MENUChevrolet Camaro Tuning guide
"The Chevvy bad boy"
This is what a muscle car is all about. Powerful engines, a great chassis and a body that can handle substantial power gains with the right mods.
We examine at Camaro tuning and highlight the greatest modifications for this world respected muscle car. Chevrolet Camaros are good project cars and with carefully chosen performance tuning mods you can greatly increase your driving pleasure and make a car that performs well on the track and drag strip.
There is a very loyal following of the Camaro around the world and whilst they have their own ideas on the best version most agree that the Camaro has gone from strength to strength over the years. The key to Camaro tuning is getting the right mods - a lot of money can be wasted if you do it wrong.
Improving the handling should be your first priority in your Camaro tuning project. We would go to a maximum drop of 35mm on most models. You risk rubbing on the arches if you go lower than this.
Our aim in Camaro engine tuning should be to increase peak power and Torque at the top end.
Engine tuning modifications.
The best power gains come from larger engine sizes. Supercharged and turbocharged engines give more of a power gain that NASP ones. The mantra is that the more you start with the bigger the return on investment.
These are the mods that are usually performed by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you get started.
Getting the best mods for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 (competition) mods just won't work well on the road and will make the car undriveable.
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 car
- Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings, aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
- 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.
- 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.
- Upgrades to turbochargers and superchargers - forced induction is the most efficient approach to increase air supply, allowing you to burn more fuel and make more power. It is one of the most costly upgrades but provides the best gains.
- 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:suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm),sports exhaust,alloy wheels,lighter flywheel,Panel air filter,Remap.
Typical stage 2 mods often include:Fast road cam,power clutch,Ported and polished head,fuel injector & fuel pump upgrades,.
Typical stage 3 mods often include: competition cam,adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger),Engine balancing,Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves),sports gearbox.
You really need to keep as much low end power as you can and aim for a wide power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power hike. In this article we shall give an overview and introduction to the best modifications for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance mod.
The intake and exhaust flow play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car hard to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a reflashed ECU to fully realise your gains.
Don't forget to uprate the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty. Most power losses, and erratic idling after modifications are done can usually be traced to fuel delivery or timing issues. Uprating the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel. 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.
Intake and Exhaust Tuning.
The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Contrary to popular belief there is usually very little power gain to be had by fitting an induction kit, they only work well and are recommended after you increase the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope! Derestricting the airflow into the engine is a primary goal of tuning so get a better flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound great but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and actually rob you of power.
Sports exhausts equal out the flow of gases through the engine. But if the exhaust pipes are too large, ie: they are over 3 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the flow rate and end up losing power and torque.
Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional polishing and ported. These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. Your clutch can seriously let you down as you increase the power if it starts to complain and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of up to 50%.
Fit an upgraded clutch to avoid power leak through the transmission. Remaps offer impressive power gains on all turbo charged cars or when you've carried out extensive mods on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine.
On NA (naturally aspirated) engines the benefits are doubtful especially if you have not done many power mods. However a flashed ecu on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods. Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains. Superchargers are often easier to add than a turbo. It is harder to map a turbo as the boost comes on exponentially with engine speed. Superchargers however will give a boost which is proportional 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.
Alloy wheel upgrades.
Because alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they help to cool the brake disks. It is worth noting that although they can look cool on the Camaro Big alloy wheels will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this is due to the change in your effective final drive ratio. Aim to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the same as supplied from the factory. In all cases we do not recommend 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 car forums where you can discuss Camaro options in more detail with our Camaro owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Chevrolet tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.
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