Daihatsu Tuning Tips and Modifications

Maximise your Daihatsus driving pleasure

Daihatsu car tuning tips and advice.

We have a wide range of tuning articles covering all models of Daihatsu from small engined family cars to large engine hot hatches and executive cars. Following our tuning tips for the Charade, grand sport, sport track and newer models, you can avoid many of the common mistakes and actually achieve the car setup you desire that compliments your driving style.

Please join the forum for model specific questions and answers and to meet other owners and see what modifications they have done. Browse our tuning sections to see performance mods for the Charade and see the styling section for inspiration on styling modifications.

TorqueCars started providing Daihatsu styling pointers, car tweak suggestions and car tuning advice and tips back in 2003 and have grown from strength to strength with a fast growing membership of all types of cars including many, Daihatsu owners. We are currently one
of the fastest growing car tuning clubs around and certainly one of the friendliest.

In 2007 we also organised our first full car show.

Our Daihatsu tuning articles and styling tips and features are constantly being updated and refined so to keep upto date with what is hot in the tuning wold and for the most recent Daihatsu styling,tweak suggestions and and tuning advice, tips and pointers please check back regularly. We strongly recommend that you join our
Daihatsu forums and swap styling ideas with like minded Daihatsu owners in thestyling forums. The Charade GTTi has quite a following despite it’s rarity and it really pushed the envelope when it came to performance and economy in cars.

We would like to hear about your interesting Daihatsu projects, so drop into the forum, post up a new thread and pass on your tips, we love to see members car pictures and have an ever growing gallery. Scroll down the page to see our latest tuning articles for your Daihatsu.

This phenomenon known as brake fade can be quite unexpected and lethal and I would hazard a guess that 1 in 4 cars are likely to experience brake fade to some degree. Brake fade manifests itself by a spongy feel on the pedal and little or no braking force. Do not confuse brake fade with bad brakes or a mechanical fault as it applies to brake systems in relatively good condition.

We look at Anti lag systems in cars and how these keep the turbo spinning ready to provide boost from low RPM speeds. When you lift off the throttle the engine power cuts and the turbo starts to spool down.

From this low spool state there is a delay while the turbo spins up again before it can provide any useful boost. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of ALS and look at alternative options.

The days of fiddling around in the engine bay with a spanner to make the car go faster are numbered.

Modern engine computers (ECU’s) take over many of the controls of all aspects of engine management from timing to fuelling and more.

This actually means you get better power, a cleaner burn and more reliable engine but it does not mean the end of tuning.

Let’s take a look at ways to tune a car engine and what exactly we mean by engine tuning.

First up we have to accept that there are many different types of engines.

We can only cover generic theory in this article on how to tune a car and suggest if you want more specific advice you sign up to our car forums where our helpful and friendly members will assist you further.

Todays featured car tuning articles

Boost controllers
The turbo is driven by the exhaust gases and the faster the exhaust flows the quicker the turbo spins and more air gets forced in to the engine.

If too much air is forced into the engine then it will run lean. This causes an intermittent loss of power and you also risk putting too much pressure on the engine with a surge of power.

From a diesel perspective, anything that isn’t turbocharged is a waste of time from a tuning point of view. Similarly, anything that isn’t using electronically managed direct injection is a pointless tuning proposal so we are somewhat limited to modern Turbo Diesels.

Get rid of those two ointment bound flies and things get more interesting

TorqueCars will review sports exhausts and exhuast design as they are very popular modifications, but sadly many mistakes are made.

The job of the exhaust is to break up the sound pulse from the engine, muffling the sound and allowing the exhaust gases to escape efficiently.