As all the car fanatics know the tuning world is the most “happening” aspect of everyday motoring these days, and with any customization process there are of course trends that arise. And with this in mind we observe the latest trend in motoring, it is an almost clinical obsession with pushing the boundaries of horsepower from engines.
To punctuate this aspect you only need to observe the most average motoring enthusiast, getting a very decent very civilized hatchback, and then slapping onto it a turbo, intercooler and beefing up the engine to try and squeeze every inch of cubic combustable inch to have the largest amounts of horses under the bonnet and to shrink the 0-100 time to a heartbeat! Now I have no issues with this, at all, I do say the more BHP the merrier but the largest error in this is the fact that these contraptions have a tendency to become confused with racing cars (in the minds of their owners).
Ladies and gentleman a car that is fast in a straight line, no matter how many horsepowers it can chew, is in no aspect a good car. What this obsession is leading to is the dwindling of fine tuning a car to take corners, to push the boundaries and limits of grip. Let me explain what I mean; if you beef up the engine to X horsepower without stiffening the chassis, enlarging the breaks, stiffening the suspension, lowering the springs and getting a proper limited slip differential you are just wasting all of your funds for a quarter mile of a thrill.
When you are faced with the teeniest curve, you will realize in the most horrific of ways, that with no grip all of that power is going to waste. You cannot carry your speed into those corners. And with this in mind you realize the futility of squeezing your engine within an inch of its life without beefing up the car to use these horsepowers. And even more ironically if you beef up everything but the engine you realize that the car you own will be faster because it allows you to tap into most of the power of the engine most of the time.
So ladies and gentlefreaks, as much as I respect a proper engine tune, and I gasp in awe at the power gushing out of the exhaust pipes I cannot but respect a tune that involves the entire car as a unit rather than just focusing your efforts on one aspect of the the “car”. And remember that you are only as quick as the amount of horsepower you can spit out at the road for the longest amount of time!
by Joseph Hasbany