Tune vs reliability and longevity

I spoke with mike from Kerma for about a half hour today and their stuff sounds good. My car has 196k on it. I bought it in January and as much as I can tell had the factory clutch. I’d like to give the car a little boost I. The power department but I don’t want to hurt the longevity of the vehicle. He said the tune he recommended for “stock would bump me to 115whp from 72 stock and 240tq from 170 I think it was stock. He said I’ll get better mpg too.

What are your experiences and thoughts?


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I say go for it! I had a kerma tune on my car for a while with no other mods except for 2.5 turbo back. My stock clutch held fine. It will be much better to drive around also.

03Wagn said:

I say go for it! I had a kerma tune on my car for a while with no other mods except for 2.5 turbo back. My stock clutch held fine. It will be much better to drive around also.

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How long did you drive it for?


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Only for a couple months before I upgraded, but if you let them know you’re trying to preserve the stock clutch long term they will tune to your liking.

Imo, go for it. Just make sure it's all up to date, timing belt, does not burn oil ect.....

Wouldn't have any concerns doing anything up to a vnt17 with nozzles + clutch.

Go for it. I did mine and loved the bump in power. I only ran it about 5k before I did a clutch do to failing dmf. My car seemed to use a little coolant if I ran it hard, but it wasn't bad and I don't know for definite if it was a head gasket. Even so there are lots of guys running 24 psi on stock head bolts. I don't think you can kill an alh with a stage 1 tune if you keep up with regular maintenace.

Any engine will wear more when you run at a higher output as opposed to a lower output. What happens to yours depends on a huge number of factors that you may or may not have direct control of.

As such, high horsepower claims not being provable aside, if you figure that you are only going to be using that higher power on occasion (say, 2 or 3% of the time the engine is running), then the impact on the overall longevity of said engine should not be affected very much.

More power, more wear. Simple. You control your right foot, so you control the impact.

Cheers,

PH