Ford Scorpio Tuning

"Scorpio - theres a sting in its tail."

Probably one of the most controversially styled Ford cars in a long while. The Scorpio was aimed at the luxury executive market. Most models have an impressive level of equipment and options with leather seats and lots of gadgets.

The Cosworth powered Scorpio was very nimble despite it's size and this will be the perfect model to base your tuning project on.

With the standard range of Scorpios, TorqueCars would recommend  that the handling should be your first priority. Drop the car by as much as 40mm and fit stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

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

Sadly with smaller engine sizes you are wasting your time spending money on modifications, so if this applies to you get yourself an engine swap to a 2.9 or similar and then apply the following mods.

Tuning modifications.

The following mods are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to go before you begin.

Stage 1 mods: Exhaust, Panel air filter, Remap, lighter flywheel

Stage 2 mods: Fast road cam, ported and polished head, fuel injector & fuel pump upgrades, 

Stage 3 mods: Engine balancing, forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), competition cam.Fitting a set of Fast road cams will offer one of the biggest performance gains as far as a bolt on Scorpio part goes. You will need to

ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to uprate the fuelling.

A fuel pressure boost valve will make the car more responsive and respond better. Uprating the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel. When increasing your fuelling you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

Intake and Exhaust.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Induction kits work well on turbo engines and larger engines, for the smaller Scorpio engines you should go with a sports panel air filter. Do not go with the biggest exhaust you can find - the best for power gains are usually between 2 to 2.7 inches.

In nearly all cases of Scorpio tuning your clutch will start to slip and this needs to be uprated - read our article on clutches for more information. Remaps offer significant power gains on all turbo charged cars. 

Wheel modifications.

Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are usually lighter than the steel ones. It is worth noting that although they can look cool on the Scorpio Big alloy wheels will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower you top speed will be due to the change in your effective final drive ratio. Aim to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the same as supplied from the factory. In all cases we do not recommend going above 17 inches.

Please join us in our forum to discuss the Scorpio options in more detail with our Scorpio owners. It would also be worth reading our Ford tuning articles to get a full grasp of the pros and cons of each type of 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 Ford. 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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