to determined parameters.

Risks related to remapping the ECU yourself:

  1. Due to lack of knowledge, your car’s engine may be damaged;

  2. While engine reassignment is not covered under warranty, attempting to do the same without providing the same knowledge of the original manufacturer could invalidate your car’s warranty;

  3. Your car keys may stop working;

  4. The overall performance of your car could be affected.

Profits:

  1. Improved efficiencies for power, torque and fuel consumption;

  2. You can enable the non-required functions like automatic gearbox shift points, DPF, traction control, launch control, EGR, etc.

  3. Enjoy the improved functionality of components such as brakes, suspension system, exhaust system and others.

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