Ssangyong Musso Tuning

"Thank you for reading my Musso tuning tips"

We look into Musso tuning and show the ultimate upgrades. Ssangyong Mussos are good project cars and with the ultimate modifications you can greatly improve your driving experience.

We consider Musso tuning and provide tips on the best modifications for your car. Ssangyong Mussos are popular cars and with the right upgrades you can greatly enhance your driving pleasure.

"Thanks for reading my Ssangyong Musso tuning article."
The Musso is a good project car to play with. If you do your homework then you can create an awesome Musso but don't be fooled there are lots of performance kits out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.

Tuning tips and articles

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

 

Our aim in engine tuning should be to increase peak power and torque at the top end.

With the right choice of mods you can turn your Musso into a really fun car, potentially beating bigger engined cars on the track.

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.

Tuning modifications.

The following motorsport upgrades are usually installed by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get going.

Getting the right motorsport upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 (competition) mods just won't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.

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Guide to the Best Tuning Mods & Upgrades

  1. Mods that Remove a Restriction

    If the intake or exhaust are restricted in any way this will have an impact on your cars performance, so use an induction kit/filter upgrade and better flowing exhaust whenever your tuning creates a flow restriction.

  2. Mods that Improve Handling

    Braking, Suspension and general alignment of the suspension components is vital for any tuning project even before you start increasing power.

  3. Fit Stronger Parts

    Tuned cars will show up weaknesses, typically in the turbochargers, clutch and internal engine components. Whilst most engines can cope with mild tuning mods, TorqueCars recommend that you upgrade the internal components before these weak spots manifest themselves.

  4. ECU Tunes & Remapping

    While some cars can be easily remapped, others may require piggyback ECU's or aftermarket ECU's but this is the most vital step of your tuning project as it fully releases the power from all of your mods and upgrades. Expect 10-20% on NASP engines and 30-40% on turbocharged units.

  5. More Power Needs More Fuel & Air

    Every tuning project will aim to increase the air supply, but fuel supply is just as vital and will need to match the air the engine can utilise. Fuel to Air ratio is vital so upgrade the fuel pump & injectors. Also you can look to perform head mods (flowing and porting), bigger valves, fast road cams and forced induction upgrades to improve fuel.

Stages of Tune

Stage 1 mods: Lighter flywheel, Remap, Panel air filter, Alloy wheels, Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 26-36mm).

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

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

Engine choices, were 2 petrol units and 2 diesels.

  • 2.3 L I4 (petrol)
  • 3.2 L I6 (petrol)
  • 2.3 L I4 (diesel)
  • 2.9 L I5 (diesel)

You need to keep as much low end power as you can and aim to achieve a wide power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power hike.

In this article we shall give your a good starting base to the best modifications for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance modification.A fast road camshaft will be one of the best NASP power mods you can do from a single upgrade to your engine.

It improves the intake and exhaust flow and pushes up 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 sports profile cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

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

If you find you have flat spots and surges after your modified modifications you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Upgraded injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.

Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned Mussos uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Please note that WE DO NOT FEEL YOU GET POWER GAINS FROM INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car massively and are finding that the standard air intake has become limited.

For most Musso 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 help increase the flow of air through the engine. But if the exhaust is too big, ie: it's over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose much of your flow rate and end up lacking power and torque.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional flowed (porting and polishing). These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. A good heavy duty fast road power clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or ask your standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods in our experience for your Musso are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaust.

Turbo engines are just pleading to be remapped. You will see massive power gains on most modern turbo engined cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective and massive modifications for your money.

We've also seen some tuners playing with twin charging applications and making some impressively high power hikes.

The most phenomenal power gains for NASP engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. Turbos are generally harder to add than a supercharger. Turbos increase power in increasing proportion to increasing engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.

The nice correlating boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them easier to map. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the compression ratio of the engine .

Handling/Suspension upgrades

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

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

We would go to a maximum drop of 26mm - 36 mm on most models. You risk compromising your handling if you go lower than this.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

The benefits of alloy wheels include lowering your unsprung weight and better brake cooling via the extra air flow they allow.

Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of directional tread pattern tyre. Please note that although they can look cool on the Musso large alloy wheels 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.

Because of this we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 16 inches, although we know some of our members have installed larger rims with no problems.

There is a more updated version of this Ssangyong Musso Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

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

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