A. A stage one remaps is an adjustment to the engine control unit (ECU) of a vehicle. Think of it as your car’s personal computer. It tells the car how much power it can use. A stage one remaps will override the default settings of your vehicle’s ECU, allowing it to draw more power or better fuel efficiency than it would stock from the manufacturer.
Q. What’s the difference between a stage one remaps and a stage two remaps?
A. As previously mentioned, a stage one remaps is purely a reconfiguration of existing software within your vehicle. The only modification is to the ECU, which tells the engine how to draw more power. Stage two refers to the physical hardware on a car, such as performance exhausts, cooling systems, and smaller turbos. By adding additional performance hardware, you can improve your cars speed, power, and fuel economy. At the current time, we do not offer stage two remaps.
Q. Will a remap affect my cars warranty?
A. During servicing some manufacturers software will be able to tell if a car has had its ECU adapted, however, this will read as a software update. As such, this could affect your manufacturer or dealer warranty.
Q. Why don’t the cars come with this performance from stock?
A. Manufacturers often use the same engine in a series of vehicles but allow certain models to achieve their true power so they can retail at a higher value. This is a marketing tactic employed to make you spend more. Manufacturers also have a wide range of rules which they must adhere to so they can produce their cars. These can range from specific emissions tests to which fuel grades an engine utilises. Ensuring they meet these requirements is vital for manufacturers, and therefore stock engine performance tends to be lower than what it can capably handle
Q. Can a remap damage my engine?
A. All our remaps are dyno tested to ensure they are safe for your vehicle. This means that the extra power your car produces will not surpass the limit the engine can handle. We also carry out a full diagnostics test on your vehicle before remapping to ensure your car gets the most from the performance boost and to ensure that the engine can safely handle the remap.
Q. What is a dead spot?
A. A dead spot is where your engine lags, failing to produce a smooth increase in power. Often, you’ll experience this when pulling out of a junction, and your car may feel unresponsive, then suddenly take off. Not only is this bad for your engine, but it is extremely dangerous to you and other motorists on the road.
Q. Will a remap affect my insurance?
A. Insurers are increasingly becoming more accepting of modifications such as ECU remapping. We recommend you inform you insurer of the modification to your vehicle to avoid the risk of a claim refusal. Insurers can, at their own discretion, revoke or void an insurance policy if they discover the modification.
Q. What is KTAG vs OBD Remapping?
A. There are two primary forms of ECU remapping. These are OBD remapping and KTAG remapping. The result in both cases is that the ECU is reprogrammed to allow your vehicle to better reach its potential, but there are a few key differences. OBD remapping is the most common - and easiest - form of remapping. It involves plugging our specialist tools into the OBD (On-Board Diagnostics) port in your vehicle, and then installing software onto the ECU. For our highly experienced team, it is simple and safe, and usually takes between 30 minutes and an hour from start to finish.
The second of these - KTAG remapping - is where the vehicle’s ECU has to be physically removed from the vehicle, and then adapted. This is most commonly necessary in older vehicles where the ECU can no longer communicate effectively with modern technology. KTAG remapping is more time consuming and must be carried out by trained time-served professionals like our Remap Kings team. We remove the ECU, then conduct the work in our fully equipped facilities to ensure there is no risk of damage to your vehicle and return the ECU the following day with the remap installed. Due to the highly skilled and time-consuming nature of this work, the prices are higher than for OBD remaps.
Q. If I have a remap will I lose my driver modes?
A. No, your driver modes such as ECO, NORMAL, SPORT/DYNAMIC they are all just that driver settings. This are adjustment setup by the manufacturer to give you on the fly adjustment to your driving experience, for instance ECO mode will only give 60%throttle to the engine when your foot is full down and steering gearbox will feel relaxed and soft, then in SPORT/DYNAMIC mode the throttle will be around 90% when your foot is only halfway down and again the steering and gearbox will be much sharper. That being said your engines ecu file remains unaffected in any mode and as such you will have more power in ECO mode the system will just adjust to make you still feel the same relaxed driving experience.
Q. At stage 1 will I benefit from a gearbox map?
A. In short no not really and this is due to the fact 99% of all modern DCT/DSG technology gearboxes are so advanced that they far exceed that of the manual counterparts. Aside from these the gearboxes’ own computer will analyse the power and torque coming from the engine ecu and adapt to cover the added power, a gearbox remap is only really advised after stage 2 and after stage 3 it is advised to look at upgrading the clutch packs in the gearbox. Once a stage 1 engine remap is performed the gearbox will self-adapt change gear smoother and feel more direct purely due to the engine upgrade.
Q. Will my engine handle the extra power safely?
A. Yes 99% of all modern-day vehicles now produced are well below their tolerance and due to mass production and keeping costs low manufacturers now use one or two engine types across the range, for instance BMW 320/325/330 are now all a 2.0t 4cylinder engine with few differences mainly turbo size and a manufacturer remap, so at stage 1 and 2 you are just unleashing the hidden performance safe within the tolerances of the standard engine.
Q. Can I go stage 2 without any hardware modifications?
A. Unfortunately not , due to the engine needing to flow more air and fuel it would not be safe to push the engine harder without the relevant upgrades, there is many differences that ‘look the same’ for instance ford focus ST and RS model both have the same running gear but a RS stage 1 will be much faster than a ST stage 1 and this is mainly down the minor differences between the two i.e. turbo and injectors, therefore the engine is capable but the parts around it need changing to benefit from the stage 2 software.
Q. Do I need to use higher octane/cetane fuel once remapped?
A. Yes, it is strongly advised that you should be using higher quality fuels once having your engine optimised, it’s not an old wife’s tale the better-quality fuel helps with the ignition cycle and the combustion process, poor quality fuels with lower RON rating will induce Knock/ pre-detonation this is bad but can sometimes be cured with using the right fuel and good servicing walnut blasting is a worse case fix. In easy terms it’s like a human trying to run a marathon drinking river water for a while you will be ok but as the time goes by you will start to get sick, well engines work the same, put in good fuel and you will get great results.
