Peugeot 307 Tuning

"Getting the most from your 307"

A popular family car the 307 replaced the 306 and was an instant success. The standard car can be greatly improved though with the right mods and we will look at various handling and engine modifications to allow you to create your perfect car.

Peugeot 307 certainly make for a good tuning project and with the right performance modifications you can dramatically maximise your driving pleasure.

You can do a lot to improve the performance of your 307 with our step by step tuning tips. Sit down first and research 307 tuning to avoid making the usual costly slip ups we see.

Tuning tips and articles

Engine tuning Transmission tuning Care care Intake & exhaust mods Improve handling Forums

Handling modifications are usually your first port of call for the 307. Drop the car optimally somewhere in the region of 35mm and fit stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

307 Engine Tuning.

Top end power should be your overall aim on the 307 with a nice fat peak torque band.

307 make good sleepers if you debadge them and fit the most powerful engine upgrades and handling mods you can !

To be completely frank and honest, on the more modest engine sizes you are wasting your time spending money on modifications, so if this applies to you get yourself an engine swap then apply the following mods.

These are the mods that are usually performed by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you start.

Getting the best mods for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 motorsport parts just don't work well on the road difficult in stop start traffic.

Please watch our video which covers the 5 principles of tuning your car. Be sure to keep up with our latest YouTube content and subscribe.

Best Engine Mods for your 307

    1. Suspension mods - fitting a set of coilovers and sorting the suspension alignment will transform the handling and your enjoyment of your 307
    2. Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings,  on the 307 you will typically need an Turbo engine for this to be effective and many specialists offer tunes or remaps but you can also source aftermarket ECUs, or a piggyback ECU.
    3. Fast road cams are one of the most significant mechanical changes, but they must be installed by someone who knows what they're doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
    4. Intake and Exhaust - Note that on their own these mods will NOT ADD POWER in most cases, but they can help enhance power after other mods by removing the restriction.
    5. Head work - The goals of porting and flowing the head are to get air flowing into the engine while removing flow restrictions and turbulence.

Typical stage 1 mods often include:lighter flywheel,Remap,Panel air filter,sports exhaust,alloy wheels,suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm).

Typical stage 2 mods often include:power clutch,Ported and polished head,fuel injector & fuel pump upgrades,Fast road cam,.

Typical stage 3 mods often include:sports gearbox,Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves),Engine balancing,adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), competition cam.

307 Suspension mods

307 suspension/handling enhancements

The 307's initial responsibility is generally to handle adjustments. On most models, we would go with a maximum drop of 35mm. If you go lower than this, you risk your tyres rubbing against the arches.

Improving the handling for 307 owners is often the first goal in any 307 tuning project, yet we see the same errors made again and again.

So, if your car is also used on a regular basis, what factors must you consider while setting up and choosing your suspension?

Upgrades to 307 Suspension Bushings

Bushes are a rotatable rubber mount that allows the 307 suspension components to connect to and spin around the car's chassis. The rubber ones will deteriorate over time.

A new set of OEM rubber bushings may significantly enhance your vehicle's handling.

New polyurethane bushes last longer and keep the handling much tighter, albeit they may make the ride a little bumpier since they are harder.

Because of the increased vibration and play, they may also exacerbate the depreciation of other suspension components.

A new set of poly bushes will enhance the handling of your vehicle by reducing the excessive play associated with rubber bushes.

Most aftermarket suspension bushing kits include a full set of suspension bushes, however rarer vehicles and older models may just have the primary bushes available in polyurethane.

Custom bushes are often created to meet your specifications.

Common misconceptions about suspension upgrades

Purchasing a non-adjustable suspension system that lowers the car by 30mm from a local component store and expecting it to be the optimal configuration is a typical misunderstanding.

Most 307 suspension kits are quite general, and dealers may claim that they can be put on any or all types of vehicle.

The one-size-fits-all approach is incorrect since different engine weights, wheel sizes, and vehicle weights need different suspension characteristics.

Remember that speed bumps will grasp the sump and tear off the bottom of the engine as well as the bulk of the front skirt instead of slowing down a lowered car. Lower isn't necessarily better for handling.

According to us at TorqueCars, most road cars should not be lowered more than 35mm, while hot hatches with the upgraded suspension should only be dropped 30mm.

If you changed the wheel size, these tolerances may be much lower. A car with standard suspension and 17" rims might be OK, but lowering it would cause a plethora of problems.

The objective should always be to improve handling, and since the car is lower, less air passes under it, which may help with stability. It is critical to note that lower springs should be utilized in conjunction with matched dampers and not fitted with the OEM dampers.

Consider the alignment of your 307 suspension & set up.

Setting a little negative camber on the fronts and 1 to 1.7 degrees of toe in to increase stability or toe out to aid cornering may typically assist your 307's handling and cornering.

Drop the vehicle by up to 27mm - 36mm and install firmer dampers; larger drops will need extra modifications in most cases.

Because of its small weight and relatively wide engine compartment, the 307 makes an excellent sleeper car, out cornering many larger cars on a track!

If you see flat patches and power surges after upgrading, check the fueling and try a higher octane gasoline as well. To receive enough gasoline, you may need to upgrade your engine's injectors. If you've upgraded your fueling with larger injectors, you'll also need a larger fuel pump to power it.

307 Mapping & ECU tuning

Remaps offer large power gains on all turbo charged cars - the turbo diesel engines respond very well to tunes or remaps and can totally transform the car's performance.

On NA (naturally aspirated) engines the benefits are doubtful. However a tune/remap on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods. The most significant power gains for NA (naturally aspirated) engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. Superchargers are often easier to add than a turbo. With a turbo the boost curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it hard to map. It is easier to map a supercharger because the boost is proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the compression ratio of the engine.

The HDI maps very nicely indeed offering as much torque as you'll find on many a sports car.

Peak power is all well and good but for a driveable and fun car you need a long power band and perhaps extending the rev range. The whole point of this article is to give a starting base of car tuning performance parts and point you in the right direction, our forum is the place to go for detailed advice and tips on your project and all aspects of modding cars.

Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a performance tune or remap. We'd also caution you not to go with a motorsport cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics. When pushing up the power you will need to pay attention to the fuelling.

More power needs more fuel. Most power losses, flat spots and erratic idling after modifications are done can usually be traced to timing or fuelling issues. Uprated injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine. Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned 307s uprated injectors.

307 Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Induction kits only help to add performance if your air intake is struggling!

Adding an induction kit to most standard engines will see NO POWER GAIN AT ALL. If you have heavily modified your engine and it's need for air INCREASES DRAMATICALLY then an induction kit is the answer and will help remove this restriction. Maximum power gains come from a full induction kit with a cold air feed on heavily tuned engines, this can be sited within an air box but a performance panel filter should suffice for most applications. TorqueCars suggest you use a panel air filter as these are easy to clean and maintain and generally perform better than paper ones.

Sports exhausts will certainly help air flow out of the engine but do not go too large or you might just stuff your flow rate and make things worse. So generally speaking, keep to a size of 1.5 to around 2.5 inches to maximize flow rates, and this should take into account the amount of air your engine is moving.

307 Head Flowing and Valve Enlargement

Getting the head ported and polished will further help more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a professional with a flow bench.

Bigger valves will help get more air into the engine and a 3 or 5 angle valve job will improve efficiency and low end torque. Gains are not massive on the lower powered engines so it's the sort of thing you'll do if you've exhausted all other avenues and want to extract every last bit of power, typically in the preserve of motorsports.

On some engines head swaps are possible giving a different cam duration and 16 valves instead of 8 for example, if you research this carefully you might find a cheap power upgrade option is sitting in your local breakers yard.

A good multi-plate fast road sports clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or expect a standard clutch to cope.

307 Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are usually lighter than the steel ones. The downside to large alloy wheels on your 307 is that you alter your effective final drive ratio and this will have a detrimental effect on acceleration and performance. Although some people have gone larger we would stick to a 18 inch rim size as the maximum.

If you would like to know more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your car please join us in our car forums where you can discuss 307 options in more detail with our 307 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Peugeot tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below. We love hearing about our website visitors projects, especially the mods done and which work best for you on your car. Which helps us keep our guides and tips up to date helping others with their modified car projects. Your feedback and comments are used to keep this page up to date, and help improve the accuracy of these articles which are kept updated and constantly revised.

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One Response to “Guide to Peugeot 307 tuning”

  1. Adam says:

    I’ve got the 2.0 180bhp Feline model and been advised that a remap will most certainly help, as on this VVTi engine it sees better gains than previous generation Pug petrols. Tuners quote around 192-195bhp with remap alone. Sports cat apparently as good as a decat (+9bhp sports cat compared to +10bhp for illegal decat). Port polish tuners quote approximately +10bhp after the porting procedure.

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