Mitsubishi Lancer Tuning

"Thank you for reading my Mitsubishi Lancer tuning guide."

The Lancer is a good car modification project to carry out. With the right mods your Lancer can be transformed into an awesome motor. Don't waste money, do your homework and follow our unbiased guides to each performance upgrade to avoid disappointment.

We review and look at Lancer tuning and outline the best upgrades. Mitsubishi Lancers provide a fun base for your project and with carefully chosen modified upgrades you can improve your driving fun.

Our aim in engine tuning should be to increase peak bhp at 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 then apply the following mods.

Tuning modifications.

These are the uprated modifications are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you begin.

Getting the right modified mods for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motor sport mods just don't work well on the road difficult in stop start traffic.

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Stages of Tune

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

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

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

Peak power is all well and good but for a drivable and fun car you need a long torque band and perhaps extending the rev range.

The whole point of our pointers is to give a limited introduction of modding upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is best place to go if you need more detailed advice and tips on your modified car project, the best sport upgrades and all aspects of modding cars.One of the best mechanical modified parts you can do to your NASP engine is to fit a fast road camshaft .

It improves the intake and exhaust flow and increases 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 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 higher octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your Mitsubishi project after fitting other motorsport modifications. Upgrading 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.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Contrary to popular belief there is usually a small if any power gain got by fitting an induction kit, they only help and are recommended after you raise the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

Induction kits can work well on turbo engines and larger engines (if supplied with a suitable cold air feed or air box), generally though we'd just recommend for Lancer engines you should just fit a high performance panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

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.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional flowed (porting and polishing). These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. In nearly all cases of Lancer tuning your clutch will start to slip and this needs an upgrade - read our overview on clutches for more information. The best mods that we recommend for your Lancer are a remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.

Remaps offer big power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful. However a chipped ECU on a NASP engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods. Adding forced induction will see massive power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Superchargers are usually easier to add than turbos. With a turbo the power curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it harder to map.

Superchargers, however will give a boost which is proportional to engine speed so is simpler. Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many Lancer owners uprate the handling of their cars with uprated suspension modifications as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

Adding a little negative camber at the front wheels and a few degrees of toe out, will dramatically improve your Lancer in handling and cornering.

Drop the car by as much as 21mm - 40 mm and fit uprated stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

The benefits of alloy wheels include reducing your unsprung weight and better brake cooling via the extra air flow they allow. If you are serious about performance then you will need to carefully choose your tyres - ideally with a directional tread pattern tyre. The drawback to large alloy wheels on your Lancer is that you're altering your final drive ratio and this will have a detrimental effect on performance and acceleration.

Although some people have gone larger than this without issues we would stick to a 18 inch rim size as the maximum.

There is a more updated version of this Mitsubishi Lancer Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

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

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We really like hearing from our readers, and hearing about which upgrades were the most effective for them, it helps us improve our recommendations and articles to reflect current trends in modifications and ensures that our EZ engine guides and tips are kept up to date and we remind our visitors of our non profit non commercial approach to running this site.

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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 Mitsubishi. 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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