Guide: Performance tuning Mods on the Ford Duratec engine

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Tuning the Ford Duratec and best Duratec performance parts. Let's look at the best tuning modifications and upgrades for the ever popular Duratec engine from Ford.

There are many performance parts and upgrades for the Duratec, but not all will be a good match for your car.

The Duratec was born. A solid flexible range of 4 5 and 6 cylinder engines with inline and V configuration units among the lineup.

Originally the V6 Duratec engine was a collaboration between Ford and Porsche.

It was offered on many different setups and states of tune, proving the flexibility and solidity of the original block design.

See our video which provides a complete introduction to Ford Tuning, it contains some tips on performance and handling modifications.

We consider Duratec tuning and highlight the ultimate upgrades. Ford Duratecs make awesome project cars and with the right uprated modifications you can greatly improve your driving enjoyment.

History, Power & Specs of the Duratec Engine

• Duratec 8v 60 PS Kent (Endura-E)
  1.3 L  OHV i4 1995–present
• Duratec 8v 70 PS Ford Sigma engine (Zetec RoCam)
  1.3 L  SOHC i4 2000–2014
  1.6 L
• Duratec Ford Sigma engine
  1.25 L  2002–present
  1.4 L
  1.6 L
• Duratec Ti-VCT Ford Sigma engine 1.5 L  2013–present
• Duratec Ti-VCT Ford Sigma engine 1.6 L  2004–present
• Duratec-ST Ford Zeta engine DOHC i4 1998–2004
• Duratec RS Volvo Modular engine 2.5 L  turbocharged DOHC I5 2003–2010
• Duratec Mazda L engine
  1.8 L  DOHC i4 2001–present
  2.0 L
  2.3 L
  2.5 L
• Duratec SCi Mazda L engine
  1.8 L  DOHC GDI I4 Ti-VCT 2003–2007
• Duratec-HE 1.8 L
• Duratec FFV Mazda L engine 2.0 L  DOHC i4 2005–present
• Duratec-HE Ti-VCT Mazda L engine 2.0 L  DOHC GDI i4 2010–present
• Duratec V6/VE/25 Ford Duratec V6 engine 2.5 L  DOHC V6 1993–2002
• Duratec 30 Ford Duratec V6 engine 3.0 L  DOHC V6 1996–2012
• Duratec 33 Ford Cyclone V6 Engine 3.3 L  DOHC V6 2018–present
• Duratec 35 Ford Cyclone V6 Engine 3.5 L  DOHC V6 2006–present
• Duratec 37 Ford Cyclone V6 Engine 3.7 L  DOHC V6 2008–present

Best Duratec mods

The best tuning mods on an engine are in our opinion the ones that give the best value for money.

The best Duratec units for tuning are primarily the 2.0, 2.3 and 2.5 as these have a wide availability of parts and options.

2.0 Duratec engines have a shorter stroke than the larger units, so this became popular among tuners.

These engines were used in many kit car builds and by Caterham and were chosen because of their high revving nature (typically around 8300rpm).

We won't be swayed by popular Duratec tuning mods, they need to be cost effective.

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 Duratec

1. Intake Upgrades and Exhaust Upgrades - Note that on their own these mods will NOT ADD TORQUE , but they can help lift power after other upgrades by removing the restriction.
2. Internal engine mods - crank, pistons, conrods & compression ratio including balancing and blueprinting
3. Fast road Camshafts are one of the most significant mechanical changes, but we recommend they be installed by someone qualified to set them up properly and some cams are hard to find but there is usually a local firm to regrind a stock cam for you.
4. Remaps - A Remapped Duratec ECU provides the most advantage compared to cost, aftermarket ECUs, and Tuning boxes are all alternatives.
5. Forced induction upgrades - A New Turbo is the most efficient approach to raise the intake air supply, ensuring you are able to utilize more fuel and make more power. Typically one of the most expensive mods it offers big gains.
6. Lighter flywheels - a lower weight flywheel will enhance the engines free revving nature. Not a great mod for all Duratec engines.

Duratec Tuning Stages

Ford Duratec Tuning Stages

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

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

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

Ford Duratec Camshaft Modifications

The camshaft profile plays a big part in the engines power output so camshaft upgrades make quite a large difference. The intake and exhaust durations will alter depending on the chosen camshaft profile, so large bhp gains are on offer for camshaft upgrades.

As the Duratec is an OHC design, the camshaft directly. Focus more on lift than duration on the Duratec engine for maximising your power mods, modern fuel injection systems can deliver a precisely measured amount of fuel and time the ignition spot on.

Fast road camshafts usually increase the bhp and torque across the rev band, you might lose a little low end power but your high end rpm power will be better.

Motorsport camshafts, increase the high end rpm power band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

On a car driven daily you need to optimize your power band to your cars usage.

I'd be surprised if you find a Race camshaft is a pleasure to live with when driving around busy urban areas.

This is because a competition cam causes a very lumpy idle, and makes the car more prone to stall or jerk along in stop start traffic, sadly though many ignore this and end up ruining a perfectly good car and having to revert back to a fast road, or OEM cam profile.

Some Duratec engines respond better to mild camshaft durations with higher lift, thanks to the large port sizes, but we suggest you set your engine up on a rolling road tweaking the cam profile and mapping to suit your requirements.

Aiming for 235hp (a sensible target on FWD applications)

Duratec power limits for a 2.0 liter unit seems to be around 235bhp whereat you should strengthen the pistons rods and possible even the already strong crank. The 1.8 liter units, need stronger parts around the 200bhp mark.

As noted the higher RPM characteristics of the 2.0 can be further exploited with engine balancing, and you should see peak power of 225hp at around 7500rpm with throttle bodies, higher flowing fuel injectors, a revised cam profile with matching springs and retainers and an aftermarket ECU to manage all of this safely.

Aiming for 270hp

Getting the power down is important, so we would recommend you look into differential upgrades, especially on the European front wheel drive models.

Most of the upgrades in the previous target will also be required but the head becomes a bottleneck, so porting, polishing and larger valves will be required.

Stock internals are likely to now be the weakest point, so getting stronger connecting rods, crank and associated bolts will ensure reliability.

Most tuners will focus on the enlargement of the exhaust ports.

The ecu map and fuelling also will make differences on the torque gains you'll achieve.

A longer valve duration can alter the torque band and on most engines the exhaust and intake durations do not need to match, although most cams and tuners use matched pairs there are some advantages to extending the intake or exhaust durations.

But on the Duratec units, focus on lift, to get as much work out of those valves as possible.

The Duratec engine blocks are great to work on and we see that there is an increase of upgrades and performance parts about.

Remaps allows a tuner to fully realize the full potential of all the tuning mods you've fitted to your Duratec.

(In some cases, as the factory ECU is locked flashing 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 setup properly.)

It will usually give you around 30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and 15% on NA (naturally aspirated) engines, but you mileage will vary depending on the tuning mods you've done and the condition of your engine.

It is the whole point to any engine modification project to force more fuel and air into your Duratec

The Intake manifold carries the air from the filter and allow it to be drawn into the engine and mixed with fuel.

The size of bore and shape and flow rate of the Intake manifold can make a substantial effect on fuel atomisation on the Duratec and most owners upgrade the air intake with a cone filter in a closed air box.

Big valve conversions on the Duratec, doing a bit of port matching and head flowing will also increase torque, & importantly will raise potential for raising the torque increase on other upgrades.

Duratec Turbo upgrades

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

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 Duratec.

Thankfully most of the Duratec engines we see are already turbo charged, so upgrading the turbo is a fairly easy route to get big power gains.

These engines also tend to be stronger in the first place, but for 40% power hikes we would strongly recommend uprating the engine internals with forged parts.

There are tuning limits for every engine, with some being incredibly solid and some only just able to handle stock power.

It is important to find these limitations and install better pistons and crank to survive the power so join our forums to discuss the options in more detail.

Hybrd turbos take stock turbo casings, and replace the internals to provide faster spool up, or more boost. These are generally easy to bolt on but the ECU will need adjustment, so typically this is done with an aftermarket ECU.

There are many people spending a stack of money on turbo upgrades on the Duratec only to experience the engine literally blow up just after it's been completed.

Large turbos tend to suffer a bottom end lag, and little turbos spool up quickly but won't have the high rpm bhp gains.

Thankfully the selection of turbochargers is always moving on and we are seeing variable vane turbochargers, where the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end bhp.

Twin scroll turbochargers divert the exhaust gases into two channels and direct these at differently angled vanes in the turbocharger. They also help the scavenging effect of the engine.

You'll commonly see there is a limitation in the air flow sensor (AFM/MAF/MAP) on these engines when a lot more air is being sucked into the engine.

We see 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor limited performance at a much lower level.

Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large power gains, although more difficult to configure. We have a twincharger power adding guide if you want to read more.

Duratec Fuelling Upgrades

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so should look at the fuelling when you start exceeding 20% of a bhp increase.

Fuel pressure valves will increase the fuel pressure in the system, and this will help make the throttle response a little more snappy on the earlier engines.

Fuel surge tanks can help regulate the supply of fuel to your injectors under heavy demand. More recent engine owners are using Boost A Pump BAP upgrades, but in most cases, the surge tanks are usually a better solution.

We would recommend you to over specify your injectors flow rate.

The accepted safe increase is to add 20% capacity when fitting an injector, this takes into account injector deterioration and affords some spare capacity should the engine require more fuel.

Duratec Exhaust upgrades

You only need to upgrade your exhaust if the current exhaust is creating a restriction in flow.

As with many mods, these don't add power, they merely avoid a restriction, so if there is no restriction, there will be no power gains.

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

Sports exhausts can help increase the flow of air through the engine.

But if the exhaust pipe is too large, ie: over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the flow rate and end up losing power and torque.

Catalysts are typical bottlenecks, and most Duratecs can be improved with better exhaust headers and a higher flowing catalyst. Some performance models have decent headers but on many these are crying out for an upgrade, especially if you've tuned your Duratec.

In some regions it's not legal to remove the cats or replace them, so check with your local regs before considering this.

NB: Sports catalyst pretty much remove the usual restriction, thanks 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.

Ford Duratec weak spots Issues & Common Duratec Problems

The Duratec engines are generally reliable and solid units, as long as you follow the manufacturer's service schedules, and use a good quality oil to ensure longevity.

Valve clearance should be checked on engines without hydraulic lifters every year, or you'll be losing power or misfires through insufficient valve lift.

Few problems should happen as long as they are regularly serviced and maintained.

Coil failure seems more common on Duratecs than some other engines, probably because just one coil services all cylinders.

Plug gaps are quite important on most of these engines, so getting these set correctly is a must with many owners gapping them slightly wider than the OEM specs.

Carbon build up in the head, particularly around the valves which will sap power or create flat spots, this is a larger issue on direct injection engines but should be looked out for on all engines. We have tips on removing carbon build up.

Fuel pump issues are quite common also on the Mondeo, and interestingly the fuel pumps received a few updates over the years.

Keep an eye on coolant levels, some Duratecs seem to make your coolant vanish without explanation or warning. Porosity, steam escape and osmosis have all been blamed, but the low coolant is considered normal, and just something you need to keep an eye on to avoid overheating.

Some of our members have had issues with flat spots or glitches after applying mods and upgrades or tuning, this is not usually related to this engines design, so instead see our article on diagnosing flat spots and problems after tuning which should help you get the bottom of this issue.

Regular oil changes are vital on the Duratec, especially when tuned and will help extend the life and reliability of the engine.

The Aluminum and Tin bearings don't like high RPM or big power, so upgrade these with larger power gains.

If you would like to know more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your Ford engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Duratec tuning options in more detail with our Duratec owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Ford tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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