For more than two decades, Diablosport has been producing handheld tuning devices that have helped enthusiasts unlock substantial performance gains on their otherwise factory-stock vehicles. While each of the company’s product lines fits a slightly different niche, there’s one feature that’s common to all of them: Their preloaded, octane-based tunes provide proven gains in horsepower and torque on factory-stock vehicles without negatively impacting fuel economy or emissions output.
It may seem hard to believe that improvements of as much as a hundred horsepower are available with certain vehicles without any hardware changes, but as Michael Litsch, Senior Product Manager for Diablosport, points out, it’s simply a matter of improving on what’s already there.
“There are folks out there who think we’re just pushing snake oil,” says Litsch. “But the fact is, what we’re doing isn’t all that different from what was happening 40 years ago, where you’d optimize the jets in your carburetor, change the fuel mixture a little, and advance the timing on your distributor. While the means of making these adjustments have changed, the fundamental concepts are still relevant today.”
He says that when Diablosport begins the development of calibrations for new vehicle platform, engineers start with an in-depth analysis of the factory calibration. “We drop that into a piece of software that allows us to see what that calibration is designed to do. During that analysis, we might find that there’s a limitation that prevents the throttle from going wide-open until 3000 RPM even if you have your foot to the floor, or something along those lines. These kinds of limitations are common and can be ascertained even before we get an actual vehicle into the shop.”
Once they have an example of a given car, truck, or SUV in the lab, it’s strapped to the dyno for further testing. “We run it on the dyno in stock trim, data logging it,” he tells us. “We’re looking at what the timing is doing, what the fuel system is doing. We’re figuring out where there’s room for improvement and where it might be pushed already. And when we find those places where refinements can be made, we sneak up on those improvements incrementally, removing limiters, adjusting timing and fueling, and making additional pulls while we track the changes in the power it’s making.”
Over time, Diablosport engineers have become familiar with the engineering philosophies utilized by OEMs, and where they tend to play things excessively safe. Those buffers often provide Diablosport with an opportunity to deliver significant power gains. “The strategy for finding power improvements on a Chevy is different than it is on a Dodge – the two automakers develop their products differently. But at this point it’s pretty rare that we put something on the dyno and we're shocked by what an OEM did.”
Of course, you may be asking yourself why an OEM would leave power on the table. Litsch likens it to “dumbing down” the powertrain in order to avoid potential calamities caused by misuse or outlier scenarios. “Since they’re warrantying the vehicle, they want to do everything they can to ensure that it’s safe in the hands of every single consumer out there in every situation imaginable in order to reduce the potential for warranty claims. We don’t turn off any fail-safes or compensations – the knock sensors are just as sensitive as they are in the factory calibration. We just look for the areas where some refinement can provide performance improvements.
“Since our tunes require a specific minimum octane, it allows us to tune for something that the OEM can’t,” adds Litsch. “They just don’t have control over that piece of the puzzle. If someone buys a vehicle that requires Premium octane fuel and a friend accidently puts Regular gas in it, automakers can’t have the owner coming back to the dealer with an issue. So even though the vehicle might require Premium fuel, it’s not going to knock running on 87.”
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While Diablosport has a lengthy track record of finding power in a variety of different engine combinations, Litsch says that the recent influx of factory-produced turbocharged combinations has been particularly kind to horsepower junkies.
“Engines like Ford’s 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 respond incredibly well to this kind of tuning. We regularly see gains of 80 to 100 horsepower, depending on the model year, running 93 octane with no other changes.” Along with engineers’ efforts to optimize the calibration for premium fuel, the presence of an electronically controlled turbo system allows Diablosport to dial up boost pressure a bit. You don’t want to run the boost to the moon because you start seeing intake temperatures rise, and you don’t want to run the turbo beyond its efficiency range. And so there are probably situations where we’re also leaving something on the table – that’s where custom tuning comes in. But the gains are impressive right out of the box.”
While there’s no boost involved in a naturally aspirated engine and supercharged combinations’ boost levels are dictated by mechanical hardware, they too can see substantial improvements through these calibration tweaks.
“The 7.3-liter Godzilla V8 in the Ford F-250 is a great example of that,” says Litsch. “We saw some pretty good gains when we did our initial testing. Then we decided to trying increasing the rev limiter, and we discovered that the engine continued to make more power for another 500 RPM beyond the factory limit. So with those tunes we’ve increased the shift points and moved the rev limiter out. Now you’re getting gains of 34 horsepower and 50 pound-feet of torque beyond the factory’s maximum output at an RPM level that wasn’t even available with the stock programming.”
These improvements are even more impressive when you consider the fact that Diablosport’s preloaded tunes are 50-state emissions compliant.
“As we develop these calibrations, our emissions team is doing tailpipe testing as well,” he says. “The last thing we want do is develop a calibration, call it good, and then have to start over because the emissions certification team discovers that it won’t pass. It adds another layer of complexity for us, but at the end of the day the customer gets calibration that’s as clean – or often even cleaner – than the factory calibration.”
What’s even more surprising is that Diablosport’s calibrations often improve fuel economy as well. “Performance and fuel economy can co-exist because they occupy entirely different areas of the calibration. There’s nothing about asking for power which limits what you can do when you’re cruising. If we see some room to add some timing during part-throttle driving and cruising, we’ll do so, and you’ll often find some efficiency gains as a result. The improvements typically aren’t massive because the OEMs are already operating under very strict guidelines for fuel efficiency, but we can move the needle in the right direction.”
Looking at the road ahead, Litsch says that OEMs’ increasing concerns about vehicle hacking is expected to bring additional security measures that will need to be circumvented in order to provide these tuning improvements. Although these implements tend to extend the development process for Diablosport, it’s nothing they haven’t dealt with before.
“The Mopar brands have been doing this sort of thing for a while, and the stuff that we recently released for late-model GM vehicles includes a single-use piggyback module so you can unlock the ECU and TCM in your driveway, which in turn allows you to install the tunes. The need for some form of an unlock solution is becoming the new normal.”
