Ford Remapping Service
Ask a member of the general public and they’ll probably tell you that Ford make workaday cars. Affordable, reliable and dull to drive.
Ask a member of the general public and they’ll probably tell you that Ford make workaday cars. Affordable, reliable and dull to drive.
But every car enthusiast knows that the brand have turned out some truly phenomenal vehicles in their time. The 2019 Shelby GT350 is an absolute monster on or off the track – clinging to tight corners and chewing up straights with it’s blisteringly-fast 5.2-litre V8 (ft. a flat-plane crank that revs high and keeps overall weight well below most of the competition).
Then there’s the 2015-2018 Focus ST-3, which is still widely regarded as one of the best hot hatches available on today’s market; capable of going 0-60 in 6.5 seconds – and going toe-to-toe with the vaunted VW GTI in terms of handling balance, agility and ride quality.
Even the Zetec-edition Mondeos (2006-2014) deserve a shoutout for taking a thoroughly every-day chassis and making it fun to drive on twisty British roads.
That’s why we offer a bespoke Ford remapping service, focused on helping you to unlock your car’s full potential. We’re talking about unlocking untapped reserves of torque and power, a more responsive throttle and a better drive without putting too much strain on your engine – or affecting your car’s reliability.
We’ve been working on Fords for well over a decade now, and our in-house technicians know how to squeeze every last drop of power out of your car.
Like the overwhelming majority of modern manufacturers, Ford need to make sure that their cars run in every market they service. This means detuning their engines to ensure that every vehicle delivers consistently – irrespective of whether they’re driven in humid or subtropical regions, deserts, mountain valleys or sweeping Mediterranean vistas.
Ford also need to ensure that their cars run well in regions where provision for regular services is poor, and the quality of individual parts may be much lower than we’re used to here in the west.
Take a car like the Focus ST-3 we mentioned before: This one model is sold in the US, Africa, Asia, Europe and South America, which means that it needs to perform in a variety of environments, including places like India where it may not be practical to get a service every year.
To achieve this, Ford tweak the ECU software that governs the car’s performance so that the engine isn’t worked too hard, but that’s bad news for those of us who are driving the car in standard, European conditions because we’re now driving a neutered car in an environment that doesn’t really strain our engine.
Then there’s the current propensity for modular design to consider. This is where the same engine, chassis and electronic kit are re-used across several different models in a range to save on manufacturing costs and ease the pressure on Ford’s supply chains.
To make sure they can market cars at a range of different price points, Ford then tweak some of their cars’ engine management software to ensure that they’re not outperforming more expensive variants in the same range.
To see this in action, we only have to look at the UK and US versions of the 2021 Mustang Mach 1: Despite the fact that they’re functionally identical cars built around the same performance-calibrated 5.0-liter Coyote V8 engine, the US version delivers 480 horsepower, while its UK counterpart has been detuned to deliver 454 HP when it rolls out of the factory.
Luckily, we can remap your default engine management software so that you can tap into all that unused power and enjoy a better drive.
Although the process of ECU remapping is fairly technical, it’s easy enough to explain: Every Ford engine is managed by a palm-sized computer called an ECU. This diminutive device is responsible for gathering inputs from hundreds of sensors, and modifying your engine’s performance according to real-world conditions.
Your ECU optimises your fuel-to-air ratio, dictates throttle response and regulates the idle speed of your engine (among other things) but it doesn’t act alone: To work out how your engine should be fine-tuned in the moment, it draws on data from an array of spreadsheets known as a ‘map’, because it tells your ECU how to act.
When we remap a Ford engine, we replace the factory default ‘map’ with new tables; tweaking individual values to modify the way your engine functions.
Doing this allows us to eliminate flat spots, boost horsepower and torque, improve your throttle response and improve the overall drivability of your car – without pushing your engine too hard or affecting the reliability of your vehicle.
We’re so confident about the quality of our ECU remaps that we offer a lifetime guarantee against software malfunction. We’ll also store your default map on our servers so that it can be restored at any time. If you’ve ever found yourself wishing for slightly more power, or a more enjoyable drive, a Ford remap is definitely the way to go.