Car tuning stages

You will often see modifications available in stages. Typically manufacturers of performance parts and car tuning companies use stages 1 – 3 to denote the state of tune provided.
So what does a tuning stage mean and what are the differences between a stage 1 and stage 3 tune up.

The commonly held perception of these are as outlined below.
Stage 1 tuning is a “bolt on” or single modification that requires no other work to the car or engine. You can consider a stage 1 modification to be referred to as a fast road mod. It is suitable for a daily use car.
It can be used in isolation with standard components. Overall reliability and daily drivability of the car will remain. Obviously any power increase will necessitate a reduction in the manufacturers inbuilt safety margin. Weak components will sometimes fail but in general a stage 1 tuning modification can be added to a car without incident or problem. A stage 1 modification will usually be enhanced further with the addition of other performance parts. Examples of stage 1 mods, remap, sports exhaust silencer, air filter or brake pad upgrades. (These are all simple single bolt on parts.)

Stage 2 tuning is a little more aggressive than stage 1 but needs to be added with other parts. It will give a power gain but will usually require the uprating or replacing of other parts to work. Examples of stage 2 modifications include a hybrid turbo which requires a different manifold or diverter valve or remap to work at it’s best. Reliability of the car should be unimpaired but you will pretty much have lost any scope or margin for error in the standard manufacturers setup.
This can be considered a track day tuning option. Service intervals should be reduced and you can expect to perform a major overhaul on the engine every few years in some cases. Examples of a stage 2 modification, aggressive remap that requires a stronger turbo/diverter valve, sports exhaust requiring new headers and different mounts, Internal modifications requiring fuel to be uprated etc… (the concept is that you need another mod as well.)

Stage 3 tuning is also referred to as the motorsport or competition tune. This is wholly unsuitable for road use. The car will typically idle erratically, be uneconomical, fail emissions tests and be too harsh to drive around in traffic.
The stage 3 tune extracts the maximum power from the engine and reliability will be impaired. We have to bear in mind that competition cars are stripped down and rebuilt each season or even each race at times.
Examples of stage 3 mods include high performance brake pads and disks that require heat before they start to bite, aggressive cam profiles causing a lumpy tickover, heavy competition clutch, ultra light flywheels etc…
Power gains are not quoted for any of these stages as this varies dramatically from car to car, also the parts used have varying degrees of affect on the power band. Adding two or more stage 1 mods will not make it a stage 2 mod if the upgrades would happily work on their own although you will generally release more power from each by combining them.

 

Well, that's your explanation, but there is NO standard. It means whatever the person or company want it to mean.


I could say I have 10 stages, and they can mean anything I say they mean...

 

Trust me I did not write that, I got it from one of the largest car fourms on the web. It is just the general one that majority of gear heads follow.

 

I somewhat agree. There may be defined standard and it varies from company to company but I would not go so far as to say stage 3 is not street-able and not for daily use.

 

I think tuning stages is the amount of money you spend on mods.

Stage 1: less than $5k
Stage 2: up to $10 k
Stage 3: greater than $10k

It is a measure of (in)sanity.

 

Slinger that is a great way to put it.

 

"Stages" are a marketing term to give you a sense of accomplishment... dont sucker in to it.



Why be a stage 1 when you can be a stage 4 OOoooooooo Ahhhhhhhh

 

Stage 4, I got you Trumped with a stage 7.

Oh ya,

I have been a Sales Manager for many car dealerships and one day I heard a new sales person answering a womens question about a infiniti she was looking at.

Customer; and how is the safety rating of this vehicle? How many stars?

Salesperson; That vehicle has a seven star crash test rating...

after he was done I had to tell him there are only 5 stars....

 

STAGE 7.1... j/k

 

Honestly as a vendor I can tell you that stage packages are usually just marketing names. The higher the number the better customers think it is so they buy. My advise is to ignore the hype from that stuff and do research to find out what does and doesn't work. And if you want your always welcome to call us, talk about what your looking for and we'll put something together to get to that level.

 

 

Exactly what I always saw them as. There is so little uniformity with the nomenclature that it's completely useless except maybe to compare within the same vendor. One vendor's Stage 1 is another vendor's Stage 74.

 

Maybe I should build a Stage 99 package

 

That will be the hottest mod around... until someone else decides they're going three digits!