maby said:mrqz said:...
Gasoline engine upgrades - open air intake could be something to consider, however I'm generally against it due to mixed reviews on the non-paper filters' filtering abilities. However, an air intake that is significantly larger than the original one, should be a fantastic upgrade methinks, so would be some ECU remapping of the ICE engine and as you say - a performance exhaust system... possibly with sport catalytic converter!
Is there any point in tuning the petrol engine in a PHEV? At speeds below about 50mph, the transmission can only be electric and the power put down on the ground will be limited by the electrical system irrespective of what the engine can output. The engine can couple mechanically to the wheels above about 50mph, but only via a single speed gearbox - not a lot of scope to make controlled use of any extra power you manage to wring out of it.
Sure - extermist tuning is out of scope here as being pointless but, these mild mods to the engine can make power output come quicker in serial mode and also, in parallel mode it will have even more obvious benefits. But I agree that the benefits of the engine's tuning is obviously limited as compared to a conventional ICE car, but still far from useless.
Also a very effective upgrade would be raising the battery-powered-only 60kW power limit to 70 kW. This - if possible - would obviously hurt the batteries, as they are being pushed to their limits even in factory setup. But, with a higher capacity battery pack it would be possible and very beneficial to the car's quickness.