Save Fuel with Unichip In 2023

Save Fuel In 2023 What can you do to save fuel? Quite a lot, actually, if you put your heart to it. Yes, a petrol-engine V8 SUV will never be economical, nor will a turbocharged supercar. Reducing your vehicle’s fuel consumption is nonetheless easier than you may...

Engine Control Unit (ECU) Magic

Engine Control Unit (ECU) Magic. The engine control unit (ECU) or engine management system (EMS) is certainly a revolutionary innovation. It was only an idea in someone’s mind’s eye back in the 1970s and 1980s. Indeed, electronic controls for automotive applications...

Fake News And Your Car

Fake News and Your Car. “Fake news” is the bread and the butter of the internet. Indeed, fake news has become a buzz term and for a very good reason. If you think about it, it’s nowadays very difficult to differentiate between what is the truth and what is not. It is...

The Octane Question

Octane Rating. Are you familiar with the meanings of octane ratings? Many people concede that they know only that their cars run on petrol or diesel. Many also know – either from word of mouth or manuals – that a certain octane is the most befitting to use....

The Pursuit Of Efficiency

The Pursuit of Efficiency. Vehicle manufacturers go to great lengths to improve the efficiency of their cars. Engines become smaller, yet more powerful, and a lot more fuel-efficient. Many other technologies help to achieve this, especially when we consider today’s...

Engine Wear

Engine Wear. One thing is for sure, and that is engine wear. Can we extend engine life and reduce engine wear? Another certainty. You don’t just pop open a modern car’s bonnet and restore it to its working order when something goes crooked. Yes, some faults are...

The Power Of Choice

The Power of Choice. If there is one thing the computer age has given us, it is the power of choice. In the 1980s, very few electronics were used in cars. With mechanical parts such as carburetors and distributors, it was almost impossible to optimise your engine...

Not All Engines Are Created Equally

It is sad but true when it comes to engines, they don’t manufacture them similarly. The user manual and official literature might state that your car’s engine produces, let’s say, 100 kW.  Well, they just round that figure off from the average that they obtain from other similar engines. Very few of these engine types will develop exactly 100 kW. The reason is that engines are mechanical devices that consist of hundreds of parts. These parts all have to fit together well to make it work. The constraints of economical mass production mean that manufacturers allow a certain tolerance range for the parts it manufactures. That means that these parts have to be of certain dimensions within an accepted range of variance. It would simply be too expensive – and virtually impossible – to mass-manufacture engines to such fine tolerances that they are identical.