Tuning the Vauxhall F18D3

"Comprehensive guide to tuning and performance parts on the Vauxhall F18D3 engine!"

We often are seeing threads requesting info on the greatest F18D3 power upgrades. So let us look into Vauxhall F18D3 tuning mods and outline the best upgrades on this great engine and point out some frequent tuning mistakes along the way.

The Vauxhall F18D3 are fantastic to work on and with the ultimate sports modifications like a remap, turbo kits and camshafts you will greatly increase your driving pleasure.

We shall provide a guide to F18D3 tuning and highlight the best mods that work.

When talking about the best parts for your F18D3 engine, we are going to focus on the upgrades that give the best power gain for you spend.

Altering your F18D3 cam will make a dramatic difference to the engine torque. Choosing a higher performance cam profile raises the torque accordingly.

NB: Fast road cams usually push up the power across the rpm band, you could sacrifice a little low down power but your top end will be better.

Motorsport and race cams, push up the top end band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

For a road car you need to match your bhp range to your typical driving style.

I'd be amazed if you have found a F18D3 Race cam is a pleasure to live with when in heavy traffic.

Different F18D3 engines respond better to mild cam durations check your engine on a rolling road.

The ECU mapping and fuelling also will say much on the bhp gains you'll hit.

Altering valve durations can alter the bhp 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.

F18D3 Tuning Stages

Stage 1 F18D3 modifications: Remaps/piggy back ECU, Drilled & smoothed airbox, Sports exhaust manifold, Panel air filters, Intake headers, Fast road camshaft.

Stage 2 F18D3 modifications: Ported and polished head, induction kit, Fast road cam, high flow fuel injectors, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust, fuel pump upgrades.

Stage 3 F18D3 modifications: Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Engine balancing & blueprinting, Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Competition cam, Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Twin charging conversions.

ECU mapping should help to fully realize the full potential of all the upgrades you've done to your F18D3.

It will usually give around 30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NASP engines, but your results usually depend much on the upgrades you've done and the condition of your engine.

Pushing fuel and air into your F18D3 is the aim to any performance tuning project.

Headers transmit the air during the suck phase from the air filter and allow it to be fed into the engine cylinders.

The size of bore and shape and flow characteristics of the Intake headers can make a big change to fuel delivery on the F18D3.

On popular production engines intake are needing performance upgrades, although some OEM provide reasonably well designed intake.

Increasing the F18D3 valve size, doing some 3 or 5 angle valve jobs and porting and head flowing will also increase bhp, & more importantly will make space for an improved bhp increase on other parts.

Turbo upgrades for the F18D3

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 F18D3

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

If an engine has forced induction parts are going to net you a larger power gain and you will discover turbo engines are made using strengthened components.

There are reliable limits for every engine, with some being incredibly solid and some only able to handle stock power

It is important to find these limitations and fit better pistons and crank to cope with the power.

It's not unheard of people spending a loads of money on turbo charger upgrades on the F18D3 only to suffer the indignity of watching the car go up in smoke just after it's been completed.

Big turbochargers tend to experience no power at low rpm, and small turbochargers spool up more quickly but won't have the high rpm engines power gains.

In recent times the choice of turbos is always evolving and we commonly find variable vane turbos, where the vane angle is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end bhp and torque.

Twin scroll turbos divert the exhaust flow into a couple of channels and push these at differently angled vanes in the turbo charger. They also improve the scavenging effect of the engine.

You'll commonly see there's a restriction in the air flow sensor AFM/MAP on the F18D3 when loads more air is being sucked into the engine.

Going up you'll find 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor sapped performance at a much lower level.

Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large bhp and torque gains, although more challenging to configure. We have this article on twincharging if you want to read more.

Uprating F18D3 fuel injectors

When you improve the power you will need to increase to the fuel system.

More power needs more fuel. We strongly recommend you to over specify your injector capacity.

The accepted safe increase is to add 20% capacity when fitting an injector, this allows for injector deterioration and gives a little spare capacity should the engine need 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 F18D3 performance exhausts

You only need to to upgrade your exhaust if the current exhaust is creating a restriction in flow.

On most factory exhausts you'll see the exhaust flow rate is still ok 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 will certainly help air flow out of the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too wide or you may end up will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches as a rule of thumb.

Typically exhaust restrictions can be traced to the catalysts installed, so adding a better flowing race alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Problems and issues to look out for on the F18D3

The F18D3 engines, if regularly serviced and maintained, are generally very reliable and have few issues.

Regular oil changes are vital on the F18D3, particularly when the engine has been modified and is putting down more power than the manufacturer intended.

For more information on Tuning your F18D3 engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss tuning options in more detail with our F18D3 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 upgrades were the most effective for them, it helps us improve our recommendations and articles to reflect current trends in modifications and ensures that our F18D3 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 Vauxhall. 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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