Fiat Panda Tuning

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We look at Panda tuning and report on the ultimate mods that work. Fiat Pandas make a good tuning project and with a few sensible sports tuning mods you can substantially improve your driving experience.

The Panda is a good tuning project to do. The key to Panda tuning is getting your choice of modification right - a lot of money can be wasted if you do it wrong.

Top end power should be your overall aim with a nice fat wide peak torque band.

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.

Power mods.

Typically these tuning parts are usually installed by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you start.

Getting the best tuning mods for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 (competition) mods just don't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

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Stages of Tune

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

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

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

You should keep as much low end power as you can and aim to get a long power band rather than a narrow top end power hike.

In this article we shall give a brief overview to the best mods for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance upgrade.One of the best mechanical modified mods you can do to your NASP engine is to fit a fast road cam .

The intake and 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 performance chip for the best performance gains.

Don't forget to ramp up the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty.

If you find you suffer from flat spots and surges after your sports kits you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Improving the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

If you've uprated your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Contrary to popular belief there is generally very little if any power gain obtained by fitting an induction kit, they only work well and are recommended after you increase the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

For most Panda engines TorqueCars would suggest you just go with a washable panel air filter. On heavily tuned engines and turbo vehicles an induction kit will help release the power providing you address the problem of needing cold air.

Sports exhausts can usually air flow out of the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too wide or you may end up will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Head work including a gas flow and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. In nearly all cases of Panda tuning your clutch will start to suffer and this needs an upgrade - read our guide on clutches for more information. The best mods we would do for your Panda are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements.

Remaps offer phenomenal 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. The most significant power gains for NASP engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. It is generally cheaper to add a supercharger than it is to bolt on a turbo. With a turbo the boost curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it more challenging to map.

It is more straightforward to map a supercharger because the boost is proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are the thing most do first for the Panda.

Fully adjustable suspension allows you to fine tune the handling of you Panda often improving your drive.

We would go to a maximum drop of 28mm - 40 mm on most models. You risk compromising your handling if you go lower than this.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

The benefits of alloy wheels include reducing your unsprung weight and better brake cooling via the extra air flow they allow. If you are serious about performance then you will need to carefully choose your tires - ideally with a track legal slick tire. We should point out that although they can look cool on the Panda 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.

Due to this aim to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the recommended OEM sizes. In all cases not going over 15-16 inches and even then we'd put ultra low profile tyres on them.

There is a more updated version of this Fiat Panda Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

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

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