Define High horse power and low horse power cars

Hello,

In some videos you mention it is best to practice on low horse power cars when beginning to learn to tune. Can you define what you mean by low horse power? Do you mean anything that is not boosted or a 4 cylinder car? I am planning on practicing on my 2017 Camaro SS, so I was wondering if this is considered a safe car to practice on. I also wanted to ask, do you suggest I use a knock audio detector for this car if it is not boosted and will be running a CAI, Ported Manifold and most likely Flex Fuel E85?

Thanks in advance!

Hello David

i generally talk about high horsepower cars as anything being 25-30% or more power than standard

i would recommend learning on n/a engines, not turbo or supercharged ( it is just easier to learn and teach )

your car will be perfect for learning (i recommend learning on pump gas so you can hear knock)

I recommend learning to use audio knock detection to learn to tune so you get to learn what knock is

and sounds like ( most stand-alone ecus have no settings for knock if you don't know what to listen for how do you know what knock is )

This is the way I prefer to train people.

Regards Ross

If I had to catagorize it, I'd say something "low" powered is NA, making less than 40hp per cylinder.

I think ideally you want to start with something that's not knock limited, however this can be difficult to figure out ahead of time, hence "low powered" is probably a good place to start.

Thank you for the helpful advice!

Hi David,

As you get into it you'll realise the most power is gained through ignition advance; forced induction not withstanding and for this you will defiantly need to understand Knock so as suggested start with a set of knock 'cans' so you can hear whats going on then progress to digital knock detection at a later stage. normally aspirated engines are great and require a little more thinking to extract big power numbers so a good starting point, you'll be chasing VE in no time. The LT1 is pretty much a perfect engine to start with as there is a massive, well documented aftermarket scene and the LT1 was used to great effect in the IMSA DPi cars beating the European LMP2's.

re: low/high power definition, if you're thinking NA then above 100bhp/litre would be considered high output and less than 90bhp/litre low output with anything in-between being the minimum requirement for a performance engine. For forced induction those number would be x1.5 maybe