BMW X7 Tuning

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The X7 is a good project car to do. Plan ahead and research X7 tuning to avoid making the usual tuning errors we regularly hear people complain about.

The X7 is a best of a car, aimed at the large luxury SUV market where it actually performs really well. A great overall design and choice of great engines finish off what is a great package.

Our aim here is to review and look at x7 tuning and outline the optimum mods that work. BMW x7 offer good returns when tuned and with the ultimate performance parts like a remap, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will dramatically improve your driving opportunities.

• 3.0 L B58 i6 turbo (petrol)
• 3.0 L B57 i6 turbo (diesel)
• 4.4 L N63 v8 twin-turbo (petrol)
• 3.0 L B57 i6 quad-turbocharged

Watch my video overview and tips on BMW Tuning. Be sure to keep up with our latest YouTube content and subscribe.

Tuning modifications.

Typically these modified upgrades are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to go before you start.

Getting the best sports parts for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 motor sport mods just don't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

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 mods for your X7

1. X7 Suspension Upgrades - Upgrading your suspension greatly enhances your X7 road holding and cornering. Poly Bushes and Coilovers are typically fitted to achieve this
2. Remaps - X7 engine tuning/remapping offers the most power for your outlay, aftermarket ECUs, and inline Tuning boxes are all alternatives.
3. Flywheel lightening - a lighter flywheel will improve the engines free revving nature. But not always suitable for all X7 engines.
4. Internal engine mods - crank, pistons, conrods & compression ratio including balancing and blueprinting
5. Fast road Camshafts are one of the most significant mechanical changes, but they must be setup by someone who knows what they are doing and tracking one down may be hard but there might be a local firm to regrind a stock cam .
6. Forced induction upgrades - Adding a turbocharger is the most significant way to improve intake air supply, which permits you to utilize more fuel and make better power figures. It is one of the most technically difficult modifications you'll see massive gains.
7. Brake Upgrades - Improve your ability to stop needs to be near the top of your Mods list.
8. Air Induction and Sports Exhausts - Please note that on their own these mods will NOT ADD POWER in most cases, but they can help lift power after other mods by removing the restriction.

X7Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are at the top of your mod list for the x7.

Adding a little negative camber to the front and a degree or two of toe (in for better stability or out to improve cornering), will greatly benefit your x7 in handling and cornering.

We suggest that you fit motorsport suspension and lower the car by 27mm - 38 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with motorsport suspension.

Uprated Bushes

What factors should you consider when setting up and selecting your suspension bushings if your X7 is also used as a daily driver?

Bushes, which are rubber mounts, allow the X7's suspension components to be connected with the car's chassis. The rubber ones will lose their shape as they age.

Installing new OEM rubber bushings may dramatically improve the performance of your car.

It's probable that the ride may be a touch rougher because of the stronger polyurethane bushes but they'll last longer and maintain tighter handling.

Increased vibration and play may also hasten the degradation in other suspension components.

A new set of poly bushes may be able to minimize the excessive play that comes with rubber bushes.

You may struggle to find a full set of poly bushings, but most stores have the primary mounts available. Custom poly bushes are often made to your requirements.

A common misconception is that a non-adjustable suspension system that lowers the vehicle by90mm from a franchised component shop is the best option. But suspension design and setup is quite complex.

Vendors may assert that their X7 suspension kits are compatible with any or all of the X7 model years.

To adequately support a diverse variety of vehicles, the "generic one set for all models" approach is obviously a mistake as engine weights and equipment trim levels all affect the cars handling characteristics.

X7 Brake Upgrades

For sharper enhanced braking you should get better high performance brake pads and match this with better brake discs.

Bear in mind that race pads will be noisy and will have to be hot before they are effective.

In every day driving the brakes are only applied now and then and won't be all that effective so select brake pads which have a low working temperature.

Don't just look at the peak power figures, you need to see the whole torque curve when determining if a mod is right for you x7.

Let's look at the best power upgrades for your X7

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.

X7 Tuning Stages

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Alloy wheels, Suspension upgrade (drop 27mm - 38 mm.), Sports exhaust, Panel air filter, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Lighter flywheel.

Typical stage 2 mods often include: Ported and polished head, Fast road cam, Power/Sport clutch, fuel pump upgrades, high flow fuel injector.

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

You should keep as much low end torque as you can and aim to get a long power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power hike.

In this article we shall give a little insight into the world to the best performance parts for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance upgrade.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest bhp gains for your money as far as a bolt on sports upgrades goes on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine.

The exhaust & intake valve durations play a major role in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car challenging to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a tune/remap for the best performance gains.

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to look at the fuelling.

Using higher octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your BMW project after fitting other motorsport modifications. Improved injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.

A fuel pump will only deliver a finite amount of fuel, so you may need to uprate this if your injectors are demanding more fuel.

X7 Intake Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Contrary to popular belief there is generally a small if any power gain reached by fitting an induction kit, they only help and are recommended after you increase the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

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.

X7 Performance Exhausts

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

Gas flowing the head will allow you to maximise your air/fuel charge. Leave this to a professional though with a proper flow bench and machine tools A good fast road upgraded clutch will help to keep that power going where it should.

X7 Fuelling Mods

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so need to look at the fuelling when you start going beyond 20% of a torque increase.We would recommend you to be generous with your injector capacity.

The rule of thumb is to add another 20% when specifying an injector, which takes into account injector deterioration and provides some 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.

X7 Tuning Tips

Never cut corners or ask a standard clutch to cope.

The best mods in our opinion for your x7 are fast road camshaft, remap, induction and exhaust, suspension.

Turbo engines are just pleading to be Reprogrammed. You will see phenomenal power gains on most modern turbo engined cars including diesels making a tune/remap one of the most cost effective and phenomenal modifications for your money.

Adding forced induction will see phenomenal power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective.

Turbos are often harder to add than a supercharger. Turbos give boost in exponential proportion to the engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.

It is simpler to map a supercharger because the boost is proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.

Alloy Wheel Upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brake cooling and are generally less heavy than steel ones. Don't forget that your choice of rubber greatly affects your cars grip and handling. It is not worth compromising performance with cheap tyres when you can buy track legal slick performance tires.

We'd like to point out although they can look cool on the x7 big alloys will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this to the change in your effective final drive ratio.

For this reason endeavour to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the same as supplied from the factory. In all cases without going above 19 inches.

If you would like to know more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss x7 options in more detail with our x7 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased BMW tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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