This is a “technical” question but the reason I am asking is more “general automotive”.
How much can a car be de-tuned (meaning less power) and still run well and not harm anything?
I KNOW IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN BUT…
Wouldn’t it be great if Auto makers sold cars that had unleashed or hidden power so the insurance rates would be much lower?!?!?!?
I know back in the 1960s and 1970s muscle cars were underrated and it was easy to get away with back then.
Answer this question while you are at it…
Would you buy a car that only claimed 120hp and 18 second 1/4 mile if you knew you could easily make it much, much faster by paying for a $200-$400 “reflash”?
Like I said, I know it will never happen but I was just day dreaming.:lol:
The SRT4 is one that comes to mind that is rated lower than it really is. I know the factory specs for BHP were close to the WHP numbers which is pretty incredible.
Timing reduction, boost reduction are all ways you can “de-tune” your vehicle or any for that matter.
richen it a fuel system up a bit, but than you get into worse gas milage
sell car with really bad manifolds on and put replacement ones in the trunk like the good old days. Give un coreccted numbers and have dyno placed in extremely high alttitude
SAE standards for dyno really make that alot harder
restrictive exhasuts and intakes are the only way to do it… if you back off efficency too much the MPG suffers and then the tax breaks for the automakers suffer
Yeah, I know it is a pipe dream but it would be fun.
It was interesting when I got my Evolution and I mailed in the ecu and got more power that easily.
I just thought it would be funny to take that to the extreme.
Some people said they won’t buy my car because of insurance cost and it just made me start thinking crazy thoughts.:biglol:
my car is underrated it is said to have 215-225hp and something like 235-245lb/ft TQ
and my 7 year old car with 70K miles+ dyno’d 218/258, which is comparaby lower than some other stock viggens but still put down the whp for the bhp it is said to be measured at…
dodge used a fully heat-soaked IC when setting the HP numbers, thats why they are higher than spec’d also they wanted to save the consumer insurance rates, also why the next caliber srt-4 will be called a caliber, and not an srt model only, grouping it into the standard calaber insurance rates
But if they would have brought the Evolution here with 170hp the insurance would have been based on that.
Then they could have had a big recall and secretly reprogram the car for 300 hp when you take it back to the dealer.:snky:
On a turbo car its pretty easy. Just put all the equipment on the car capable of producing big power. Then set the boost to like 5 psi. One reflash later you get 15 psi.
I think the Skylines were done like that. [IB4skylinehate] I remember reading about a 80 hp gain from a Turbo back exhaust or something crazy like that , it was in Sport Compact a year ago.
x…
[edit] I think 944 Turbos were like that, I figured you would have know that! LOL
Now that the newer V8’s use Displacement On Demand, i suppose they could make one where 4 cylinders come off, and you only have to join 2 wires under the dash to turn them on. But you would think insurance would at least figure that one out.