Tuning the Vauxhall Y22XE

"Comprehensive guide to tuning and performance parts on the Vauxhall Y22XE engine!"

We are frequently seeing threads requesting information on the best Y22XE modifications. So let us look into Vauxhall Y22XE tuning mods and outline the best upgrades on this great engine and point out some potential pitfalls along the way.

In this article we provide a guide to Y22XE tuning and report on the premier modifications. Vauxhall Y22XE great bases for a tuning project and with the right tuning mods like a remap, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will dramatically maximise your driving opportunities.

When talking about the optimum parts for your Y22XE engine, we are going to focus on the upgrades that give the biggest return for your cash.

Altering your Y22XE 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 tend to raise the performance through the rpm band, you could drop a little low down power but the top end will be better.

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

A Competition camshaft is not great on the daily commute.

You should ideally optimize your engines power to your cars usage so for a road car stick with a fast road Y22XE camshaft

Each engine responds better to less aggressive cam durations so set your engine up on a rolling road.

The map and injectors and fuel pump also have an effect on the torque gains you'll hit.

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.

Y22XE Tuning Stages

Stage 1 Y22XE modifications: Panel air filters, Drilled & smoothed airbox, Fast road camshaft, Remaps/piggy back ECU, Intake headers, Sports exhaust manifold.

Stage 2 Y22XE modifications: fuel pump upgrades, high flow fuel injectors, Fast road cam, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust, Ported and polished head, induction kit.

Stage 3 Y22XE modifications: Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Twin charging conversions, Engine balancing & blueprinting, Competition cam, Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger).

Remaps should help to unlock the full potential of all the upgrades you've done to your Y22XE.

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

It is vital to any engine performance tuning task to feed air into each cylinder

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

The size of bore and shape and flow characteristics of the Plenum can make a substantial difference to to fuel mixing and power on the Y22XE.

We often see intake manifold are begging for performance upgrades, although a few car makers provide reasonably well designed intake manifold.

Increasing the Y22XE valve size, getting Y22XE port enlargement and head flowing will also lift torque, the fantastic side effect is it will allow you to get a better torque increase on other tuning parts.

Turbo upgrades for the Y22XE

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 Y22XE

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

If an engine is turbo charged tuning parts are more reliable and you'll see that turbo charged engines are made using strengthened components.

However you will find an engines have limits

See where you'll find these limitations and upgrade to higher quality components to utilize the power.

We've seen car owners spending a lots of money on turbocharger upgrades on the Y22XE only to have the Y22XE literally blow up just after it's used in anger.

Bigger capacity turbo chargers tend to suffer a bottom end lag, and smaller turbo chargers spool up really quickly but won't have the top end engines power gains.

Thankfully the market of turbochargers is always improving and we now see variable vane turbochargers, allowing the vane angle is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end bhp and torque.

Twin scroll turbochargers divert the exhaust gases into a couple of channels and feed these at differently designed vanes in the turbo charger. They also increase the scavenging effect of the engine.

You'll commonly see there's a restriction in the air flow sensor (AFM/MAF/MAP) on the Y22XE when a lot more air is being sucked into the engine.

We note 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor sapped bhp and torque at a much lower level.

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

Uprating Y22XE fuel injectors

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

The rule of thumb is to add 20% capacity when specifying an injector, this allows for injector deterioration and provides 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 Y22XE performance exhausts

You should look to boost your exhaust if the current exhaust is actually causing a restriction.

On most factory exhausts you'll find the exhaust flow rate is 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 increase the flow of gases through the engine.

But if your exhaust pipe is too big, ie: it's over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the flow rate and end up lacking power and torque.

Usual exhaust restrictions are traced to the catalyst installed, so adding a freer flowing race alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Problems and issues to look out for on the Y22XE

The Y22XE engines, if regularly serviced and maintained, are generally very reliable and have few issues.

Regular oil changes are vital on the Y22XE, particularly when the engine has been modified and is putting down more power than the manufacturer intended.

For more information on Tuning your Y22XE engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss tuning options in more detail with our Y22XE 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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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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