Citroen C4 Cactus Tuning

Citroen needed a small SUV class car aimed at millenials so they came up with the fresh and funky Cactus.

One of few cars to have soft air bump panels on the site it clearly stands out, and some may dislike the styling but it does find many fans among the target market.

It came with 2 peppy engine choices, the 1.3 3 cylinder petrol and the 1.6 HDI 4 cylinder diesel. Both have been tuned for economy and comfort and have the potential to make more power with the right modifications.

It won a few awards along the way, Hatchback of the year (Top Gear), Production car of the year (Geneva motor show) and the Small SUV of the year from Auto Express.

The only thing holding you back in your C4 Cactus project is time, money and your imagination If you do your homework then you can create an awesome C4 Cactus but don't be fooled there are lots of uprated parts out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.

Do not slap on a massive exhaust and induction kit expecting anything other than more noise! Owners have reported disappointing results with those mods on the 1.2 and 1.6.The C4 Cactus is a good project car to have. Plan ahead and research C4 Cactus tuning to spare yourself making the usual disastrous errors we regularly see.

Turning our attention to the engine we need to get a bit more power out of the top end.

The best power gains come from larger engine sizes. The more you start with the bigger the return on investment so engine swaps are good value mods for small engined cars.

Engine tuning mods.

The following uprated kits are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get started.

Getting the best motorsport modifications for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 competition upgrades just won't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.

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Stages of Tune

Stage 1 mods: Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Panel air filter, Sports exhaust, Alloy wheels, Remap, Lighter flywheel.

Stage 2 mods: fuel pump upgrades, Fast road cam, Power/Sport clutch, high flow fuel injector, Ported and polished head.

Stage 3 mods: Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Sports gearbox, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Engine balancing, Competition cam.

You should keep as much low end power as possible and aim to achieve a long power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power hike.

The whole point of our hints is to give a starting base of tuning modifications and point you in the right direction, our forum is the place to go for detailed advice and tips on your car tuning project, the best uprated modifications and all aspects of modding cars.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest performance gains for your money as far as a single motorsport upgrades goes on a NASP engine.

The intake & exhaust durations play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car hard to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a reflashed ECU to fully realise your gains.

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to pay attention to the fuelling.

Frequently power losses, flat spots and erratic idling after motorsport modifications are done can usually be traced to fuel delivery or timing issues.Increasing the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

A fuel pump will only deliver a finite amount of fuel, so you may need to uprate this if your injectors are demanding more fuel.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Induction kits only help to boost performance if the air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most low power engines will see NO LOW END POWER GAIN AT ALL. If you have heavily modified your engine and it's need for air INCREASES DRAMATICALLY then an induction kit is the answer and will help remove this restriction.

Derestricting the airflow into the engine is the primary part of performance tuning so get a freer flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound fun but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and actually rob you of power on most cars.

Sports exhausts balance the flow of gases through the engine. But if your exhaust is too large, ie: over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose much of your flow rate and end up lacking power and torque.

Polishing and porting the head will allow you to maximise your air/fuel charge. Leave this to a professional though with a proper flow bench and machine tools Your clutch can slip as you increase the power if it starts to slip and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of up to 46%. Fit a competition clutch to avoid power losses through the transmission. The best mods in our experience for your C4 Cactus are a remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.

Remaps offer significant power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful. However a remapped ECU on a NASP engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods.

We've also come across some owners experimenting with twincharging conversions and making some seriously high power hikes.

The most impressive power gains for NASP engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. Turbos are usually harder to add than a supercharger. It is more challenging to map a turbo as the boost increases exponentially with engine speed.

The nice steady boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them simpler to map. Adding forced induction will nearly always require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Improving the handling for car owners first priority in your C4 Cactus tuning project.

Good suspension tweaks that often improve handling for the C4 Cactus include a couple of degrees negative camber and 1-1.5 degrees of toe out on the front wheels.

We suggest that you fit modified suspension and lower the car by 24mm - 40 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with uprated suspension.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

As alloys are lighter they improve performance and they will help to cool the brake disks. Get a good track legal slick tyre to improve your handling and help improve traction on your C4 Cactus. Please note although they can look cool on the C4 Cactus large alloys will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this to the change in your effective final drive ratio.

Although some people have installed larger rims we would stick to a 17 inch rim size as the maximum.

There is a more updated version of this Citroen C4 Cactus Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss C4 Cactus options in more detail with our C4 Cactus owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Citroen tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

We need your help improving this article, so please send us your feedback in the comments box below and pass on any tips, points or facts we have wrong or have not covered.

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This article is flagged for an update, so please pass on specific tips below that I can include. All articles, and content was written by me, Waynne Smith TorqueCars founder. Some outlines are just too general so I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Citroen. You can leave a response below or join our forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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