Coupe Tuning

"Hyundai Coupe Tuning"

The Coupe is a stunning looking car, each model releases really stood out. Sadly though the older mk1 Coupe's look rather dated now which is a shame but this means that the Coupe is a bit of a bargain if you know what you are looking for.

The cars are very well built and the radical styling, whilst not to everyone's taste pushed the boundaries of car design. with some imagination and the right mods you can turn your Coupe into a very credible track day car.

The key is getting the right balance of power and handling mods, so follow our guides carefully and read our no nonsense unbiased articles on car mods to see which ones would be best for your Coupe.

Many Coupe owners uprate the handling of their cars as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car. Drop the car by as much as 35mm and fit stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

An anti roll bar and strut brace will help stiffen up the cornering and reduce body roll and flex. We would also look at fitting polyeurothane hoses as well.

Turning our attention to the Coupes engine we need to get a bit more power out of the top end. A good looking car really needs the performance to match. 

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 then apply the following mods.

Tuning modifications.

You really need to keep as much low end power as you can and aim for a wide power band rather than a top end spike. Fast road cams offer one of the biggest performance gains as far as a bolt on 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 can make the car more responsive and respond better although it will not increase the power output. Uprating the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel. When increasing your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

The following Coupe engine mods are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to go before you begin and plan your project carefully.

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.

A light weight flywheel can greatly improve the acceleration fo the engine and it will feel a lot freer.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Derestricting the airflow into the engine is the primary part of tuning so get a better flowing air filter. Induction kits sound great but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and actually rob you of power. A good sports exhaust is essential to balance your freer flowing air filter, just adding an induction kit on it's own will do little to increase your power.

We note that the Lantra exhaust headers are bigger and flow better and are suitable for some Coupe engines, this can be easier than trying to find perfromance aftermarket exhaust headers.

Getting a professionally flowed head with larger valves can fully release the engines power. In nearly all cases of Coupe 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. On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful. However a remap on a NASP engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods.

The largest power gains for NASP engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. Turbos are harder to add than supercharger. It is harder to map a turbo as the boost comes on exponentially with engine speed. Superchargers however will give a boost which is proportional to engine speed so is easier to map. Alternatively you could add water injection to control knock. If you are not planning to strengthen the engine or lower the compression ratio then you are stuck with low pressure forced induction.

We have not seen any Coupe Supercharger kits around yet but we are sure you could probably get a Mini Cooper supercharger from a breakers yard, fabricate your own mounts and then get the mapping sorted out for a cheap and impressive power upgrade.

Hyundai Coupe Wheel modifications.

Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are usually lighter than the steel ones. Large Coupe 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 17 inches, although we know some of our members have gone larger than this with no problems.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Coupe options in more detail with our Coupe owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Hyundai 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 Hyundai. 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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