Do you feel like your car has lost power and could use an acceleration boost? Fortunately, you don’t necessarily need to buy a new vehicle. There are several modifications that you can use to boost your vehicle’s acceleration. Here are seven relatively simple ways you can improve a lagging acceleration.
Boost Your Power
Obviously, making your vehicle more powerful will help improve acceleration. However, there are several ways to boost a vehicle’s power. Which one should you choose?
A performance exhaust system can make your vehicle significantly more powerful and increase its acceleration. A custom aftermarket exhaust system increase power by allowing excess air to escape the engine more efficiently. Additionally, a custom system can give your car an aesthetic upgrade.
You can also upgrade your power by using power programmers and tuners to adjust the car’s performance features, such as fuel to air mixture and ignition timing. This customization allows you to find settings that optimize your car’s power.
Supercharger and turbocharger modifications can provide a strong power boost for your ride, as well, and may increase engine performance by 35 percent or more. These systems use forced air induction to boost power and acceleration without sacrificing fuel economy.
Re-Gearing
Re-gearing is not an easy process, but the performance improvements are well worth the hard labor. Replacing your vehicle’s gears with premium performance alternatives can drastically improve your car’s acceleration. To be more specific, re-gearing involves replacing the ring and pinion gears inside the vehicle’s differential.
Known as axle gear sets, these performance gears let the driver know how many rotations the driveshaft will make for every full tire rotation. For example, 4:1 gears will allow the driveshaft to spin four times for each complete rotation of the tire.
Gears with lower numbers are known as taller gears and can run faster before the engine reaches its redline. Conversely, shorter gears reach the redline more quickly. Taller gears can improve fuel economy, but they reduce acceleration. You can improve acceleration by re-gearing to shorter gears, but this may decrease fuel economy and top speed.
Upgrade Your Tires
Tire grip and traction have a major impact on a vehicle’s acceleration. The stronger the grip and traction, the higher the maximum acceleration. If your tires have worn-out tread, your vehicle’s acceleration has likely dropped significantly. Replace your old tires with premium high-traction options and you will likely see a major improvement in both traction and acceleration.
Swap Heavy Parts for Lighter Alternatives
A lighter vehicle will generally accelerate more quickly. You can lighten your vehicle by replacing heavy components with lightweight alternatives. For example, swapping out factory brakes for light, two-piece rotors will drastically reduce your vehicle’s weight.
A car’s power-to-weight ratio can also be improved by replacing stock flywheels with lighter ones. Replacing the battery can also make a major difference. Heavy stock flywheels need more horsepower to accelerate, but lighter aftermarket alternatives allow the engine to start faster and accelerate more quickly.
Finally, changing your heavy factory rims for lightweight alloy wheels will reduce both curb weight and unsprung weight, which can improve acceleration.
Make Your Vehicle More Aerodynamic
Improving your vehicle’s aerodynamics can improve not only acceleration, but also top speed, fuel efficiency, and handling. Aerodynamics adjustments are about making sure your vehicle is as close to the ground as possible. This reduces the amount of air that flows under the vehicle. When this air passes over uneven surfaces like the suspension and exhaust, acceleration suffers.
Lowering your car’s springs is one of the most effective ways to improve aerodynamics. This can lower the vehicle’s profile by several inches, which will in turn lower the center of gravity and increase acceleration, along with improving overall performance.
Install a Throttle Response Controller
As vehicle electronic technology continues to advance, drivers have many choices for custom parts that can improve acceleration. The throttle response controller is one example, as this component is specifically designed to increase acceleration and decrease response time.
Throttle response controllers bypass a large section of the vehicle’s traditional electronic throttle control system. These controllers have their own control circuits, which allow them to gather data on pedal position, notice when the vehicle is traveling at an extreme speed, and send this data to the vehicle’s computer system. This allows the vehicle’s failsafe systems to more rapidly identify problems. The failsafe system can also override the throttle response controller if it needs to. These processes can drastically improve acceleration rate and response time in many vehicles.
Engine Control Tune-Up
Most vehicles come installed with a programmable memory chip called an engine control unit, or ECU. This chip is designed to improve fuel efficiency and reduce pollutants in emissions. You can tune your ECU to increase performance by modifying the intake and exhaust parameters of your vehicle. This can be done by using a plug-in module or running a specialized software update through the diagnostic port.