What are the best mods for your car.
"The best of the best!"
What are the best tuning mods for your car? There is a lot of debate in our forums but we have compiled a list of the best tuning mods for this article based on feedback from our members.
We are going to ignore the most popular mods, as these often only turn out to be aesthetic upgrades rather than performance upgrades.
If you have a turbo charged car then the simplest and easiest power gain you can get comes from a remap. This will push power up by 20-40% upwards and generally reliability and running costs remain unchanged (obviously the more aggressive the remap the more the hidden downsides will become apparent). Read up on Engine remaps.
Fast road cams make a massive difference to an engines power and performance. They alter the whole inlet and exhaust duration and can dramatically move the power band around. If you go with an motorsport grade cam then you can expect a very lumpy tickover and the car will be hard to drive in slow traffic. Read more on Fast road cams.
You should never overlook the stopping ability of your car. Some fast road high friction brake pads can make a big difference but larger disks, bigger calipers and vented and grooved disks can really improve your stopping ability. Read more information on Brake Mods.
Most of our members recommend suspension upgrades as these are usually quite simple to fit and set up and really can improve performance, especially on non performance cars and standard models. There are lots of options out there so you might want to read up on suspension upgrades and suspension set up to get more information.
Best Internal engine mods
Internal engine modifications are expensive to do but they do yield the best performance gains. So if you are serious about finding the best tuning mods for your car.
Porting and polishing the head will greatly improve the airflow through the engine. This has the added benefit of making the engine more efficient and improves the torque throughout the rev range. A good porter and polisher can also add 3 or 5 angels to the inlet valves to further improve the air flow into the engine. Just remember that more air means you can burn more fuel. Read more on Porting and polishing.
Balancing the engine will not usually increase the power directly but it will allow you to run at higher rpms without risk of the engine falling apart. So if you are stripping down and rebuilding an engine you should get it balance or blueprinted to allow you to fully exploit the power gains available to you. Read more on Engine Balancing
Other mods.
We are not actually going to recommend adding a turbo to a NASP engine, although this gives a major power gain because it is such a difficult process to get right and requires lots of other modifications to an engine for it to work reliably. If you wanted more information see our article on adding a turbo.
When you have a turbo engine you already have a good base to build upon. Getting a larger turbo will greatly increase the power you can make. There are a number of options from fitting a bigger turbo to replacing your OEM turbo with a hybrid turbo.
Exhaust mods are popular although most off the shelve exhaust systems are designed for noise, there are some performance systems out there. Power gains through better exhaust flow rates tend to come on turbo charged and large capacity engines where there is a need to shift large amounts of air. You can find out more in our exhaust mods article.
For a full overview on tuning mods for your car see our tuning articles.
Please Check out my YouTube channel, we're regularly adding new content...
PLEASE HELP: I NEED YOUR DONATIONS TO COVER THE COSTS OF RUNNING THIS SITE AND KEEP IT RUNNING. I do not charge you to access this website and it saves most TorqueCars readers $100's each year - but we are NON PROFIT and not even covering our costs. To keep us running PLEASE Donate here
If you liked this page please share it with your friends, drop a link to it in your favourite forum or use the bookmarking options to save it to your social media profile.
Feedback - What do You Think?
Please use our forums if you wish to ask a tuning question, and please note we do not sell parts or services, we are just an online magazine.
Help us improve, leave a suggestion or tip
Please watch this video and subscribe to my YouTube channel.