Nissan Versa Tuning

"Thanks for reading my Nissan Versa tuning guide."
The Versa is a good tuning project to try. If you do your homework then you can create an awesome Versa but don't be fooled there are lots of sports mods out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.

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

Smaller engines do not provide much of a return in terms of power so start with a bigger engine. Engine swaps are a good option if you have a small engine size.

Power mods.

The following sports upgrades are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you begin.

Getting the best modified parts for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 motor sport parts just won't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.

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Stages of Tune

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

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

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

Your aims when modding your car should be a flat and wide torque band. You don't want all the power to be at the top end unless you are creating a competition car.

In this article we shall give your a good starting base 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 mod.A fast road camshaft typically is one of the best NASP power modifications you can do mechanically to your engine.

It improves the intake and exhaust durations and increases the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a performance chip. We'd also caution you not to go with a motor sport cam as this upsets the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

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

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

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

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Induction kits only help to boost power if your cars air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most low power engines will see ZERO 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.

For most Versa 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.

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

Head porting and polishing 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 A good multi plate fast road sports clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or think that a standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods we recommend for your Versa are fast road camshaft, remap, induction and exhaust, suspension.

Remaps offer phenomenal power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful. However a flashed ecu on a NASP engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods. Adding forced induction will see big power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Turbos are usually harder to add than a supercharger. It is harder to map a turbo as the boost increases exponentially with revs.

The nice directly proportional boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them simpler to map. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the engines compression ratio .

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many Versa owners uprate the handling of their cars with suspension modifications as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

Fully adjustable suspension allows you to fine tune the handling of you Versa radically enhancing your drive.

We suggest that you fit modified suspension and lower the car by 22mm - 39 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with performance suspension.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

The benefits of alloys include lowering your unsprung weight and more efficient brake cooling via the extra air flow they allow. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of track legal slick tyre. The drawback to large alloys on your Versa is that you alter your final drive ratio so this will have a negative effect on performance and acceleration.

Because of this try to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the recommended OEM sizes. In all cases we do not recommend going bigger than 17 inches.

There is a more updated version of this Nissan Versa Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

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

Please help us to improve this article, we need your feedback in the comments box below which is there for you to pass on any tips, pointers or facts we might not have covered..

We really like hearing from our readers, and hearing about which upgrades were the most effective for them, it helps us improve our recommendations and articles to reflect current trends in modifications and ensures that our EZ engine guides and tips are kept up to date and we remind our visitors of our non profit non commercial approach to running this site.

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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 Nissan. 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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