Carmakers not giving the customer access to their car’s full potential isn’t new, either. Back in the 1960s, the American car market was so competitive that carmakers launched updated models every year. There might be new paint and trim colors, and there would always be more performance. They achieved this by building, say, a 300-bhp engine but adding baffles and restrictors and maybe a smaller carburetor to de-tune it to 250 bhp, which would be the launch engine tune. Then each subsequent model year they would remove one of the restrictions, gaining power each time.
Today, the same thing happens, just in a modern way. “When the Nissan GTR was launched it had about 480 bhp, and the final editions had about 560 bhp,” says Litchfield. “All Nissan did was keep raising the turbo boost, 0.1 bar at a time. They’d say the exhaust or an intercooler was changed and they might be slightly different, but really it was the boost that gave the uplift.” Sometimes it’s even simpler than that. “If someone gets in touch wanting their Audi R8 or Mercedes C63 AMG tuned, the first thing I ask them is if it’s an R8 Plus or C63 S. They limited the power on non-Plus R8s and non-S C63s simply by only giving those models 60 percent throttle. Probably the easiest performance upgrade ever.”
However, the business of retrospective tuning is changing since Dieselgate, says Litchfield, and this may well impact aftermarket feature hacks too. “Before, with a Bosch engine ECU (Electronic Control Unit), there were three ways of getting in, so if Bosch changed the passcode on one you still had two other ..
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