Most tuning kits on the market only connect to your fuel rail and alter your fuel rail pressure for power gains.

The downsides to running a single input tuning system are:
– Over-fueling which can result in black smoke
– Over-fueling causes your DPF to prematurely fill. Early replacement of
  this expensive item is the result.
– Over-fueling because there is no detection of turbo on/off transition
– Dangerously Hot Exhaust Gases from over-fueling during long drives
under constant heavy loads

and the list goes on…….put simply,
if a power module connects with ONE plug, it is inferior in every way to our tuning system.
But there are tuning kits on the market that also connect to the boost sensor. 

The few companies that connect to fuel rail and boost sensors do so in order to more accurately fuel during the turbo on/off transition, but they still rely solely on fuel rail pressure increases for power gains and do not make available up to 3psi more boost. There are a few that tune via pulse width expansion that connect to both rail and boost but these are often $1600+.

The Elitedrive Power Module takes information from your boost sensor and fuel rail sensor and is able to simultaneously raise both signals in order to keep your all important air-fuel ratio’s stable and within the Manufacturer’s specifications. This makes a massive improvement in performance over single input fuel rail only systems.

This additional connection allows a whole host of benefits. These include –
– Lower in cylinder temperatures.
– Lower exhaust gas temperatures.
– Better Fuel Economy.
– An almost identical to factory air/fuel ratio throughout the rev range.
– Lower particulate matter (soot).
– Higher torque and power throughout the entire rev range.

*Monitoring and increasing boost pressure isn’t necessarily about high performance or racing applications. Increasing fuel and boost in harmony is always the best approach if your budget allows.

The kits on the market that adjust timing (pulse width expansion) are often $1600+. As well as an obvious price difference, the way the power is generated is also very different.

Common rail injection systems do not run at a fixed pressure as standard. They use a variable pressure throughout the rev range. For example, a vehicle with an “1800bar” fuel system will at idle typically run only around 300bar fuel pressure. At 2000rpm at full throttle it might run 1000bar and at 4500rpm at full throttle it will get to somewhere in the region of 1700bar. Manufacturers rarely run fuel systems to their limit in order to give some future flexibility.

This means that at 2000rpm we have headroom to increase fuel pressure by up to 800bar without exceeding factory specs (clearly you would never go that far). Going through the rev range we can continue to increase fuel pressure without exceeding factory maximums. At the very top end of the rev range we can either keep the fuel pressure within factory maximums, or slightly increase them.

Our default maps tend to stay below the factory maximum limits unless the engine is very low mileage. Depending on fuel system type, we sometimes offer alternative maps that increase maximum fuel pressure slightly at the top end of the rev range. We have found that by taking this approach we can increase power and torque absolutely as much as necessary for almost the entire rev range. We are limited slightly at the very top of the rev range if we don’t choose to raise maximum fuel pressure, but this is not usually a problem for most vehicles or customers who are interested in reliability over all out power gains.

By using dynamic rail pressure tuning we inject the additional fuel in exactly the same window as the factory system does, maintaining efficiency, power and torque output.

Injector pulse width extension is often claimed to be better by manufacturers  and distributors of very expensive power modules. Whilst there are some advantages of this method, principally that you can add a huge amount of fuel at almost any point in the rev range, it does have some big drawbacks.

Adding pulse width injects fuel later in the stroke.
This means:
– There is less time available to burn the added fuel.
– The piston is further away when we are trying to increase cylinder pressure.      Trying to push something that is already accelerating away is inherently less efficient.
– Less efficiency means creating more heat for the same power increase.

When compared with dynamic rail pressure tuning,
This results in:
– Higher in-cylinder and exhaust gas temperatures. (bad for your engine)
– More smoke (bad for your DPF and the environment)
– Poorer fuel economy (bad for your bank balance)

The only way that it would be possible to improve upon this would be to change the start of injection to an earlier point before extending the pulse width (as you would when remapping the vehicle). Unfortunately this would be hugely complicated, and would require crankshaft (as well as camshaft) sensor input. No manufacturers are currently taking this approach.

We are not aware of any injector pulse width extending product that compare to Elitedrive Power Modules, that also increases boost pressure, which is fundamentally important in order to keep a balanced air/fuel ratio when injecting a large amount of additional fuel.

Elitedrive Power Modules features full boost control and does this by ensuring that boost pressure is increased to match the increase in fueling. It also actively monitors boost pressure as an input to get the best torque output whilst preventing smoke or over-fueling.

Ultimately whilst both methods have their pros and cons, rail pressure tuning has allowed us to get as much additional fuel as we require in 95% of situations. More fuel is injected in exactly the same window as standard and we don’t see a negative impact on fuel systems even after over 200,000 miles with our systems fitted to commercial vehicles during long term testing.

Adding pulse width injects fuel later in the stroke
This means:
– There is less time available to burn the added fuel.
– The piston is further away when we are trying to increase cylinder pressure. Trying to push something that is already accelerating away is inherently less efficient.
– Less efficiency means creating more heat for the same power increase.

When compared with dynamic rail pressure tuning
This results in:
– Higher in-cylinder and exhaust gas temperatures. (bad for your engine)
– More smoke (bad for your DPF and the environment)
– Poorer fuel economy (bad for your bank balance)