Ford Kuga Tuning

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The Kuga is a awesome car tuning project to play with. Take your time and research Kuga tuning to save yourself making the usual common errors we frequently get told about.

Make your Kuga a phenomenally fun car with the optimum uprated modifications like a remap, turbo kits and camshafts you will dramatically maximize your driving enjoyment.

In this article we examine Kuga tuning and point out the greatest modifications.

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

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many Kuga owners uprate the handling of their cars with sports suspension upgrades as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

Improvements to the bushings

Enhancements to the bushings: Things you need to know

The suspension components of the Kuga may be fixed to the car's chassis through bushes, which are rotatable rubber mounts. These rubber ones will lose their shape with time.

New OEM rubber bushes may have a major impact on the performance of your vehicle.

Because the polyurethane bushes are firmer, the ride may be a bit less forgiving, but they will last longer and maintain the handling.

Worn bushes may also quicken the degradation of other suspension components due to the increased vibration and play.

A new set of poly bushings may be able to lessen the excessive play that comes with rubber bushes.

Some poly bushings are hard to locate, but most will find the primary mounts readily available in their areas Often, custom Kuga polyeyurothane bushings may be manufactured to your requirements.

A common misconception is that a non-adjustable suspension system that lowers the vehicle by 70mm from a franchised component shop is the best option. But suspension design and setup is quite complex.

How low should you go on the Kuga?

When it comes to road vehicles, the maximum suspension drop is 27 - 38 mm, but when it comes to hot hatchbacks with lower OEM suspension, the maximum suspension drop is 21 mm, according to TorqueCars.

These tolerances may be drastically diminished if the wheel size is changed. Even with 16 or 17-inch wheels and conventional suspension, lowering the vehicle may create a a slew of issues.

While the fact that the Kuga being lower allows for less air to travel underneath it may aid in stability, the ultimate goal should always be to enhance handling. When lowering the springs, it is critical to use the proper shocks that match all round.

Putting some negative camber at the front wheels and a few degrees of toe (in for better stability or out to improve cornering), will radically enhance your Kuga in handling and cornering.We suggest that you fit uprated suspension and lower the car by 22mm - 42 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with uprated suspension.

Kuga Brake Mods

For greatly improved stopping put better performance pads and mate this with meatier brake discs.

We should point out that some performance brake pads will be noisy and will need to be really hot before they start to work.

On a road car the brakes are only applied now and then, therefore will not stop you as well so source brake pads which work well in daily use.

Top end power should be your overall aim on the Kuga with a nice fat peak torque band.

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.

Engine tuning mods.

The following tuning kits are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to go before you begin.

Getting the right performance upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 competition upgrades just won't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.

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 Kuga

1. Air Intake and Performance Exhausts - Please note that on their own these mods won't ADD TORQUE , but they permit you to release power after other upgrades by lessening the restriction.
2. Internal engine mods - crank, pistons, conrods & compression ratio including balancing and blueprinting
3. Fast road Camshafts are are often the best upgrade for an engine, but we recommend they be installed by someone familiar with setting them up on your car and some cams are hard to find but there might be a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft for you.
4. Upgrades to turbochargers and superchargers - A New Turbo is the most efficient approach to raise the intake air supply, this means you are able to burn more fuel and make better power figures. Typically one of the most complex mods you'll see massive gains.
5. Engine Tunes - Kuga engine tuning/remapping offers the biggest gains in terms of cost, aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
6. Kuga Suspension Upgrades - Upgrading your suspension dramatically improves Kuga handling Poly Bushes and Coilovers are typically fitted to achieve this
7. Brake Mods - Enhancing your stopping power should be high on your agenda.
8. Low mass flywheel - a lower weight flywheel will significantly improve the engines rev changes. In some cases flywheel lightening is not a great mod for all Kuga engines.

Kuga Tuning Stages

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Suspension upgrade (drop 22mm - 42 mm.), Panel air filter, Alloy wheels, Sports exhaust, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Lighter flywheel.

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

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

You need to keep as much low end power as you can 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 brief overview to the best performance parts 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.One of the biggest mechanical modified modifications you can do to your NA (naturally aspirated) engine is to fit a fast road cam .

The intake & exhaust valve durations 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 cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a performance chip to fully release the power gain.

Don't forget to pay attention to the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty.

If you find you have flat spots and power surges after your sports kits you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. To get sufficient fuel you may need to improve the injectors on your engine.

If you've uprated 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.  Please note that WE DO NOT RECOMMEND INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car with over 30 percent more power and are finding that the standard air intake has become a limitation.

Maximum power gains come from a full induction kit with a cold air feed on heavily tuned engines, this can be sited within an air box but a panel filter should suffice for most applications. TorqueCars suggest you use a panel air filter as these are easy to clean and maintain and generally perform better than paper ones.

Sports exhausts balance the flow of air through the engine. But if the exhaust is too large, ie: it's over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose much of the exhaust flow rate and end up losing power and torque.

gas flowing the head will allow you to maximise your air/fuel charge. Leave this to a professional though with a proper flow bench and machine tools In nearly all cases of Kuga tuning your clutch will start to complain and this needs an upgrade - read our guide on clutches for more information. The best mods in our experience for your Kuga are a tune/remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.

Remaps offer large power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NA (naturally aspirated) engines the benefits are doubtful. However a tune/remap on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods.

We've also seen some tuners toying with twincharged applications and making some very high power figures.

The most impressive power gains for NA (naturally aspirated) engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. It is usually easier to bolt on a supercharger than it is to fit a working turbo. It is difficult to map fuelling with a turbo as the boost builds exponentially with rpm.

The nice steady boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them easier to map. 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 lowering your unsprung weight and better brake cooling. If you are serious about performance then you will need to carefully choose your tires - ideally with a track legal slick tire. The downside to large alloys on your Kuga is that you're altering your effective final drive ratio so this will have a detrimental effect on performance.

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 Kuga options in more detail with our Kuga 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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