Pop and bang is one of the most popular upgrades nowadays and one that can make almost any car have an awesome feature that was until recently reserved for supercars and heavily tuned track vehicles.
Here we explore what pop and bang is and on which vehicles it can be installed. First of all, you should know that even though the sound comes from the exhaust, it actually has little to do with pop and bang tuning. It is actually a software upgrade that can be added to stage 1 tuning in many cases. However, very often it goes with stage 2 upgrades that also include an aftermarket downpipe as people want to remove their catalysts or use more hardcore ones that can endure pop and bang more easily.
You may know pop and bang by one of its other names such as anti-lag system, anti-lag tuning, pop on overrun, deceleration map or crackle map. They all stand for the same thing – a tuning that provides improved performance for turbocharged vehicles and a great soundtrack to round off the benefits.
Pop and bang is a tuning effect used on some of the most hardcore supercars around. However, it is now also available for pretty much any vehicle. Your car can emit those beautiful gurgles and bangs with our pop and bang tuning maps without any issues with safety.
Going too far with pop and bang tuning can cause damage to stock parts or even some aftermarket ones, so knowing the limits of various parts, having top-notch equipment to measure the effects of tuning and the expertise and experience to perform remarkable yet safe pop and bang tuning is essential.
Your car can actually have a better sound while decelerating then while accelerating. You have heard these sounds on some of the best supercars and racing cars in the world. Those are the pops, cracks, bangs and gurgles that embellish the driving experience during transmission shifts or deceleration.
This is the most commonly known effect of pop and bang tuning, but as you probably know, racing cars drivers and teams are more about efficiency and performance than sound.
Because there is also a fine performance benefit for cars with turbochargers. Pop and bang eliminates turbo lag and drop of turbo pressure with every gear shift or deceleration. With this tuning, aside from the stunning sounds, you also get a magnificent anti-lag feature that keeps the boost instantly available when you press the throttle pedal again after each shift. It shaves off seconds from lap times and this is the reason why pretty much every race car will let off our wonderful pops and bangs from the exhaust.
Depending on the vehicle we are working on, its mechanical parts and on the level of tuning the customer wants, our pop and bang tuning can include various adjustments.
However, what is present in all of these is elimination of fuel cutoff and retardation of ignition timing in specific conditions (for example, only during deceleration and/or only in sport mode).
The first change is an ECU software tweak that tells the ECU not to cut off fuel when the foot is lifted off the throttle pedal. This means that a small amount of fuel is injected even when the pedal is not pressed.
The second adjustment – retardation in ignition timing – is also reserved for the times when you lift your foot off the throttle. By retarding ignition timing in those cases, we allow flame front to spread later than usual. This means that a certain part of the combustion process is happening while the exhaust valves are open, which creates those sounds.
Maybe you have noticed that we emphasize that pop and bang map operation is reserved only for specific moments. This is so because if we retarded ignition timing at all times, that would be detrimental to the performance of the engine. Proper ignition timing is an essential part of any good tuning, so retardation at times when you are accelerating would be a bad idea. We only retard it when you are decelerating and we can even tailor the rev range when it occurs, or even reserve it for the sport mode only, in case you don’t want the bangs whenever you are decelerating or shifting gears.
We develop it so that this map engages when you are not accelerating or cruising which means the performance is preserved and even improved through the anti-lag feature of pop and bang tuning.
The mentioned performance improving feature comes from the previously explained tuning process and it is reserved for turbocharged vehicles. The fact that the valves are open for a while during combustion even when you are decelerating and that the fuel is delivered means that there is a flow of gases through the exhaust even while decelerating. These gases make the turbo keep spooling at times when it would usually stop, which means that the pressure is preserved and that the moment you press the pedal again, the turbo boost is instantly present. There is no buildup period and hence no turbo lag.
It doesn’t only sound good – it also makes you faster.
No, it is not. We can retard ignition timing and keep fuel delivery on pretty much any engine, but the anti-lag feature is reserved for turbocharged vehicles, since the benefits of the exhaust gases flow only manifest themselves when these gases are used to spool the turbo.
That depends on how it is created. Retarding ignition timing too much can cause damage and making too much of a bang can be too hard on the exhaust system and even the turbo. If it is done properly, if the engineers developing it have the required knowledge and experience and if it is tested on top-notch equipment, pop and bang is completely safe.
The proof of this safety is the fact that many manufacturers offer pop and bang on stock vehicles, either as a standard feature on performance vehicles, or as an optional extra with various performance packages. These vehicles have their warranties and pop and bang tuning does not make them any less safe or less reliable.
It is important to note that we can go well beyond the limitations of stock parts, but that would require aftermarket parts. If you want extreme pops and bangs, let us know and we can develop a custom Stage 2 pop and bang tuning for you.
Our team of experts is here to ensure you are getting a safe, reliable and efficient pop and bang upgrade.
