Remapping

Courtesy by Izahar

Many types of Korean cars are driven in Malaysia but the KIA Spectra has been the brunt of poor fuel consumption (FC) jokes. By chance, I got to know a Hyundai specialist who does remapping for the KIA Spectra. At the time I had Putt-Putt remapped, there were 3 remapping programs versions to suit different production batch of the KIA Spectra.This chap certainly knows his business. While my ride was being re-tuned he explained that the original program was replaced by another which reduces the original petrol variable by 10%. Subsequently, the distributor was advanced proportionately to accommodate that adjustment. He clarified improvement in performance translates to engine heat so the maximum tolerance he allowed was equivalent to the safety limits of that car generated by the amount of engine heat from remapping, not that it could not be tweaked for better performance. On first test run, I was not impressed and he said results will not be immediate as the ECU needed to gather new input as the database of my driving style was reset to zero and this required approximately a full tank of petrol's usage. It's been some time since the remapping job and I now get better response in the low-mid range torque making it nice driving in traffic jams. I also experience improvement in FC but exactly how much I'm not sure. I travel daily 50km. From a full tank on Sunday, my previous regular readout was 1/8 tank full by Saturday. It now records 1/4 tank full so I'd say that's a lot. However, I don't think this was attributed purely by remapping but from a combination of mods in my ride.