Welcome to Car Tuning Tips Car Tuning Tips represents the cutting edge of car tuning techniques. We cover the latest methods and tips to get the most performance from your engine. Get an overview of the best methods and learn what each part does and if it is worth fitting. If you are after parts or details about a specific model of car can we recommend that you also visit TorqueCars our main sponsor and one of the largest online tuning sites around. We quickly yearn for more power in our cars. As we start to investigate the options we quickly learn that cars are far from fully tuned. The aim of most manufacturers is to achieve an average power figure as defined in their sales brochure, optimum fuel economy to fit into the tax bands and finally to produce a car that is reliable. There is much that can be done to improve a car but we need to accept the car tuning mantra “there is always a hidden cost”. It is also true that your power gain is proportional to your base power so you need to work from the most powerful engine you can afford for the best return on your tuning investment. : Generally speaking we will be pushing the engine harder so it will require more frequent servicing intervals to maintain reliability. With the extra power released you will almost certainly (unless the engine is very inefficient) lose some fuel economy. You will also induce stress on weaker components and these will need to be uprated to cope with the extra power. Engine tuning Firstly owners look to increase the power of their engine. Breathing mods ie intake and exhaust are usually the first to be considered. Next up we move on to internal engine modifications ranging from reboring and engine, engine swaps and rebuilding the engine. The head of the engine is easier to work on with many owners changing their cams for fast road camshafts and porting and polishing the head for better gas flow. It is worth looking into getting uprated valves and springs while you have the head off if you are serious about your engine tuning. With forced induction engines (turbos and superchargers) you have a lot more options open to you and these give very good power gains for a minimal outlay. With a remap you can increase power by as much as 50%. A performance intercooler will greatly benefit most engines as the OEM intercoolers are either ineficient or non existant. Handling modifications If you are making the car go faster your top priority should be stopping the car. Uprated brakes include performance pads and disks. Suspension modifications will help to improve the handling and safety of the car. You shouldn’t overlook the importance of your tires and the right tire can dramatically improve your cars grip and handling. Alloy wheels also have a number of performance benefits and should not be considered a purely asthetic modification. Drivetrain tuning The power comes out of the engine and needs to pass the drivetrain to the wheels. An efficient drivetrain will include a low ratio gearbox and a limited slip differential. It is our aim to cover the sensible modifications and outline the benefits and drawbacks of each. We will also advice of the hidden cost of each part in our well written guides. Method 1 Method 1 Nitrous injection kits Nitrous has many names, the most popular is NoS which is actually a brand. Dinitrous Monoxide is the chemical name but for the purpose of this article we shall refer to it as nitrous. We will explore how it works and the various setup options available and see what this does for performance. Read the rest of this page » Fast road cams (Sports camshafts) What is the camshaft, what does it do and how can it be modified. The camshaft is located at the top of an engine. Is is a long shaft with a series of lobes along it and it rotates relative to engine speed. The lobes push close the valves in the head and allow the engines cylinders to suck in air/fuel and expel exhaust gases. Read the rest of this page » Intake Valve tips The job of the intake valves is to control the flow of air and fuel into the engine, and then Read More... Uprated Fuelling One thing a performance tuner needs to take into account is the importance of the air to fuel mixture. If Read More... Blow off valves or dump valves In a turbo engine the pressures build up as air is compressed and forced into the engine. The turbo is Read More... Aftermarket Superchargers A supercharger compresses the intake air effectively forcing more air into the engine. More air means you have more oxygen Read More... Port matching an engine The ports on the engine allow the air into the engine and the exhaust gases out. There are typically 2 Read More... Fast road cams for everyday use. The camshaft is located at the top of the engine and looks like a metal bar with egg shaped lobes Read More... Cold air vents and CAI kits You may have noticed that your car feels much more powerful on cold mornings than it does in the middle Read More... Remote turbo kits It can be quite time consuming to add a turbo charger to a NASP engine. The biggest problems include avoiding Read More... Ceramic exhaust coatings Ceramic exhaust coatings are gaining popularity with performance car tuners. We will take a look at why so many people Read More... Induction kits & cone filters Like all of us, car engines need to breathe. They use an air fuel mixture which has to be precisely Read More... Gas flowing a head Gas flowing a head Many things go on in the head of an engine. Primarily the air coming into the Read More... Performance Intercoolers We all know that cold Air carries more oxygen that warmer air. You may have noticed that when air is Read More... Performance valve springs The valve springs pull the valves up when they are closed thereby sealing the valve. The camshaft pushes the valve open Read More... 1. Nitrous has many names, the most popular is NoS which is actually a brand. Dinitrous Monoxide is the chemical name but for the purpose of this article we shall refer to it as nitrous. We will explore how it works and the various setup options available and see what this does for performance. We understand that an engine needs oxygen in order to burn fuel. We also know that colder air carries more oxygen than warmer air. Nitrous is ideal for enhancing the combustion process because it releases oxygen as it burns. This property make it ideal for the explosive power requirements of drag racing. An added benefit is that nitrous cools the air charge allowing even more oxygen into the engine. Obviously when you have more oxygen you will need to balance this up by using more fuel. The aim then is to match the fuelling with the extra oxygen released when nitrous is introduced into an engine. Installation is relatively simple and you can choose from various configurations. One adds the nitrous into the intake manifold along side the fuel injectors, alternatively it can be introduced between the air filter and intake manifold. The latter is sprayed into air so is referred to as a dry system, the former is mixed with fuel and is referred to as a wet system. nder current UK legislation you are not able to run a car with 2 forms of fuel and nitrous is classified as a fuel (although it isn’t). Most insurers will also only cover cars if the nitrous is disabled for road use. So nitrous injection is the preserve of the track and drag strip. Nitrous refills are a hidden cost. Although medical nitrous seems similar it is worth noting that automotive nitrous has some very nasty additives and must not be inhaled. You can however use medical grade nitrous in car engine. Medical nitrous is called laughing gas and this where we get the drag term “funny cars” from. Nitrous should only be used in short bursts at full throttle. The amount of power you get depends on the jet size you select. Most cars will handle a 25bhp shot easily. Some turbo and larger engined cars can run with 50 bhp and 75bhp shots. It is a good idea to have a purge vent which vents nitrous to the outside of a car. This is a good way of clearing the nitrous lines. Starting an engine filled with nitrous is asking for trouble so if you have triggered your nitrous whilst the car is stationary with the engine off YOU MUST ENSURE that the engine is free of Nitrous BEFORE starting it. 2. Fast road cams (Sports camshafts) What is the camshaft, what does it do and how can it be modified. The camshaft is located at the top of an engine. Is is a long shaft with a series of lobes along it and it rotates relative to engine speed. The lobes push close the valves in the head and allow the engines cylinders to suck in air/fuel and expel exhaust gases. Ultimately you want the intake valve opened as long as possible and want to delay the exhaust valve opening until the piston has started to enter the blow phase. Timing is critical. If the intake is not open for sufficiently long a time or the exhaust valves open early much of the power from the engine will be gone.