Hi guys

Handling/Suspension upgrades
Handling modifications are often a priority for the 1.3 GTVI you can make it a real fun car with gokart like handling.

We found that most 1.3 GTVI factory suspension setups need tweaking, a few degrees of toe out 1-1.7, and some negative camber will substantially improve your cornering and handling.

We would go to a maximum drop of 24mm - 39 mm you risk compromising your handling if you go lower than this.

Enjoy your 1.3 GTVI to the max with our reliable tuning pointers - do the right mods in the right order.
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.
Typically these modified modifications are usually installed by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you begin.

Getting the best modified upgrades for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 motor sport parts just don't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

Stage 1 mods: Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 24mm - 39 mm.), Alloy wheels, Panel air filter, Lighter flywheel, Remap.

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

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

Your targets when tuning the engine should be a wide torque output. You want to avoid sending all the torque to be at the top end unless you are creating a competition car.

Fast road cams offer one of the biggest torque gains for your money as far as a bolt on uprated mods goes on a NASP engine.

The exhaust and intake valve timings play a huge factor in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car difficult to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a reflashed ECU to fully realise your gains.

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

If you find you suffer from flat spots and power surges after your performance modifications you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Uprating the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned 1.3 GTVI's uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.
The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Induction kits are only beneficial to add performance if the air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most small engines will see NO 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.

Induction kits can work well on turbo engines and larger engines (if supplied with a suitable cold air feed or air box), generally though we'd just recommend for 1.3 GTVI engines you should just fit a performance panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

Sports exhausts can usually air flow from the engine but do not go too big or you could will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches as a rule of thumb.

Head work including a polish and port and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. In nearly all cases of 1.3 GTVI tuning your clutch will start to fail and this needs to be uprated - read our article on clutches for more information. The best mods in our opinion for your 1.3 GTVI are a remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.

NASP engines do not achieve big power gains if you remap them, unless you have done extensive modifications. With turbocharged engines this is another story. A remapped turbo will give impressive power gains and take full advantage of the strength of the block. Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give large power gains. Turbos are often harder to add than a supercharger. It is difficult to map fuelling with a turbo as the boost builds exponentially with engine speed.

Superchargers will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is easier to map. Adding forced induction will generally require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Alloy wheel upgrades.
Due to the fact that alloys are less heavy they improve performance and they can help to cool the brake disks. Pay attention to your choice of tyres (tires) for your car, a good track legal slick tire can really enhance your cars handling. It is worth noting that although they can look cool on the 1.3 GTVI large alloys 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.

For this reason we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 17 inches, although we know some of our members have with bigger wheels with no problems.

It would also be worth reading our unbiased Sirion tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.
 
What's your budget? Suspension mods are usually my first port of call.
 

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