Maruti Zen Tuning

"Enjoy a moment of Zen"

Tuning the Maruti Zen and best Zen performance parts for your car. These cars are extremely popular in India so we thought we'd take a look at them and see what can be done to improve the power and performance of your car.

These small light cars are great to work on as because they weight very little they respond really well to even the most modest tuning tweaks. Our forum members have some interesting projects on the go. The key to Zen tuning is getting the right mods you can waste loads of money if you do it wrong.

Tuning tips and articles

Engine tuning Transmission tuning Care care Intake & exhaust mods Improve handling Forums

Handling modifications are usually your first port of call for the Zen. We would go to a maximum drop of 35mm on most models. You risk rubbing on the arches if you go lower than this.

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

Keep the car looking standard and take off the badges to make an awesome sleeper!

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.

The following modifications are usually performed by our members, decide how far you want to go before you get going.

Getting the correct grade of mods for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motorsport parts just won't work well on the road as it makes the car hard to control in slow traffic.

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

Stage 2 modifications: Fast road cam,Power clutch,Fuel injector & fuel pump upgrades,Ported and polished head,.

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

You should keep as much low end power as you can and aim for a wide power band across the rev range 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 part. A performance camshaft maximises the intake and exhaust durations and pushes up the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a performance chip.

TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a competition cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.Don't forget to uprate the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty. Using high octane fuel is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your Maruti project after fitting other modifications. To get sufficient fuel you may need to uprate the injectors on your engine. 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.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Contrary to popular belief there is usually very little 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! Derestricting the airflow into the engine is a primary goal of performance tuning so get a better flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean only if you find the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound great but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and actually rob you of power.

Do not go with the biggest exhaust you can get this will slow the exhaust rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between 0.5 to 1 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

Head work including a head port and polished and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. Your clutch can seriously let you down as you increase the power if it starts to complain and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of up to 50%. Fit a power clutch to avoid power leak through the transmission. Turbo engines are just begging to be Upgraded. You will see large power gains on most modern turbochaged cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective and large modifications for your money.The most phenomenal power gains for NASP engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. It is often easier to bolt on a supercharger than it is to get a turbo working. Turbos provide boost in increasing proportion to rising engine speed and this can make mapping difficult. The nice correlating boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them more straightforward to map. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the compression ratio of the engine .

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are generally lighter than steel ones. It is worth noting that although they can look cool on the Zen Big alloy wheels will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this is due to the change in your effective final drive ratio. Although some people have gone larger we would stick to a 15 inch rim size as the maximum.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Zen options in more detail with our Zen owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Maruti 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. We really like hearing from our readers, and hearing about which mods were the most effective for them, it helps us improve our recommendations and articles to reflect current trends in modifications and ensures that our guides and tips are kept up to date.

Please Check out my YouTube channel, we're regularly adding new content...

PLEASE HELP: I NEED YOUR DONATIONS TO COVER THE COSTS OF RUNNING THIS SITE AND KEEP IT RUNNING. I do not charge you to access this website and it saves most TorqueCars readers $100's each year - but we are NON PROFIT and not even covering our costs. To keep us running PLEASE Donate here

If you liked this page please share it with your friends, drop a link to it in your favourite forum or use the bookmarking options to save it to your social media profile.

Feedback - What do You Think?

Please use our forums if you wish to ask a tuning question, and please note we do not sell parts or services, we are just an online magazine.

Help us improve, leave a suggestion or tip

Your Constructive comments on this article, I really want to improve this article with your help and suggestions.


Please watch this video and subscribe to my YouTube channel.



Member Benefits

Join our forum today and benefit from over 300,000 posts on tuning styling and friendly car banter.

You will also have full access to the modifed car gallery, project car updates and exclusive member only areas.

(All car owners of all ages and from all countries are welcome).