Adding 30+ Horsepower to your 2014 Camaro SS at Motiva Performance

The Following Excerpt is from a series of articles about Engine Calibration from Motiva Performance Engineering President Dave Rochau:

“It’s all in the tune.” Spend some time around auto performance enthusiasts and you’re bound to hear some variation of the phrase, but what is a “tune”? Ask around and you may get responses ranging from “a magic art form” to “a necessary evil”. The simple answer is a “tune” is simply calibrating the engine control devices that provide the fueling and spark timing (and transmission, throttle body and camshaft positioning in some cases). This article will focus less on the “How” of tuning and more on the “Why?” of professional engine calibration (ie Tuning and Dynotuning).
        The goal of a custom tune is to allow the engine to perform at full potential. This applies to the entire operating range of the engine in both full throttle and cruising conditions.  The two most critical parameters that must be adjusted are fueling and ignition timing. 

-Fueling: Fuel is supplied via either a carburetor or fuel injectors. Under part throttle or “cruise” conditions the goal is provide the least amount of fuel possible (for best fuel mileage) that still maintains perfect drivability and stoichiometric combustion conditions (the most complete combustion possible to limit harmful tailpipe emissions).  Under full throttle (also known as Wide Open Throttle or WOT) more fuel is added (also known as enrichment) to make as much power as possible. Additional benefits of enrichment include lowering the temperature in the combustion chamber reducing the possibility of preignition. 

-Ignition Timing: When “timing” is discussed, the moment the spark plugs are fired during the compression stroke of the engine is what is being talked about. “Degrees of Timing” refers to the number of crankshaft rotation degrees before the piston is at Top Dead Center (Before Top Dead Center or BTDC). During a tune or dynotune the ignition timing is optimized to provide the most efficient burn under part throttle conditions and the optimum power under full throttle conditions. Ignition timing may be retarded below optimum levels in order to protect against preignition conditions. 

         
Vehicles straight from the OEM are calibrated to operate not only over a very wide range of operating conditions (High and Low Altitudes, High and Low Atmospheric temperatures), but also over an incredible NUMBER of vehicles. No engine is exactly the same-especially mass produced engines that can vary more than 10% in power from what should otherwise be EXACT copies. Consider that ONE calibration is intended to work for EVERY vehicle produced in a certain model year and it becomes easy to see why gains are available even off the show room flow by simply optimizing the engine calibration for each particular engine.

For your 2010-2014 Camaro SS a Motiva Performance Dynotune straight off the showroom floor yields several benefits. Not only will your Camaro make more power, the fuel mileage will increase as well. There is no better first modification.

You can see here the benefits of tuning even a factory fresh 2014 Camaro SS. With just a Motiva Dynotune this Camaro went from 355 peak Horsepower to 371 Horsepower!

 Motiva Performance Engineering staff tuner Scott Fox calibrated the above vehicle. It came to us straight from the showroom floor and had more than 16 horsepower residing in the factory tuneup! We went on to install a RotoFAB cold-air intake on this 2014 Camaro and then custom dynotuned the vehicle again for another increase of nearly 15 horsepower!

Adding the RotoFAB cold-air intake unlocked another 15 horsepower out of this 2014 Camaro SS after Motiva Customer Dynotuning

 Again it is easy to see the value of custom tuning. Not only was horsepower improved, but the average MPG in combined city and highway driving improved from 20 MPG to 24 MPG.  That's 31 Horsepower gained in one four-hour dynotuning session at Motiva Performance! 

You can find the RotoFAB intake package here: http://motivaperformance.com/product/roto-fab-cold-air-intake-2010-14-camaro-ss/

Motiva Performance is also having summer time specials on all dynotuning. Please call them for more details (505)883-8388 or email: info@motivaperformance.com