Daihatsu Storia (Sirion) Tuning

"All you need to know about tuning the Daihatsu Storia engine!"

We get emails with people asking us for some tips on improving the Storia and which tuning modifications we rate as the ultimate, so this guide has been assembled which covers our go to modifications and methods of modifying and tuning on the Storia engine.

Now we will provide a guide to Storia tuning and point out the optimum mods that work. Daihatsu Storia are good project engines and with carefully picked modified mods like ECU maps, turbo improvements and camshafts you will positively improve your driving enjoyment.

History of the Storia Engine

Petrol:
713 cc JC-DET turbo I4 (Storia X4)
989 cc EJ-DE I3
989 cc EJ-VE I3
1298 cc K3-VE I4
1298 cc K3-VE2 I4

Here in UK market we had the Rally versions of the Sirion: Rally 2 and Rally 4

Tuning the Daihatsu Storia and best Storia performance parts.

Best Storia tuning parts

The optimum Storia upgrades on an engine are sensibly the ones that give the best value for money.

We won't be swayed by popular Storia upgrades, they need to be cost effective.

Please watch our video which covers the 5 principles of tuning your Storia. Be sure to keep up with our latest YouTube content and subscribe.

Best mods for your Storia

  1. Remaps - engine tuning/remapping provides the biggest gains in terms of cost, aftermarket ECUs, and Tuning boxes are all alternatives.
  2. Fast road Camshafts are generally the biggest mechanical mod upgrade, but they must be setup by someone who knows what they are doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
  3. Intake and Sports Exhausts - NB: on their own these mods won't 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. Although one of the most costly upgrades it offers big gains.
  5. 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.

Storia Tuning Stages

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Panel air filters, Sports exhaust manifold, Fast road camshaft, Drilled & smoothed airbox, Remaps/piggy back ECU, Intake manifolds.

Typical stage 2 mods often include: induction kit, Fast road cam, Ported and polished head, high flow fuel injectors, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust, fuel pump upgrades.

Typical stage 3 mods often include: Engine balancing & blueprinting, Competition cam, Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Twin charging conversions, Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves).

Storia Camshaft Upgrades

Performance camshafts raise the higher RPM power so are more suited to petrol engines, than diesel ones. This will usually provide good peak power hikes through performance camshafts on most engines. So altering your Storia camshaft will make a difference to the engine bhp. Choosing a higher performance camshaft profile raises the torque accordingly.

Fast road camshafts normally raise the torque throughout the rpm band, you may sacrifice a little low end bhp but your top end will be better.

Race camshafts, raise the top end band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

A Race cam makes it harder when driving in heavy traffic.

You should ideally optimize your power band to your cars usage so for a car used daily stick with a shorter duration Storia cam

Some Storia engines respond differently depending on how well made they are, when camshafts are fitted depending on the camshaft being more extreme camshaft durations and cam duration as unique due to manufacturing tolerances and quality variations so check your engine on a rolling road.

The ecu map and fuel delivery and fuel pump also will say much on the torque gains you'll hit.

Altering valve durations can amend the torque curve, and on most engines there are some advantages to extending the intake or exhaust durations and valve lift.

The Storia engines make great tuning projects and thanks to their popularity there are plenty of mods and performance parts about.

ECU Mapping Improvements for the Storia

ECU flashing should help to to establish the full potential of all the tuning mods you've installed on your Storia.

(Sometimes engine tuning/remapping the ECU is not an option, so an aftermarket ECU is the route to take, and many of these will outperform factory ECU's but make sure it has knock protection and that you get it correctly setup.) It will usually give around 30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NA (naturally aspirated) engines, but figures achieved usually differs on the tuning mods you've fitted and the condition of your engine.

Air Flow improvements on the Storia

It is vital to any tuning job to feed more air into your Storia

Intake carry the air during the suck phase from the filter and allow it to be drawn into the engine cylinders.

The bore size, shape and flow characteristics of the Air Intake manifolds can make a noticeable effect on to fuel engine efficiency on the Storia.

It's not uncommon that plenum chambers are crying out for an upgrade, although a few car makers provide decently flowing plenum chambers.

Larger valve conversions on the Storia, doing a bit of port matching and head flowing will also raise bhp and torque, and as an added benefit will give you an improved bhp and torque increase on other modifications.

Storia Turbo upgrades

NA (naturally aspirated) engines need quite a lot of work when you add a turbo, so we have a separate guide to help you take into account the pros and cons of going this route on your Storia

The more air you can get into an engine, the more fuel it can burn and uprating the induction with a turbocharger upgrade makes massive power gains.

If your motor is turbo charged upgrades are relatively easy and most turbo charged engines use uprated components.

However most engines have weakspots.Discover these limits and upgrade to better quality components to cope with the power.

We see many car owners spending a stack of money on turbocharger upgrades on the Storia only to watch the Storia throw a rod when it's completed.

Large upgraded turbos tend to suffer a bottom end lag, and low capacity turbos spool up quickly but won't have the top end bhp gains.

Thanks to new tech the market of turbo chargers is always improving and we are seeing variable vane turbo chargers, allowing the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end bhp and torque.

Twin scroll turbo chargers divert the exhaust flow into a couple of channels and feed these at differently profiled vanes in the turbo charger. They also increase the scavenging effect of the engine.

It is common that there is a restriction in the air flow sensor AFM/MAP on the Storia when a lot more air is being pulled into the engine.

We note 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor sapped bhp at a much lower level.

Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large performance gains, although harder to setup. We have this guide to twinchargers if you want to read more.

Storia Fuelling Upgrades

Don't dismiss the need increase the fuel delivery when you are increasing the bhp - it makes the car more thirsty. Performance fuel pressure regulators can can provide a better throttle response.Don't forget to over specify your injectors flow rate.

As a rule of thumb add another 20% when buying an injector, this allows for injector deterioration and allows you some spare capacity should the engine require more fuel.

We think this one is common sense, but you'll need to match your fuel injector to the type of fuel your car uses as well.

Storia Performance Exhausts

You may need to boost your exhaust if your current exhaust is actually creating a restriction.

On most factory exhausts you'll find the exhaust flow rate is ok even on modest power gains, but when you start pushing up the power levels you will need to get a better flowing exhaust.

Do not go with the largest exhaust you can get you'll reduce the exhaust flow rate - the best for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

For road going cars mods such as a sports catalyst pretty much remove this restriction,mainly due to it's larger size and surface area, and will effectively raise the performance to levels you would expect without having a catalyst installed, but keeps the car road legal. And will remove the restriction due to it's higher internal surface area and design. The alternative test pipe mod or cat removal should be considered an off road only mod, as removing a catalyst is illegal in most territories and regions for road registered cars (and in some you can't even replace a working catalyst).

Weak spots, Issues & problem areas on the Storia

The Storia engines are not bad as far as reliability goes as long as they are regularly serviced and maintained.

Carbon build up in the head, particularly around the valves which will reduce power, this is a very common problem on direct injection engines but should be looked out for on all engines. We have tips on removing carbon By avoiding short journeys where the engine doesn't warm up and using good quality fuel you can reduce this risk.

Frequent oil changes are highly recommended on the Storia, and more so when the car is modified and will help ensure reliability of the engine.

If you want to learn more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your Storia engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Storia tuning options in more detail with our Storia owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Daihatsu tuning articles to get insights into each modification and how effective they will be.

Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below.

We love to hear what our visitors have got up to and which modifications work best for them on each model of car. We use your comments and feedback to improve the accuracy of these Storia tuning guides which get regular updates and revisions.

Please Check out my YouTube channel, we're regularly adding new content...

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