Citroen DS5 Tuning

"Tuning guide to the most effective Citroen DS5 modifications."

All DS5 engines respond well to tuning and we are sure the C5 replacement will prove popular with car enthusiasts around the world.

Build quality and equipment levels on the DS5 are superb.

The engine Citroen mated with the DS5 was the HP163 a 1.6L GDI Turbocharged petrol engine, a couple of diesel engines and a diesel electric hybrid.

The interior feels a lot like you are sitting in the cockpit of a well designed airplane.

So let's take an overview of DS5 tuning, but please also read our in depth articles for each modification, this page is only really a summary of what can be done to modify the DS5.

The DS5 is a good car modification project to have. We see many tuners wasting money on their DS5 doing the wrong mods and then having to start over. Follow our hints to avoid making the common mistakes

Don't just look at the peak power figures, you need to see the whole torque curve when determining if a mod is right for you DS5.

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.

Tuning modifications.

These mods sports kits are usually installed by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get going.

Getting the correct grade of uprated mods for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 motor sport parts just don't work well on the road hard to control in slow traffic.

Please watch TorqueCars Video tutorial on car tuning. And be sure to subscribe and support our new channel.

Stages of Tune

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

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

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

You should keep as much low end torque as possible and aim to achieve a long power band rather than a narrow top end power hike.

In this article we shall give a little insight into the world 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 modification.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest bhp gains for your money as far as a solitary motorsport upgrades goes on a NASP 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 reflashed ECU. We'd also caution you not to go with a motor sport cam as this upsets the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

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

Most power losses, and erratic idling after modifications are done can usually be traced to timing or fuel delivery issues.Uprated injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the 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.

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 extensively and are finding that the standard air intake has become limited.

Maximum power gains come from a full induction kit with a cold air feed on heavily tuned engines, this can be sited within an air box but a panel filter should suffice for most applications. TorqueCars suggest you use a panel air filter as these are easy to clean and maintain and generally perform better than paper ones.

Do not go with the largest exhaust you can get this will reduce 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 cylinder head gas flowed will further help more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a professional with a flow bench. A good fast road performance clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or expect your standard clutch to cope. The best mods in our opinion for your DS5 are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements.

NASP engines do not achieve big power gains if you remap them, unless you have done extensive modifications. With turbocharged engines this is another story. A remapped turbo will give phenomenal power gains and fully release the potential power of the engine.

We've also come across some owners toying with twincharged applications and making some very high power figures.

The most impressive power gains for NASP engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. Superchargers are generally easier to add than turbos. It is harder to map a turbo as the boost increases exponentially with rpm.

It is simpler to map a supercharger because the boost is directly proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. Adding forced induction will nearly always require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many DS5 owners uprate the handling of their cars with coilover suspension parts as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

We found that most DS5 factory suspension setups need tweaking, a few degrees of toe out -1-1.7, and a small amount of negative camber will radically improve your cornering and handling.

We suggest that you fit motorsport suspension and lower the car by 28mm - 36 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with uprated suspension.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Because alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they help to cool the brake disks. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of track legal slick tyre. Large DS5 alloy wheels can decrease performance. If you get big alloy wheels you will be changing your final drive ratio.

For this reason we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 16 inches, although we know some of our members have gone larger than this with no problems.

There is a more updated version of this Citroen DS5 Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss DS5 options in more detail with our DS5 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Citroen 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 do love seeing our visitors car projects and which mods work best for them, this site is very much a community effort, and we remind our visitors of our non profit non commercial approach to running this site.

All of your comments are used to improve the accuracy of these articles which are continually revised, tweaked and updated.

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 Citroen. 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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