Dacia Duster Tuning

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It is known for its affordability, practicality, and rugged design. The Duster has gained popularity for offering a no-frills SUV experience at an accessible price point.

The Dacia Duster is classified as a compact SUV. It is designed to provide a balance between city-friendly driving and off-road capabilities. The Duster features a rugged and versatile design, making it suitable for both urban commuting and light off-road adventures.

Model Years: The Dacia Duster has undergone multiple generations and updates since its introduction. Here are some key model years for the Dacia Duster:

1. First Generation: Introduced in 2010, the first-generation Dacia Duster was available for several years with various updates and facelifts.
2. Second Generation: The second-generation Dacia Duster was unveiled in 2017 and continued into subsequent years. This generation received further updates and enhancements.

The Duster is a good car tuning project to fill your spare time. If you do your homework then you can create an awesome Duster but don't be fooled there are lots of modified kits out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.

We can see why the Duster won Bargain car of the year, and Best small SUV, it offers so much and is actually pretty good on the road to drive.

TorqueCars will provide a guide to Duster tuning and report on the greatest modifications for your car. Dacia Duster are good project cars and with the optimum sports upgrades like remaps, turbo improvements and camshafts you will maximise your driving experience.

Dacia Handling/Suspension upgrades

Improving the handling for car enthusiasts first priority in your Duster tuning project.

If you set the toe out to 0.9 to 1.5 degrees on the front, and add a small amount of negative camber then cornering will often be enhanced.

We suggest that you fit modified suspension and lower the car by 24mm - 41 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with uprated suspension.

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 Duster.

Smaller engines do not provide much of a return in terms of power so start with a bigger engine. Engine swaps are a good option if you have a small engine size.

Power mods.

These are the modified mods are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you start.

• 1.2 TCe 125 H5Ft DOHC Turbo 123hp @5250rpm 151lbft @2000 rpm
• 1.5 16V H4K DOHC 105hp @5600rpm 105lbft @4000rpm
• 1.6 16V 105 K4M 690 DOHC 103hp @5750rpm 109lbft @3750 rpm
• 1.6 16V Ethanol K4M Hi-Flex DOHC 113hp @5750rpm 112lbft @3750 rpm
• 1.6 16V LPG K4M Bi-fuel DOHC 101hp @5750rpm 106lbft @3750 rpm
• 1.6 16V 105 K4M 606 DOHC 103hp @5750rpm 109lbft @3750 rpm
• 2.0 16V F4R DOHC 133hp @5500rpm 144lbft @3750 rpm
• 2.0 16V Ethanol F4R Hi-Flex DOHC 139hp @5500rpm 151lbft @3750 rpm
• 1.5 dCi 85 K9K 796 I4 SOHC Turbodiesel 84hp @4000rpm 148lbft @1900 rpm
• 1.5 dCi 110 K9K 896 SOHC Turbodiesel 106hp @4000rpm 177lbft @1750 rpm
• 1.5 dCi 110 K9K 898 SOHC Turbodiesel 109hp @4000rpm 177lbft @1750 rpm

The 1st generation production run will continue into 2023 in some markets, namely India and Mexico where a third generation model will replace it.

2nd Generation 2017-

• 1.0 L I3 turbo (petrol)
• 1.3 L I4 turbo (petrol)
• 1.6 L i4 (petrol)
• 2.0 L i4 (petrol)
• 1.5 L i4 (diesel)

Getting the right uprated mods for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 competition upgrades 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 mods for your Duster

1. Duster Handling Mods (Suspension) - Fitting a more sporty Suspension kit greatly enhances your Duster road holding and cornering. Poly Bushes and Coilovers are typically fitted to achieve this
2. Upgrades to turbochargers and superchargers - A New Turbo is the most significant way to increase air supply, this means you are able to utilize more fuel and make more power. Typically one of the most costly modifications it offers big gains.
3. Braking Mods - Improve your ability to stop ought to be listed in your priority list.
4. Fast road cams are are often the best upgrade for an engine, but TorqueCars recommend they be installed by someone qualified to set them up properly and you might struggle to find one but we are sure you'l; find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft .
5. Lightened Flywheels - a reduced weight flywheel will noticably improve the engines ability to rev freely. Not recommended for all Duster engines.
6. Intake and Exhaust Upgrades - Please note that on their own these mods won't ADD PERFORMANCE in most cases, but they enable you to lift power after other mods by minimizing the restriction.
7. Flowing and porting the engine head - for larger gains, you will get better flow and make a more efficient engine if you do this to support your other mods.

Duster Tuning Stages

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Sports exhaust, Alloy wheels, Panel air filter, Lighter flywheel, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Suspension upgrade (drop 24mm - 41 mm.).

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

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

Your goal when modding your car should be a nice flat torque band. You want to avoid sending all the torque to be at the top end of the rev range unless you are creating a motor sport car.

In this article we shall give an overview and introduction 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 mod.A fast road camshaft usually proves to be one of the best NASP power modifications you can do from a single upgrade to your engine.

The exhaust and intake valve durations play a large part 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 camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a reflashed ECU to fully release the power gain.

When pushing up the power you will need to uprate to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

Using higher octane fuel is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your Dacia project after fitting other motorsport upgrades. Upgrading the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

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.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Air induction kits only help to add performance if your cars air intake is restricted! Adding an induction kit to most standard engines will see ZERO 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.

For most Duster engines TorqueCars would suggest you just go with a washable panel air filter. On heavily tuned engines and turbo vehicles an induction kit will help release the power providing you address the problem of supplying cold air.

Sports exhausts can usually air flow through the engine but do not go too big or you might just stuff your flow rate and make things worse. So generally speaking, keep to a size of 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional gas flowing. These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. A good multi plate fast road power clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or think that the standard clutch to cope. The best mods we would do for your Duster are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements.

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 impressive power gains and fully release the potential power of the engine.

We've also seen some tuners toying with twincharging conversions and making some impressively high power gains.

The most significant power gains for NA (naturally aspirated) engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. It is generally cheaper to bolt on a supercharger than it is to fit a working turbo. Turbos provide boost in exponential proportion to increasing engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.

It is easier to map a supercharger because the boost is correlating 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.

The benefits of alloys include reducing your unsprung weight and better brake cooling via the extra air flow they allow. We can't go into too much detail here about tires but they are how the car puts the power down on the road so are a critical choice. directional tread pattern tires work well on Duster, and make a big difference over budget tires. It is worth noting that although they can look cool on the Duster 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.

Although some people have gone larger than this without issues we would stick to a 17 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 Duster options in more detail with our Duster owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Dacia tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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This article is flagged for an update, so please pass on specific tips below that I can include. All articles, and content was written by me, Waynne Smith TorqueCars founder. Some outlines are just too general so I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Dacia. You can leave a response below or join our forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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