What is the best car to tune?

obi_waynne

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A3 1.4 TFSI 150 COD
Here is the challenge - £10k budget - £7k on the car and £3k on tuning. The car can be any insurance group and will need to remain street legal.

What is the most power and quickest 0-60 time I can get for this money?

The car will need to remain reliable so this rules out adding a 100bhp shot of nitrous to a Saxo VTS (Freddie!)

I'm hoping to get some fresh ideas and end up with the fastest car possible.
 
Bugger you! There is nothing 'unreliable' about a boosted Saxo on laughing gas!

Well, so long as you don't drive it that is!

There is so many cars and so many options, but being from the Saxo stable, I would like to suggest a Saxo shell with a Honda VTEC engine sitting in the boot!

Set up correctly you could have all the fun of a Saxo (as well as that oh-so desireable image) with the added bonus of a super reliable Jap engine with rear wheel drive! There would still be some issues with reliability, but with a professional set-up I think most of these could be overcome, and still be in budget!

There are so many cars; so many mods; I think overall it's down to personal preference.. In heinsight (sp?) I would like this as a fun car, but in reality, with 10k sitting in my bank account I might do something completely different!

And I'm not really on target with the 7k for the car and 3k for tuning, but it's still doable with 10k!

I think that on a more realistic note, one that just sprang to mind would be a Honda engined elise.. Again I think this is a realistic conversion, and Elise's are great track cars as they are. This set-up + boost can be pretty scary though! Mad power!

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=1041298695425454906&q=elise
 
Get a 406 Coupe with 2.2 HDi diesel unit - second user 2002 models well under £7k. Factory tune is 136bhp. Bung three hundred quid to Celtic (www.celtictuning.co.uk) and receive an ECP remap in return. Shoves out about 180bhp with torque over 300lbft. Run it on BP Ultimate Diesel and get a few percent more for the premium.

Keep the other £2700 in hand for front tyres, but allow a couple of quid for the extra insurance premium, because, you're going to declare it, of course, aren't you?

Seriously though, the 2.2 with a remap is a remarkable piece of kit. 0-62mph can be done in about 8 seconds if you're gentle with the clutch/rubber.

50-70 in fourth is stupidly quick, it in the jaguar XK8 / Boxster league. And; yes, I've driven a couple of them.

Rgds,

P.
 
Nice torque figure - I guess thats why the rubber vanishes! I actually like the look of the 406 coupes - prob take off the Pug badge though!
 
That's always the problem - it's a French Pug, not a BMW or Merc, If you can live without the badge/keyring etc. then the 2.2 HDi is a stonker. At the age of 36 (yep, I'm old!) it's a good way to play unfair games with three litre petrol cars.

Lose the badge for sure, engage Celtic for an ECU re-map and go and charge about in a pretty car in a way that disturbs owners of Mercedes SLK320's.

Diesel engines can deliver silly performance now, manufacturers keep the bhp down just so that can justify selling the occasional petrol fuelled car.
 
After driving my GT for a couple of days, I have to say they're awesome. Standard they do 0-62 in 6.8.

You could buy a decent GT for £3500, or a Glanza for about 1k more, then throw £6500 at the engine, gearbox, suspension and brakes. It would be mental and I'm sure you could play with the scooby and evo boys all day long.
 
Saw a BMW Alpina on Autotrader for about £7G. standard 0-60 is about 5.5 (still researching the model range) I reckon with a remap it can get to a sub 4 second to 60. (These cars are over £45k new.)

I bet the EVO and Impreza are pretty cheap now and can be modded quite heavily - but I guess they are a bit predictable and really want to consider all of the options. (This is a fairly hypothetical excersice - I'm still impressed by my Audi 1.8T sport which gives me 38mpg! )
 
The car looks exotic and sporty - almost Lamborghini but the badge looks er Normal!

I've nothing against Pugs - some of my best friends are (have) Pugs!

Shouldn't discount American muscle - massive power can be obtained from most v8 blocks.
 
NO, I can go with that - nigh on 6 litres worth of V8 offers serious potential as these engines are so under-tuned at the factory. 500bhp without a turbocharger in sight - can't beat pure cubic inches.
 
I second that. Chryslers 426 cubic inch (roughly 7 liters) had production bhp figures of 425bhp, only this is strongly believed to be a fib by chrysler to get round american maximum power laws of the time. The true figure is closer to 515bhp straight out of the box. 8) And this is an engine that was de-tuned from NASCAR spec for the roads. 900bhp it not an unrealistic power target from these motors.
 
There's a lot of smoke and mirrors,

concerning these big American V8's.
GM (and Chrysler I believe) have both now adopted J1349 standard rules for measuring hp because of these somewhat optimistic claims (Horsepower sells).
The most powerful Hemi V8's (which doesn't actually a have hemispherical combustion chamber in the head like the originals as this was found to be more prone to detonation than even a ramp head design. They now use a pent-roof design but still call it a "hemi" -sic.).

Info on old Chrysler engine range here:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_LA_engine

Newer "Hemi" info here:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_300

The world's most powerful production V8 here:-

http://www.gizmag.com/go/4286/

Care needs to be taken with U.S. power claims. Previous to 1972 they were using Gross hp ratings. After '72 they changed to Net hp.
You can actually find examples of the same 450+ claimed hp (gross) engines re-rated to less than 350hp (net) post 1973.

The famous 350cid small block Chevrolet engine only broke the (real) 300hp barrier with the second LT1 version in 1992. They dipped as low as 145hp with some versions during the 1970's.

Even now when U.S. aftermarket companies make claims, their dyno figures are anything up to 20% higher than Europe and most of the rest of the planet.
One reason for this is when engine dyno tests are conducted the engines are run without any ancilliaries, no intake filter/system and usually with tubular exhaust manifolds (headers) and open collecters (no mufflers).

Another reason is the most popular U.S. chassis dynos (Dyno-Jet) work on a different principle to measure torque compared to what most of us in the EU, and rest are used to, which are usually of the Eddie-current dynamometer type.

Only the Mustang Dynamometer (trade name) works on the Eddie-current system which is available over in the U.S.A. and could be safely used as a comparison.
Though even then, correction factors and the widespread mis-use & misunderstanding of this needs to be borne in mind.


p.s. NASCAR engine rules stipulate no more than 358cid.
 
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200 sx is a good tuning car and its cheap so more on the tuning :D plus its nissan so there is not french side of it to hide (made before renault brought nissan) and well its a great fun car :p
 
Re the V8s undoutably great engines but..........................................

I beleive the thread was best car to mod not best engine

Of course a large v8 is easy to tune but there no point in having 500bhp if the car handles like a boat .
 
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Get a 406 Coupe with 2.2 HDi diesel unit - second user 2002 models well under £7k. Factory tune is 136bhp. Bung three hundred quid to Celtic (www.celtictuning.co.uk) and receive an ECP remap in return. Shoves out about 180bhp with torque over 300lbft. Run it on BP Ultimate Diesel and get a few percent more for the premium.

Keep the other £2700 in hand for front tyres, but allow a couple of quid for the extra insurance premium, because, you're going to declare it, of course, aren't you?

Seriously though, the 2.2 with a remap is a remarkable piece of kit. 0-62mph can be done in about 8 seconds if you're gentle with the clutch/rubber.

50-70 in fourth is stupidly quick, it in the jaguar XK8 / Boxster league. And; yes, I've driven a couple of them.


Rgds,

P.
Are all 2.2hdi's the same or different for different cars, I just looked on the trader and the diesel coupes start at just over £2k....Which 2.2 hdi offers the best handling and also which represents best value for money? Cheers
 

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