Vauxhall Vectra Tuning

"Vectra mods"

One of our members has completed a magnificent Vectra engine swap project which you can read about here. Handling modifications are usually your first port of call for the Vectra. Drop the car by as much as 35mm and fit stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Our aim in Vectra engine tuning should be to increase peak power and Torque at the top end.

Smaller engines do not provide much of a return in terms of power so start with a bigger engine. The bigger 2.5 V6 or turbo power plants have a lot to offer. The 2.0 Turbo swap on the 2.0 is relatively straighforward as the engines are very similar in all except for power output!

Vauxhall Vectra Tuning modifications.

A fast road cam will be one of the best power mod you can do mechanically to your engine. Follow this up with some porting and polishing to aid the head flow rates and maximise your return on your tuning investment. You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to uprate the fuelling.

A fuel pressure boost valve will make the car more responsive and respond better. To get sufficient fuel you may need to uprate the injectors on your engine. When increasing your fuelling you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

Vauxhall Vectra Induction kits and sports Exhaust.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Induction kits work well on turbo engines and larger engines, for the smaller Vectra engines you should go with a sports panel air filter. Sports exhausts balance the flow of air throughout the engine. But if your exhaust is too large (over 2.5 inches bore) you will lose back pressure on most engines.

When you start tuning your Vectra you will find that the standard clutch starts to complain so get an uprated clutch. NASP engines do not achieve big power gains if you remap them but with turbo engines this is another story. A remapped turbo remapped turbo will give phenomenal power gain. Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give large power gains. Superchargers are generally easier to add than turbos. Turbos give boost in exponential proportion to increasing engine speed and this can make mapping difficult. Superchargers however will give a boost which is proporttional to engine speed so is easier to map. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the compression ratio of the engine.

Vauxhall Vectra Alloy wheels.

Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are usually lighter than the steel ones. The downside to large alloy wheels on your Vectra is that you alter your effective final drive ratio and this will have a detrimental effect on performance.

For this reason we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 17 inches, although we know some of our members have gone larger than this with no problems.

Please join us in our forum to discuss the Vectra options in more detail with our Vectra owners. It would also be worth reading our Vauxhall tuning articles to get a full grasp of the pros and cons of each type of modification.