Hyundai i20 Tuning

"Thank you for reading my i20 tuning guide."

The Hyundai i20 is the new spacious supermini that spars for market share with the Ford Fiesta and the Audi A1 using a completely new platform.

It became popular very quickly thanks to good reviews and press coverage and has been a great success for Hyundai.

It's great to see a car company pull things back and get back on top of their game, and the i20 shows how far Hyundai have come in a short time.

We take a peek at i20 tuning and summarise the best modifications. Hyundai i20's are fantastic to work on and with the right modified upgrades you can definitely maximise your driving experience.

There are no less than  seven four cylinder engine options.

3 are petrol models, including the 1248 cc dohc 16 valve "Aditeya" engine, while the rest are diesel engines. 2 of the diesel engines are 1396 cc units, one with 75 PS (55 kW; 74 hp) and 220Nm(160 lbft) and the other a 90 PS (66 kW; 89 hp) and 220Nm(160 lbft) high power unit.

A couple of 1582cc engines and in other markets there were a number of other engine options were available.

The i20 is a good tuning project to carry out. Take your time and research i20 tuning to avoid making the usual costly mistakes we often get told about.

Turning our attention to the i20's 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.

Power mods.

Typically these performance mods are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you begin.

• 1.2 L Kappa I4 (petrol)
• 1.25 L Kappa I4 (petrol)
• 1.4 L Gamma I4 (petrol)
• 1.6 L Gamma I4 (petrol)
• 1.1 L U-Line CRDi I3 (diesel)
• 1.4 L U-Line CRDi I4 (diesel)

Getting the right performance upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 (competition) mods just won't work well on the road difficult in stop start traffic.

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Stages of Tune

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

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

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

Peak power is nice in motorsport but for a drivable and fun car you need a wide torque band and perhaps extending the rev range.

The whole aim of our guides is to give a little insight into the world of tuning modifications and point you in the right direction, our forum is best place to go if you need more detailed advice and tips on your modified car project, the best motorsport modifications and all aspects of modding cars.One of the biggest mechanical motorsport upgrades you can do on your NASP engine is to fit a fast road cam .

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

When pushing up the power you will need to uprate to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

Using high octane fuel is another option if you find you are suffering from detonation or premature ignition on your Hyundai project after fitting other tuning upgrades. To get sufficient fuel you may need to improve the injectors on your engine.

If you are increasing your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Contrary to popular belief there is often a small if any power gain to be had 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 i20 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 supplying cold air.

Do not go with the largest exhaust you can buy this will slow up the exhaust flow rate - the best for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

Getting the head ported and polished will allow you to get more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a professional with a flow bench. A good triple plate fast road upgraded clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never cut corners or ask a standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods in our opinion for your i20 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 remap 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. Superchargersare often easier to add than a turbo. It is difficult to map fuelling with a turbo as the boost comes on exponentially with engine speed.

Superchargers will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is simpler. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the compression ratio of the engine .

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Improving the handling for people often first priority in your i20 tuning project.

Adding a bit of negative camber to the front and a few degrees of toe out, will greatly enhance your i20 in handling and cornering.

We suggest that you fit modified suspension and lower the car by 22mm - 38 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with uprated suspension.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels can help the brakes cool down and are usually less heavy than steel ones. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of directional tread pattern tyre. The downside to large alloy wheels on your i20 is that you alter your final drive ratio so this will have a detrimental effect on performance and acceleration.

Because of this aim to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the OEM setup. In all cases without going larger than 16 inches.

There is a more updated version of this Hyundai i20 Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss i20 options in more detail with our i20 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Hyundai 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 Hyundai. 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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