Brera & Spider Tuning

"Thanks for reading this Alfa Romeo Brera tuning guide."

We review and look at Brera tuning and point out the best mods that work. Alfa Romeo Breras are good project cars and with a few sensible uprated upgrades you can positively enhance your driving pleasure.

The Brera is a good car tuning project to play with. If you do your research then you can create an awesome Brera but don't be fooled there are lots of sports mods out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.

Engine choices were

• 1.75 L TBi I4 t/c petrol
• 2.2 L JTS I4 petrol
• 3.2 L JTS V6 petrol
• 2.0 L JTDm I4 t/c diesel
• 2.4 L JTDm I5 t/c diesel

The Brera also came in a roadster version, and bore the Spider name. They are great cars to drive and it is a mystery to us why only 35000 units were sold during the production run.

The Brera is a good car tuning project to carry out, it handles really well and it is nicely setup and designed from the factory, so any mods you do will enhance what is already a great car. We do, however, see people wasting money on their Brera doing the wrong mods and then having to start over. Follow our tips to avoid wasting your money

A nice wide torque band and sweet spot of peak power at one third of your RPM range is optimum.

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.

These mods performance mods are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you get started.

Getting the right uprated modifications for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 motor sport 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: Remap, Panel air filter, Alloy wheels, Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Lighter flywheel.

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

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

Peak power is good on competition cars but for a drivable and fun car you need a wide torque band and perhaps extending the rev range.

The aim of our advice is to give a little insight into the world of customising upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your tuning project, the best tuning parts and all aspects of modding cars.A fast road cam often proves to be one of the best NASP power modifications you can do with a single part fitted to your engine.

It maximises 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. TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a motor sports profile cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

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

Using high octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your Alfa Romeo project after fitting other uprated parts. Improving the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

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.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Please note that WE DO NOT FIND IMPROVEMENTS WITH INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car a lot and are finding that the standard air intake has become the bottleneck.

For most Brera 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 gases through the engine. But if your exhaust pipe is too large, ie: over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the flow rate and end up lacking power and torque.

Head work including a gas flow (ported and polished) and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. A good multi plate fast road power clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never make false economies or assume a standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods we recommend for your Brera are fast road camshaft, remap, induction and exhaust, suspension.

Turbo engines are just begging to be Remapped. You will see large power gains on most modern turbo charged cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective and large modifications for your money.Adding forced induction will see big power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Superchargers are usually easier to add than turbos. With a turbo the boost curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it harder to map.

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

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Improving the handling for loads of people first priority in your Brera tuning project.

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

We suggest that you fit uprated suspension and lower the car by 23mm - 37 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with performance suspension.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brake cooling and are generally lighter than the steel ones. If you are serious about performance then you will need to carefully choose your tyres - ideally with a soft compound tyre. Large Brera alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your final drive ratio.

Due to this fact we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 16 inches, although we know some of our members have with bigger wheels with no problems.

There is a more updated version of this Alfa Romeo Brera Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

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

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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 Alfa Romeo. 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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