Chrysler PT Cruiser Tuning

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We love the retro styling of the PT cruiser, it reminds us of the hot rods back in the day.

The car is crying out for more power, it is altogether a great package, and really stands out but most engines are lacking the shove a car that looks this good is crying out for.

The PT Cruiser is a great car modification project to take up your weekends. With the right mods your PT Cruiser can be transformed into an awesome motor. Don't waste money, do your homework and follow our unbiased guides to each performance upgrade so you don't waste your money.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are high on most peoples lists for the PT Cruiser.

If you set the toe out to 0.9 to 1.5 degrees on the front, and add a tiny bit of negative camber then cornering will dramatically benefit.

Drop the car optimally somewhere in the region of 24mm - 42 mm. and fit modified stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Top end power should be your overall aim with a nice fat wide 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.

Engine tuning mods.

These are the tuning parts are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you get started.

• 1.6 L EJD I4 (gasoline)
• 2.0 L ECC I4 (gasoline)
• 2.4 L EDZ i4 (gasoline)
• 2.4 L EDV/EDT I4 (t/c gasoline)
• 2.2 L EDJ I4 (t/c diesel)

Getting the best modified mods for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motor sport parts just won'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: Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 24mm - 42 mm.), Lighter flywheel, Alloy wheels, Panel air filter, Remap.

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

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

You should keep as much low end power as possible and aim to achieve a wide power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power spike.

In this article we shall give a little insight into the world to the best mods 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.A fast road camshaft is widely accepted as one of the best NASP power mods you can do from a single upgrade to your engine.

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

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

Most power losses, flat spots and erratic idling after motorsport modifications are done can usually be traced to timing or fuel delivery issues. To get sufficient fuel you may need to improve the injectors on your 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.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Please note that WE DO NOT SEE IMPROVEMENTS WITH INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car a lot and are finding that the standard air intake has become a restriction.

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

Do not go with the widest exhaust you can buy this will reduce the exhaust flow rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

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. In nearly all cases of PT Cruiser tuning your clutch will start to suffer and this needs an upgrade - read our guide on clutches for more information. The best mods in our opinion for your PT Cruiser are a tune/remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.

NA (naturally aspirated) engines do not achieve big power gains if you tune/remap them, unless you have done extensive modifications. With turbocharged engines this is another story. A tuned/remapped turbo will give large power gains and fully release the potential power of the engine. Adding forced induction will see big power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Superchargers are usually easier to add than a turbo. It is more challenging to map a turbo as the boost builds exponentially with rpm.

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 .

Alloy wheel upgrades.

The benefits of alloys include lowering your unsprung weight and better brake cooling. 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 directional tread pattern performance tires.It is worth noting that although they can look cool on the PT Cruiser big alloy wheels 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.

Due to this fact we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 18 inches, although we know some of our members have installed larger rims with no problems.

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 PT Cruiser options in more detail with our PT Cruiser owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Chrysler tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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