Tuning the Toyota NZ

"Comprehensive guide to tuning the Toyota NZ engine!"

The Toyota NZ make a good tuning project and with the best uprated mods like a remap, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will positively maximise your driving enjoyment.

In this article we look at NZ tuning and report on the best upgrades.

The greatest NZ upgrades on an engine are in our opinion the ones that give the best power gain for you spend.

We won't be swayed by popular NZ upgrades, they need to be cost effective.

Altering your NZ cam will make a dramatic difference to the engine engines power. Choosing a higher performance cam profile raises the engines power accordingly.

NB: Fast road cams usually push up the bhp and torque over the rev band, you could drop a little low end power but the high end rpm power will improve.

Race cams, 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 typical daily driver must carefully try to match your engines power to your typical driving style.

I'd be shocked if you have found a NZ Competition cam is a pleasure to live with when driving in heavy traffic.

Some NZ engines respond better to more or less aggressive camshaft durations check your engine on a rolling road.

The map and fuelling also will make differences on the power gains you'll make.

Altering valve durations can alter the power 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.

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

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

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

Carefully think through your options and then source your tuning parts and set yourself a power target to avoid costly mistakes.

ECU mapping will help fully realize the full potential of all the tuning parts you've fitted to your NZ.

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

It is the main goal to any engine performance tuning project to shove more fuel and air into the NZ engine

Headers carry the air from the filter and allow it to be drawn into the engine cylinders.

The bore size, shape and flow rate of the Air Intake manifolds can make a substantial effect on to fuel atomisation and engine efficiency on the NZ.

On popular production engines intake headers are crying out for a performance upgrade, although a few manufacturers provide reasonably well designed intake headers.

Fitting big valve kits, doing a bit of 3 or 5 angle valve jobs and porting and head flowing will also improve performance, the fantastic side effect is it will allow you to get a greater performance increase on other 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 NZ

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

When your motor is turbo charged modifications are simpler to install and we find turbo charged engines are built with harder and stronger components.

However engines will need better parts at higher power limits

We recommend you find these restrictions and fit more solid crank and pistons to survive the power.

There are many tuners spending a loads of money on turbo charger upgrades on the NZ only to watch the whole thing go up in smoke soon after it's used on the roads.

Larger upgraded turbo chargers will usually suffer low end lag, and small turbo chargers spool up quickly but won't have the peak end engines power gains.

In the last 10 years the market of turbo units is always developing and we now see variable vane turbo units, allowing the vane angle is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end bhp and torque.

Twin scroll turbo units divert the exhaust gases into 2 channels and push these at differently angled vanes in the turbo charger. They also improve the scavenging effect of the engine.

It is common that there's a limit in the air flow sensor MAP/MAF/AFM on the NZ 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 was restricting bhp and torque at a much lower level.

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

Fuelling upgrades and mods

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to uprate the fuelling when you start extending past 20% of a bhp and torque increase.We would recommend you to over specify your injector capacity.

The rule of thumb is to add another 20% when specifying an injector, this allows for injector deterioration and allows 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.

Exhaust upgrades and mods

You should look to boost your exhaust if the existing exhaust is creating a restriction.

On most factory exhausts you'll find the flow rate is fine 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 equal out the flow of air 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 losing power and torque.

Usual exhaust restrictions come around the emissions filters installed, so adding a freer flowing performance alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Weak spots, Issues & common problem areas on the NZ

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

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

History of the Engine

1NZ-FXE: from December 1997

  • Toyota Prius (XW10 & XW20)
  • Toyota Prius
  • Toyota Aqua
  • Toyota Yaris
  • Toyota Corolla (Axio/Fielder)
  • Toyota Sienta (2nd generation)

1NZ-FE: from July 1999

  • Toyota Vios/Belta
  • Toyota Yaris/Echo
  • Scion xA/Toyota ist
  • Scion xB (1st generation)/Toyota bB (1st generation)
  • Toyota Raum
  • Toyota Porte
  • Toyota Platz
  • Toyota Auris
  • Toyota Fun Cargo
  • Toyota Premio
  • Toyota Allion
  • Toyota Corolla (Axio/Fielder, RunX, Allex)
  • Toyota Sienta
  • WiLL VS
  • Toyota Probox
  • Toyota Ractis

1NZ-FXP: from 2017

  • Toyota JPN Taxi (AP10)

1NZ-FTE: from 2004

  • Toyota Vios Turbo (Thailand)
  • Toyota Vitz RS Turbo (Japan)
  • Toyota Corolla Axio GT (Japan)

2NZ-FE: from October 1999

  • Toyota Yaris/Echo/Vitz
  • Toyota Vios/Belta
  • Toyota Platz
  • Toyota Porte
  • Toyota Corolla (E140), Pakistan only
  • Toyota Corolla (E170), Pakistan only
  • Toyota bB
  • Toyota Ist
  • Toyota Corolla (E120), Japan and Middle East only

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

We need your help improving this article, so please send us your feedback in the comments box below and pass on any tips, points or facts we have wrong or have not covered.

We really like hearing from our readers, and hearing about which 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 NZ guides and tips are kept up to date.

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