Holden Equinox Tuning

"Thank you for reading my Equinox tuning guide"

Born in 2005 the Equinox used the great GM Theta platform and shares much with the Suzuki XL7 and Saturn Vue.

It was a small SUV with two engine options a 3.4l V6 offering 185 bhp and 3.6l V6 which presented 2264hp.

A new generation was introduced in 2010, where engine choices included

• 2.4 L LAF i4 182 hp (136 kW) 172 lb·ft (233 N·m)
• 2.4 L LEA i4 182 hp (136 kW 172 lb·ft (233 N·m)
• 3.0 L LF1 or LFW V6 264 hp (197 kW) 222 lb·ft (301 N·m)
• 3.6 L LFX V6  301 hp (224 kW)272 lb·ft (369 N·m)

Then a mew lineup came in 2017 which shares engines with the Chevrolet Malibu

• 2018 1.5 L (91 cu in) LYX turbo i4 170 hp (127 kW) at 5,600 rpm 203 lbft (275 Nm) at 2,000–4,000 rpm
• 2018 2.0 L (122 cu in) LTG turbo i4 252 hp (188 kW) at 5,500 rpm 260 lbft (353 Nm) at 2,500–4,500 rpm
• 2018 1.6 L (98 cu in) LH7 turbodiesel i4 137 hp (102 kW) at 3,750 rpm 240 lbft (325 Nm) at 2,000 rpm

Although the engines are small the turbos really help push out the power and torque, and the chassis benefits from having less weight at the front.

The only thing holding you back in your Equinox project is time, money and your imagination With the right mods your Equinox can be transformed into an awesome motor. Don't waste money, do your homework and follow our unbiased guides to each performance upgrade to avoid wasting money.

Improving the handling for most drivers, is rated as a top priority mod in your Equinox tuning project. We would go to a maximum drop of 35mm on most models. You risk rubbing on the arches if you go lower than this.

Turning our attention to the Equinox's engine we need to get a bit more power out of the top end.

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.

Tuning modifications.

These mods sports kits are usually installed by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get started.

Getting the correct grade of modified upgrades for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 competition upgrades just won't work well on the road hard to control in slow traffic.

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 Engine Mods for your car

1. Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings,  aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
2. Fast road cams are one of the most significant mechanical changes, but they must be installed by someone who knows what they're doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
3. Intake and Exhaust - Note that on their own these mods will NOT 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. It is one of the most costly upgrades but provides the best gains.
5. Head work - The goals of porting and flowing the head are to get air flowing into the engine while removing flow restrictions and turbulence.

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Panel air filter, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Sports exhaust, Lighter flywheel, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Alloy wheels.

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

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

You really need to keep as much low end torque as possible and aim for a long power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power spike.

In this article we shall give a little insight into the world to the best mods 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.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest performance gains for your money as far as a bolt on tuning mods goes on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine.

It maximises the intake and exhaust flow and pushes up the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a remap. TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a motor sports profile cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.When pushing up the power you will need to pay attention to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

Using high octane fuel is another option if you find you are suffering from detonation or premature ignition on your Holden project after fitting other kits. To get sufficient fuel you may need to uprate the injectors on your engine. A fuel pump will only deliver a finite amount of fuel, so you may need to uprate this if your injectors are demanding more fuel.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Induction kits will only help to add performance if the cars air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most standard engines will see NO 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. Derestricting the flow of air into the engine is the primary part of car tuners so get a freer flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean only if you find the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound great but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and often rob you of power on most cars.

Do not go with the widest exhaust you can buy this will slow up 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.

Head work including a gas flow and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. Your clutch can slip if it starts to slip and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of up to 40%. Fit a sports clutch to avoid power losses through the transmission. Remaps offer significant power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NA (naturally aspirated) engines the benefits are doubtful. However a tuned/remapped ECU on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods. Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains. It is often cheaper to bolt on a supercharger than it is to bolt on a turbo. It is difficult to map fuelling with a turbo as the boost increases exponentially with rpm.

Superchargers however will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is 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 alloy wheels include a lower unsprung weight and better brake cooling via the extra air flow they allow. The drawback to large rims on your Equinox is that you're altering your final drive ratio so this will have a negative effect on acceleration.

Due to this we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 16 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 Equinox options in more detail with our Equinox owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Holden tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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This article is flagged for an update, so please pass on specific tips below that I can include. All articles, and content was written by me, Waynne Smith TorqueCars founder. Some outlines are just too general so I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Holden. You can leave a response below or join our forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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