Tuning the Renault K4J

"Comprehensive guide to performance tuning the Renault K4J engine!"

We often are seeing threads about the best tips on K4J upgrades. So let us look into Renault K4J mods and outline the best upgrades on this great engine and point out some common pitfalls along the way.

We shall detail the best approach to K4J tuning and outline the ultimate modifications for your car. Renault K4J are fantastic to work on and with the optimum uprated modifications like remaps, turbo kits and camshafts you will noticeably improve your driving pleasure.

When talking about the greatest parts for your K4J engine, we are going to concentrate on the upgrades that give the best value for money.

Altering your K4J camshaft will make a dramatic difference to the engine power band. Choosing a higher performance camshaft profile raises the power band accordingly.

NB: Fast road cams commonly bump the torque through the rpm band, you could sacrifice a little low down torque but the high end rpm power will improve.

Motorsport cams, bump the high end rpm power band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

On a typical daily driver you need to optimize your engines power to your preferences.

I'd never have found a K4J Competition cam is a pleasure to live with when driving in heavy traffic.

Each engine responds better to mild cam durations so set your engine up on a rolling road.

The ECU mapping and fuel pump and injectors also will make differences on the torque gains you'll get.

Altering valve durations can alter the torque 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.

K4J Tuning Stages

Stage 1 K4J modifications: Sports exhaust manifold, Remaps/piggy back ECU, Panel air filters, Fast road camshaft, Drilled & smoothed airbox, Intake headers.

Stage 2 K4J modifications: Ported and polished head, high flow fuel injectors, fuel pump upgrades, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust, Fast road cam, induction kit.

Stage 3 K4J modifications: 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.

ECU mapping should help to unlock the full potential of all the upgrades you've done to your K4J.

It will usually give around 30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NASP engines, but the outcome may vary depending on the upgrades you've carried out and the condition of your engine.

Forcing more fuel and air into the K4J engine is the whole point to any engine upgrade project.

Headers carry the air during the suck phase from the filter and allow it to be drawn into the engine and mixed with fuel.

Structure and rate of flow of the Headers can make a large change to fuel atomisation on the K4J.

It's not uncommon that intake headers are ripe for aftermarket tuning parts, although a few car makers provide reasonably good intake headers.

Adding a K4J larger valve kit, getting port work and head flowing will also raise performance, this will permit a greater performance increase on other parts.

Turbo upgrades for the K4J

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 K4J

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.

If your motor is turbo charged mods are relatively easy and most turbo engines already contain better components.

However engines will need better parts at higher power limits

Research these restrictions and upgrade to better quality components to cope with the power.

It's not unheard of guys spending a loads of money on turbo charger upgrades on the K4J only to suffer the humiliation of seeing the K4J literally blow up when it's been enthusiastically driven.

Large turbo chargers will usually experience no power at low rpm, and small turbo chargers spool up really quickly but won't have the peak rpm engines power gains.

Over the last 20 years the choice of turbo units is always improving and we commonly find variable vane turbo units, where the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end bhp.

Twin scroll turbo units divert the exhaust flow into a couple of channels and flow these at differently profiled vanes in the turbo. They also help the scavenging effect of the engine.

You'll commonly see there's a limitation in the air flow sensor MAP/MAF/AFM on the K4J when loads more air is being drawn into the engine.

We see 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor was restricting bhp at a much lower level.

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

Uprating K4J fuel injectors

Don't overlook the need to uprate the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty. We would recommend you to over specify your flow rate on the injectors.

As a rule of thumb add 20% to the flow rate when specifying an injector, which takes into account injector deterioration and affords a bit of spare capacity should the engine require 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.

Best K4J performance exhausts

You should look to improve your exhaust if the existing exhaust is actually causing a restriction.

On most factory exhausts you'll see your 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 do not go too big or you may end up will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Typically exhaust restrictions are in the catalysts installed, so adding a freer flowing sports alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Problems and issues to look out for on the K4J

The K4J engines, if regularly serviced and maintained, are generally very reliable and have few issues.

Regular oil changes are vital on the K4J, particularly when the engine has been modified and is putting down more power than the manufacturer intended.

For more information on Tuning your K4J engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss tuning options in more detail with our K4J 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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We really like hearing from our readers, and hearing about which tuning mods were the most effective for them, it helps us improve our recommendations and articles to reflect current trends in modifications and ensures that our K4J guides and tips are kept up to date.

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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 Renault. 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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