Nissan Qashqai Tuning

"Thanks for reading my Nissan Qashqai tuning tips."

The original J10 was released in 2006, and Nissan had no idea what a resounding success this model would be, their timing was spot on, beating many other manufacturers to a decent crossover SUV.

In the USA the Qashqai is badged as the Rogue Sport and in Japan and Australia it was labelled the Dualis.

The Qashqai is very capable, nice to drive and a practical family vehicle.

Some of the smaller engines feel a little under powered, but we guess that's why your here on our tuning site, looking for improvements and modifications to improve your Qashqai.

So let's look at Qashqai tuning and show our top modification picks. Nissan Qashqais have loads of potential and with carefully picked enhancements you can substantially improve your driving fun.

The Qashqai is a good tuning project to execute. Take your time and research Qashqai tuning to spare yourself making the usual disastrous errors we get told about.

A nice wide torque band and sweet spot of peak power at one third of your RPM range is optimum.

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 mods performance kits are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to go before you get started.

Getting the correct grade of performance modifications for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 competition upgrades just don't work well on the road difficult in stop start traffic.

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Stages of Tune

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

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

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

Peak power is nice in motorsport but for a daily driven car you need a long power band and perhaps extending the rev range.

In this article we shall give a limited introduction to the best upgrades for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance part.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest torque gains for your money as far as a solitary performance modifications goes on a NASP engine.

It maximises the intake and exhaust flow and pushes up the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a performance chip. TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a motor sports profile cam as this upsets the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to look at the fuelling.

If you find you get flat spots and surges after your modifications you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Increasing 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.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Contrary to popular belief there is generally very little power gain got by fitting an induction kit, they only work well and are recommended after you raise the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

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.

Sports exhausts will certainly help air flow from the engine but do not go too big or you could will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Getting the head polished and ported will allow you to get more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a pro with a flow bench. A good heavy duty fast road power clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never make false economies or ask your standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods in our experience for your Qashqai are fast road camshaft, remap, induction and exhaust, suspension.

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 big power gains and take full advantage of the strength of the block. Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give large power gains. Turbos are generally harder to add than a supercharger. With a turbo the boost curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it harder to map.

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

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many Qashqai owners uprate the handling of their cars with performance suspension kits as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

Good suspension tweaks that radically enhance handling for the Qashqai include a couple of degrees negative camber and 1-1.5 degrees of toe out on the front wheels.

We would go to a maximum drop of 28mm - 39 mm on most models. You risk handling compromises if you go lower than this.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Because alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they will help to cool the brake disks. Get a good directional tread pattern tyre to improve your handling and help improve traction on your Qashqai. Please note although they can look cool on the Qashqai big alloys will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this to the change in your effective final drive ratio.

Because of this we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 18 inches, although we know some of our members have installed larger rims with no problems. The 19's look good but they do make the ride so much harder and thrashy.

There is a more updated version of this Nissan Qashqai Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

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