Tuning the Hyundai Tau

"Comprehensive guide to tuning the Hyundai Tau MPi engine!"

Herein we detail the best approach to Tau MPi tuning and provide tips on the best modifications. Hyundai Tau MPi offer good returns when tuned and with the optimum sports upgrades like a remap, turbo kits and camshafts you will certainly increase your driving opportunities.

When talking about the best top for your Tau MPi engine, we are going to concentrate on the tuning parts that give the best power gain for you money.

Altering your Tau MPi camshaft will make a dramatic difference to the engine bhp. Choosing a higher performance camshaft profile raises the bhp accordingly.

NB: Fast road camshafts tend to push up the performance over the rpm range, you may sacrifice a little bottom end bhp but high end rpm power will be higher.

Motorsport and race camshafts, push up the high end rpm power band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

For a car used daily you need to match your engines power to your cars usage.

You'll never have found a Tau MPi Competition camshaft is a pleasure to live with when on the daily commute.

Different Tau MPi engines respond better to less aggressive cam durations than others.

The ecu map and fuelling also will make differences on the bhp gains you'll get.

Altering valve durations can alter the bhp band and on most engines the exhaust and intake durations do not need to match, although most cams and tuners use matched pairs there are some advantages to extending the intake or exhaust durations.

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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: Panel air filters, Drilled & smoothed airbox, Fast road camshaft, Sports exhaust manifold, Remaps/piggy back ECU, Intake headers.

Stage 2 mods: fuel pump upgrades, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust, Fast road cam, high flow fuel injectorsPorted and polished head, induction kit.

Stage 3 mods: Competition cam, Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Engine balancing & blueprinting, Twin charging conversions, Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression.

The Tau MPi engines make great tuning projects and we're finding that there is a growing number of upgrades and tuning parts out there.

remap should help to release the full potential of all the tuning mods you've fitted to your Tau MPi.

It will usually give around 30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NASP engines, but power output may differs on the tuning mods you've done and the condition of your engine.

Pulling air and fuel into the Tau MPi engine is vital to any engine performance tuning job.

Intake flow the air from the filter and allow it to be drawn into the engine cylinders.

The shape and rate of flow of the Intake headers can make a substantial change to fuel atomisation and engine efficiency on the Tau MPi.

On popular production engines intake are in desperate need of motorsport parts, although a few car makers provide decently flowing intake.

Increasing the Tau MPi valve size, carrying out port matching and head flowing will also improve torque, and as an added benefit will allow you to get a better torque increase on other tuning parts.

Turbo upgrades

NASP engines need quite a lot of work when you add a turbo, so we have a separate guide to help you take into account the pros and cons of going this route on your Tau MPi

The more air you can get into an engine, the more fuel it can burn and uprating the induction with a turbocharger upgrade makes massive power gains.

When an engine has forced induction mods are relatively easy and most turbo engines are built using better components.

However you will find an engines have weakspots

Research these restrictions and fit better quality crank and pistons to utilize the power.

There are many drivers spending a loads of money on turbo charger upgrades on the Tau MPi only to experience the car literally blow up when it's been finished.

Big upgraded turbo units tend to suffer low end lag, and low capacity turbo units spool up much more quickly but don't have the peak end engines power gains.

In the last 10 years the range of turbos is always increasing and we commonly find variable vane turbos, allowing the vane angle is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end bhp and torque.

Twin scroll turbos divert the exhaust gases into 2 channels and feed these at differently profiled vanes in the turbo charger. They also boost the scavenging effect of the engine.

It is not unusual that there is a restriction in the air flow sensor MAF/MAP on the Tau MPi when a lot more air is being drawn into the engine.

You'll see that 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor limited bhp and torque at a much lower level.

Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large power gains, although more challenging to configure. We have this article on twincharging if you want to read more.

Fuelling upgrades and mods

When you increase the power you will need to pay attention to to the fuelling.

More power needs more fuel. We would recommend you to over specify your flow rate on the injectors.

The rule of thumb is to add 20% when specifying an injector, this takes into account injector deterioration and gives a bit of spare capacity should the engine need more fuel.

We think this one is common sense, but you'll need to match your fuel injector to the type of fuel your car uses as well.

Exhaust upgrades and mods

You only need to to replace your exhaust if the current exhaust is actually causing a restriction in flow.

On most factory exhausts you'll see the flow rate is still good even on modest power gains, but when you start pushing up the power levels you will need to get a better flowing exhaust.

Sports exhausts generally help improve air flow through the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too big or you may end up will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Common exhaust restrictions are traced to the catalyst installed, so adding a higher flowing sports alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Weak spots, Issues & common problem areas on the Tau MPi

The Tau MPi engines, if regularly serviced and maintained, are generally very reliable and have few issues.

Regular oil changes are vital on the Tau MPi, particularly when the engine has been modified and is putting down more power than the manufacturer intended.

High oil consumption is a common complaint among owners of the Tau engine which fouls spark plugs, and injectors and doesn't go well with the catalyst. A piston ring replacement appears to cure this issue.

History of the Engine

The V8 Tau engine has been fitted with a supercharger when Hyundai wanted to show what this is capable of, and we are sure this great block will find it's way into many high performance cars.

It also boasts cylinder deactivation and replaces the less efficient Omega engine range. The engines sound great and run best on high octane grades of fuel.

  • 4.6 Tau MPi (366PS) G8BA 361 hp @6500 324 lbft @ 3500
  • 4.6 Tau MPi (390PS) G8BA 385 hp @6500 333 lbft @ 3500
  • 5.0 Tau MPi (400PS) G8BB 395 hp @6400 369 lbft @ 3500

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

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