How does switching a car into sport mode work?
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If you’re wondering about engine mapping, it moves more of the torque demand to the first part of the accelerator pedal travel. For eco modes it would be reverse, a lot of almost dead travel before any significant torque demand.
I got a Ford Fusion with a 1.6L turbo. It’s definitely not a sports car but still has sports mode. If you switch to the sports mode you can “kind of” manually switch the automatic transmission, but it’s really pretty worthless and really just a marketing thing to make people think the car can be sporty.
In my car (electric) it allows you to send more power to the motor. In normal mode its capped at 45kw in sport its 85kw.
Some cars are using this function quite good (Changing behavior of gear changes and injection to the engine, as have been mentioned by many others).
But this has also been a hype in the media and in reviews of cars. Many car models now have this only so they don’t get a bad review (I’m not referring to high end “racing” cars here. But normal road cars).
An example is the difference in suspension. A lot of research is being done to find the best setup for traction for each car model. Is not like they find the optimal stiffness for best traction on a car, and reduce it by 20% (And then add a button in the car to increase it again).
Changes in suspension is so small that you don’t feel the difference.
For these cars, when activating the sport mode, the suspension will first change to become very stiff. Then over some time (a couple of minutes), it will slowly change back to almost the same setting.
And it’s of course opposite when going back out of sport mode.
It’s a little like the humans ability to smell. We are good at noticing changes. But over time we get used to it, and don’t notice it anymore.
Lol I have the opposite, my car has a “green” mode that i can turn off to go faster.
Still, it’s a great feature, every car should have a “go fast” button
Buckle up, this is my specialist subject.
I come from a BMW world, it’s mostly based on that, but the general rules are the same for most others.
The first most basic one was around since the 80/90’s, and that was switchable transmission programs, you often had an eco mode, change gear up as soon as you can, sports mode, hold onto lower gears for acceleration, but at the cost of a higher revving engine and less economy, and a snow/winter/manual mode. That was often either start or stay in one particular gear. You’d use this in icy weather, maybe start off in 3rd gear, nice and gentle rather than 1st gear where it would just spin the wheels and not go anywhere.
The next modes can with the introduction of electronic pedals, a control module (sometimes the main engine ECU (**E**lectronic **C**ontrol **U**nit) or sometimes a separate computer than just did the throttle. These would read the position of the pedal electronically, and then more the throttle to a position to do something.
These aren’t always 1:1, halfway on the pedal won’t always mean half open on the throttle. It’ll often do 50% on the pedal, the throttle controller will move to 70% open, and then slowly roll back to 50%, and hey-presto, your car feel sharp as a razor and super responsive.
What you didn’t realise is the car nailed the throttle to get you rolling and then backed off.
A good example – the BMW E39 M5, around 2000 model year.
These had an electronic pedal, and a Sport/Comfort button.
Comfort dulled down the pedal, so 40% on the pedal might give 32% on the throttle. Sport mode was 1:1, 60% pedal = 60% throttle.
What you see here is an engine so sharp, they had to tone it down a little for normal driving, and “Sport” mode was the raw, natural performance, which a lot of people didn’t like.
Newer cars are even smarter, the pedal requests the amount of torque you want from the engine, the engine ECU will then decide what to do to get it. Agian, pedal position is not directly linked to throttle position.
The Sport modes in these pretty much all still do the same sort of thing, they just add a modifier onto the pedal position. That’s he reason why in Sports mode, the car doesn’t have any higher power output, and you don’t see stickers in the window saying “400bhp* (sport mode only)
One exception I know of, the BMW E60 M5, this was 400bhp in the normal comfort mode, and 507bhp in Sport mode. This was done with torque limiters as far as I’m aware.
Current cars now have the Sport button linked into other stuff. It might change the dash display to different colours, tell the suspension to go into a firmer mode, maybe lower the car if if can, it’ll often do that same auto transmission thing of holding lower gears, and there’s also “show-off” stuff.
Because the manufacturers know people like these little buttons, they try to make them seem as fancy as possible. One thing they can do is tell the engine ECU to fiddle around with cam timing and ignition advance on deceleration so the car starts making pops and burbles from the exhaust. Sometimes they’ll have two different exhaust paths, one quiet one, and then an electric valve that opens out to a noisier one so the car sounds different, and ends up spitting flames out the back.
So –
1 – it rarely makes the car faster, it’ll usually just fiddle with the accelerator pedal settings so it does 10-20-30% more pedal than you wanted.
2 – it’ll also try and do anything else sporty if it can, tell the gearbox to stay low, stiffen up suspension, and pull a few gimmicks to make it sound more like a race car.
almost everything in a car these days is controlled by computers. that means things like how much power steering assistance is given, or how sensitive the gas pedal is, or how aggressively the transmission shifts, is all adjustable, so the sport mode just changes all of those things
Also makes my exhaust slightly louder, which is, cool, I guess?
ALSO changes the response and assists characteristics in the electric motor for the VERY VERY few of us who drive a Sports Hybrid
It depends on what features are enabled in the car, but the way most cars perform (shift points, fuel trims (air/fuel ratio), throttle response, handling (stiffness of shocks/dampeners), speed of steering, firmness of shifts) are increasingly controlled electronically. Meaning, the computer in the car controls how they “feel” versus actual mechanical connections like an older car.
This allows car manufacturers to use similar parts in a variety of cars, and then uses the computer to tailor the driving experience to the driver or conditions. A cars “base” settings are a compromise of abilities in a variety of situations.
If you’re sitting in traffic, you don’t want FIRM shifts because you’re going to be shifting a lot, and you don’t want a touchy throttle that wants to launch the car every time you tap the throttle. You want the experience to be smooth.
However, if you’re going on a spirited drive – you DO want those things. You want the car a little lower, to handle a litter firmer, to have more response in the throttle, shift points that are higher in the rev range, faster steering inputs, etc.
So a “SPORT” Button simply changes the electronic configuration of a variety of driving inputs, to make the experience more, well, Sporty – usually where changing those things may make daily driving the car more uncomfortable or less economical.
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