Tuning the Vauxhall N14YF

"Comprehensive guide to tuning the Vauxhall N14YF engine!"

We often are seeing threads inquiring about getting more power from the N14YF and wanting to know what are the best N14YF power upgrades. So let us look into Vauxhall N14YF parts and outline the best modifications on this great engine and point out some common pitfalls along the way.

Therefore we review N14YF tuning and point out the premier mods that work. Vauxhall N14YF are popular tuning projects and with carefully chosen sports enhancements like remapping, turbo kits and camshafts you will greatly improve your driving pleasure.

When talking about the top parts for your N14YF engine, we are going to focus on the ones that give the best power gain for you money.

Altering your N14YF cam will make a dramatic difference to the engine bhp. Choosing a higher performance cam profile raises the bhp accordingly.

NB: Fast road camshafts commonly push up the bhp and torque through the rpm range, you may sacrifice a little low down power but high end rpm power will be higher.

Competition camshafts, 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.

A Motorsport camshaft is not great on the daily commute.

You should ideally match your bhp range to your driving style so for a car driven daily stick with a shorter duration N14YF camshaft

Each engine responds better to less aggressive cam durations than others.

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

Extending exhaust or intake 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.

N14YF Tuning Stages

Stage 1 N14YF modifications: Sports exhaust manifold, Fast road camshaft, Remaps/piggy back ECU, Intake headers, Panel air filters, Drilled & smoothed airbox.

Stage 2 N14YF modifications: Fast road cam, induction kit, fuel pump upgrades, Ported and polished head, high flow fuel injectors, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust.

Stage 3 N14YF modifications: Competition cam, Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Twin charging conversions, Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Engine balancing & blueprinting.

The N14YF engine blocks make great tuning projects and we're pleased to see that there is a lot of mods and tuning parts out there.

A remap should help to to establish the full potential of all the parts you've done to your N14YF.

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 will vary depending on the parts you've done and the condition of your engine.

Feeding air into each cylinder is the aim to any engine modification project.

Intake headers transmit the air during the suck phase from the air filter and allow it to be fed into the engine cylinders with fuel for the squish phase.

The shape and flow rate of the Intake headers can make a substantial effect on to fuel engine efficiency on the N14YF.

Many mass produced engine air intake manifolds are needing an upgrade, although some OEM provide reasonably well designed air intake manifolds.

Big valve conversions on the N14YF, doing some 3 or 5 angle valve jobs and porting and head flowing will also increase performance, and as an added benefit will give you an improved performance increase on other upgrades.

Turbo upgrades for the N14YF

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 N14YF

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

When a car has a turbo already fitted parts are more reliable and you will discover turbo charged engines will have more solid components.

However most engines will need better parts at higher power limits

It is important to find these limits and fit better quality components to cope with the power.

There are many people spending a loads of money on turbo charger upgrades on the N14YF only to suffer the humiliation of seeing the whole thing go up in smoke on it's first outing after it's been finished.

Bigger capacity turbo chargers commonly experience low end lag, and smaller turbo chargers spool up really quickly but do not have the high rpm engines power gains.

Thanks to new tech the market of turbochargers is always moving on and we now see variable vane turbochargers, permitting the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end performance.

Twin scroll turbochargers divert the exhaust flow into 2 channels and feed these at differently designed vanes in the turbocharger. They also increase the scavenging effect of the engine.

It is common that there's a limitation in the air flow sensor AFM/MAF on the N14YF when a lot more air is being sucked 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 performance gains, although more difficult to setup. We have this guide to twinchargers if you want to read more.

Uprating N14YF fuel injectors

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to pay attention to the fuelling when you start going beyond 20% of a bhp increase.We would recommend you to be generous with your flow rate on the injectors.

The rule of thumb is to add 20% when specifying an injector, this accounts for injector deterioration and allows some 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 N14YF performance exhausts

You only need to to boost your exhaust if your exhaust is creating a restriction in flow.

On most factory exhausts you'll find your flow rate is still 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 can usually air flow from the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too wide or you could will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Common exhaust restrictions come around the catalyst installed, so adding a higher flowing race alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Problems and issues to look out for on the N14YF

The N14YF engines, if regularly serviced and maintained, are generally very reliable and have few issues.

Regular oil changes are vital on the N14YF, particularly when the engine has been modified and is putting down more power than the manufacturer intended.

For more information on Tuning your N14YF engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss tuning options in more detail with our N14YF 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 N14YF guides and tips are kept up to date.

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