Seat Alhambra Tuning

"Thank you for reading this Seat Alhambra tuning guide."

The Alhambra is a good project car to execute.

We see people wasting money on their Alhambra doing the wrong mods and then having to start over.

Follow our advice to avoid wasting your money

Our aim in Alhambra engine tuning should be to increase peak power and Torque at the top end.

Smaller engines do not provide much of a return in terms of power so start with a bigger engine. Engine swaps are a good option if you have a small engine size.

Tuning modifications.

These are the performance modifications are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to go before you get started.

Getting the right tuning mods for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 (competition) 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, Alloy wheels, Remap, Sports exhaust.

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

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

You should keep as much low end power as possible and aim to achieve a wide power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power hike.

In this article we shall give a brief overview to the best modifications 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.A fast road camshaft usually works out as one of the best NASP power modifications you can do with a single part fitted to your engine.

The intake and exhaust durations play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car hard to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a reflashed ECU for the best performance gains.

When pushing up the power you will need to uprate to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

If you find you experience flat spots and power surges after your uprated mods you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. To get sufficient fuel you may need to uprate the injectors on your engine.

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 usually a small power gain achieved by fitting an induction kit, they only become beneficial and are recommended after you boost the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

Derestricting the air flow into the engine is a primary goal of performance tuning so get a better flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound fun but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and usually rob you of power on most cars.

Sports exhausts can help balance the flow of gases through the engine. But if your exhaust is too large, ie: over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose much of your flow rate and end up lacking power and torque.

Head work including a head port and polished and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. Your clutch can lose you loads of power as the power goes up if it starts to complain and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of up to 46%. Fit an upgraded clutch to avoid power loss through the transmission. The best mods we would do for your Alhambra are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaust.

Turbo engines are just asking to be Reprogrammed. You will see big power gains on most modern turbo charged cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective and big modifications for your money.

We've also come across some owners experimenting with twin charging conversions and making some impressively high power hikes.

Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give large power gains. It is often easier to bolt on a supercharger than it is to bolt on a turbo. It is more challenging to map a turbo as the boost builds exponentially with rpm.

The nice directly proportional boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them more straightforward to map. Alternatively you could perhaps add water injection to control knock.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are the thing most do first for the Alhambra.

If you set the toe out to 1 to 2 degrees on the front, and add a little negative camber then cornering will greatly improve.

Drop the car by as much as 23mm - 36 mm and fit performance stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels can help the brakes cool down and are usually lighter than steel ones. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of directional tread pattern tyre. Large Alhambra alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your final drive ratio.

With this in mind aim to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the recommended OEM sizes. In all cases avoid going above 16 inches.

There is a more updated version of this Seat Alhambra Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

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