 |
It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Car tuning. (Discuss) |
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2009) |
 |
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (August 2009) |
A tuner car, often from Japanese, Asian or European manufacturers, is a car that combines comfort, practicality and high gas mileage with performance modifications, primarily to its engine. Tuners are normally good-handling vehicles, due to their light weight and more sophisticated suspensions.
Tuners are different from supercars in many respects, from price to engine displacement and horsepower. However, they're not the typical imported sedans or SUVs; they are lighter, faster and have better handling.
What distinguishes a tuner from the rest of the cars is that the owner is - in many ways - expected to customize and personalize the car to their liking. They are manufactured in a way that makes it easy for the owners to improve the cars. Some are even de-tuned to meet horsepower limits of other countries. Popular modifications range from visual upgrades such as changing the rims, tinting the windows and installing bodykits, to a variety of performance modifications (primarily to the engine), such as installing a short shifter and a Weighted Gear Knob, depending on what the car is "tuned" or set up for.
Some tuner manufacturers offer variants of their cars with performance modifications already installed, such as the Subaru Impreza STi and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. Due to their smaller engines, these cars are often manufactured with turbo-chargers and super-chargers in order to compete with other sports cars.
A Tuner also can refer to the driver of a tuner car.
Contents |
Origin
In the 1970s and 80s, Japanese motor companies produced many popular performance cars and performance versions of existing cars. However, many of these were never exported beyond Asia. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, "gray imports" of Japanese performance cars, such as the Toyota Supra and Nissan Skyline (R32-34)[1][1] [2][3], became abundant in Western Europe and North America. Many factors, such as the interchangeability of parts, the low cost of obtaining an imported used car, and networking and e-commerce via the Internet all allowed the expansion of the practice of modifying a low-cost compact car. In the United States, this was in direct contrast to the domestic car production around the same time, where there was a very small performance aftermarket for domestic compact and economy cars. In the United States, the focus was instead on sports cars such as the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Corvette, or on classic muscle cars.
Because of their light weight and the increasing availability of low-cost tuning equipment, economy and compact cars exhibit high performance at a low cost in comparison to dedicated sports cars. As professional sporting and racing with such vehicles increased, so did recreational use of these vehicles. Drivers with little or no automotive, mechanical, or racing experience would modify their vehicles to emulate the more impressive versions of racing vehicles, with mixed results.
The major reason for the rise of this class of automobiles into racing scenes was the Rallying competitions, where highly modified tuners race against each other on twisty roads and are timed. This can easily be seen in today's tuner culture. Roof scoops, gigantic spoilers and drifting are all derived from Rallying.
During the late '90s, demand for tuning began to spike with the introduction of a video game franchise by the name of Gran Turismo for the Sony Playstation. It showed that normal everyday cars could be transformed into high performance vehicles for racing.
Culture
Rally Competitions
Rally competitions are where heavily modified tuners from all over the world compete against each other in various locations.
Street Races
competitions where street racer compete against each other for money or pink slips. These take place in a city that has good turns or a straight away
Tuners vs Muscles
 |
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2009) |
Tuners are often compared to muscle cars by many automobile enthusiasts. The primary reason seems to be that both muscle cars and tuners are modified for better performance. Enthusiasts from both of these groups aim to build the ultimate sports cars by making less costly modifications.
Many muscle car enthusiasts, partly because of nativism, and partly because of their belief in domestic industrial superiority, oppose the recent culture of tuners within automotive racing[citation needed]. There is a somewhat antiquated perception among automobile enthusiasts that imports, specifically Japanese cars, are not built to the same standards as American cars (a notion that has lost significant credibility in recent decades). With time, this perception has tended to lose credibility due to the rise of the global economy and agreements like NAFTA. Few American cars are built of 100% American parts, and they are often built in neighboring countries such as Mexico to reduce costs. Furthermore, many Japanese cars are often built within the United States to avoid tariffs.
This opposition can be even seen in technical respects. Muscle cars, by definition, were meant to be spacious, durable, unsophisticated, and powerful, factors which eventually lead to bigger and heavier cars. That can be considered a disadvantage from a performance perspective, as weight is inversely proportional to handling. On the other hand, tuners are by definition meant to be sophisticated, exact, light, and efficient, while carrying the potential of becoming the ultimate sports cars. In addition to their light weight, they are also meant to handle well, so they come with a more advanced suspension and chassis. However, tuners fall short in light of the massive torque and power that the bigger V-8s produce. Muscle cars come with powerful engines with linear torque and horsepower curves, resulting in better acceleration and top speed, while tuners, because of their small engines, have sharper torque curves—especially when they have turbo-chargers installed. This adds the negativity of worse "off the line" speed, "turbo lag"--the time it takes between hitting the gas pedal and the turbo to build up enough momentum to "kick in." [4]
Essentially, this makes tuners better in handling and muscle cars better in straight-line acceleration. The general idea is that muscle cars are meant for drag racing and tuners are meant to be on track or participate in "drifting" competitions. However, this has not kept tuners from drag racing and muscle cars from twisty tracks and drifting competitions.
Classic muscle cars were simple, they were heavy and handled poorly in general. Although modern muscle cars such as the Chevrolet Camaro, Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger, and Dodge Charger retain the large V8 engines, they now take advantage of modern suspension, are a good deal lighter, have better handling, and have computers which are more complex, which also helps to improve their fuel economy.
Modification
The essence of modification of a tuner car is an attempt to extract the greatest possible performance from the base motor vehicle through the addition, alteration or outright replacement of parts. Although this largely involves modifying the engine and management systems of the vehicle to increase the power output, additional changes are often required to allow the vehicle to handle this power, including stiffened suspension, widened tires, better brakes, improved steering and transmission modifications such as the installation of a short shifter. Although largely invisible from outside the vehicle, certain modifications such as low profile tyres, altered suspension, and the addition of spoilers can change the overall appearance of the car. A further cosmetic transformation of the Tuner Car, such as the installation of an aftermarket shift knob or a custom sound system, is also common.
As mentioned earlier, Tuners, because of their small engines, have sharper torque curves, especially when they have turbo-chargers installed. This results in worse torque distribution throughout the different RPMs and adds the negativity of worse "off the line" speed, which is called "turbo-lag"--the time it takes between hitting the gas pedal and the turbo to build up enough momentum to, "kick in". Although some tuners based on weight loss and naturally-aspirated engines exist and don't suffer from the lag, the near universal use of turbochargers over superchargers contributes greatly to the issue. However, the more professional tuners have recently begun to use lightweight ceramic blades in their turbos to reduce lag.
See also
References
- ^ a b Chang, Richard (Summer), "Access Denied", 0-60 Magazine, http://skylinegt-r.wikidot.com/0-60mrex
- ^ LeftlaneNews R32, R34 Nissan Skyline imports halted
- ^ LASD Inmate Information Center - Booking Details
- ^ "Comparing Two Cars" - Horsepower and Torque Craig's Website. Retrieved on June 03, 2008.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
