Chevrolet Onix/Prisma Tuning

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The Onix/Prisma is a awesome project car to carry out. We see loads of people wasting money on their Onix/Prisma doing the wrong mods and then having to start over. Follow our advice to avoid making the common mistakes

We examine the options for your Onix/Prisma tuning and show the best upgrades. Chevrolet Onix/Prismas are awesome to work on and with the right uprated parts you can positively maximise your driving experience.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many Onix/Prisma owners uprate the handling of their cars with tuning suspension kits as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

If you set the toe out to 0.8 to 1.3 degrees on the front, and add some negative camber then cornering will often benefit.

We would go to a maximum drop of 26mm - 36 mm. on most models. You risk rubbing on the arches if you go lower than this.

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

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.

Tuning modifications.

Typically these performance upgrades are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you start.

• 1.0 L SPE/4 I4 (gasoline/ethanol)
• 1.4 L SPE/4 i4 (gasoline/ethanol)
• 1.0 L EcoTec 325T I3 (gasoline) from 2019

Getting the best performance mods for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motor sport parts just don't work well on the road hard to control in slow 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 car

1. Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings,  aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
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: Suspension upgrade (drop 26mm - 36 mm.), Alloy wheels, Panel air filter, Lighter flywheel, Sports exhaust, Remap.

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

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

Peak power is good on competition cars but for a drivable and fun car you need a long torque band and perhaps extending the rev range.

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 modification.A fast road cam proves to be one of the best NASP power modifications you can do with a single part fitted to your engine.

The exhaust & intake flow play a huge role in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car awkward to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a performance chip for the best performance gains.

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

Using higher octane fuel is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your Chevrolet project after fitting other tuning kits. To get sufficient fuel you may need to improve the injectors on your engine.

If have increased your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Induction kits will only help to increase power if your cars air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most small engines will see NONE OF A LOW END 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.

Derestricting the air feed into the engine is a primary goal of performance tuning so get a freer flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean only if you find the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound fun but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not really increase power and usually rob you of power.

Sports exhausts can usually air flow from the engine but do not go too big or you could very well end up with a reduced flow rate. So generally speaking, keep to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Head work including a gas flow (ported and polished) and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. In nearly all cases of Onix/Prisma tuning your clutch will start to fail and this needs an upgrade - read our guide on clutches for more information. The best mods we recommend for your Onix/Prisma are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaust.

Remaps offer big power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NA (naturally aspirated) engines the benefits are doubtful. However a chipped 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. Turbos are often harder to add than a supercharger. Turbos provide boost in increasing proportion to th engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.

Superchargers will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is simpler. Alternatively you could perhaps fit water injection to minimise knock.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Due to the fact that alloys are lighter they improve performance and they can help to cool the brake disks. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of directional tread pattern tire. Large Onix/Prisma alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your final drive ratio.

Although some people have gone larger than this 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 friendly forum where you can discuss Onix/Prisma options in more detail with our Onix/Prisma 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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