Hyundai i40 Tuning

"Thank you for reading our Hyundai i40 tuning guide."

A large family oriented car which shares much with the Sonata US verson.

A great range of engines and nicely designed interior and exterior, the i40 has wide appeal and has sold reasonably well in all markets where it was featured.

The i40 is a great car tuning project to fill your spare time. If you do your research then you can create an awesome i40 but don't be fooled there are lots of high performance modifications out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.

Please watch our video which covers the 5 principles of tuning your i40. Be sure to keep up with our latest YouTube content and subscribe.

Best mods for your i40

1. Brake Mods - Improve your i40's stopping power needs to be near the top of your Mods list.
2. Air Induction and Sports Exhausts - 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.
3. i40 Suspension Upgrades - Fitting a more sporty Suspension kit dramatically improves i40 handling Coilovers and Bushings are the usual go to mods
4. Head work - The goals of porting and flowing the head are to get air flowing into the engine while removing flow restrictions and turbulence.
5. Fast road cams are are often the best upgrade for an engine, but they must be fitted by someone who knows what they are doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
6. Upgrades to turbochargers and superchargers - A New Turbo 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 it does provide the largest gains.
7. Remaps - A Remapped i40 ECU provides the biggest gains for the money, replacement ECUs, and inline Tuning boxes are all alternatives.

i40 Tuning Stages

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Sports exhaust, Alloy wheels, Suspension upgrade (drop 25mm - 39 mm.), Lighter flywheel, Panel air filter, Remap.

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

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

i40 Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are high on the agenda for the i40 with many criticising the overly soft suspension setup and bodyroll.

Upgrading your Bushes

Enhancements to the bushings: Things you need to know

The suspension components of the i40 may be mounted and moved around the car's chassis through bushes, which are rotating rubber mounts. The rubber ones will degrade with time.

Installing new OEM rubber bushings may dramatically improve the performance of your car.

Because polyurethane bushes are stiffer, the ride may be more harsh, but the bushes will last longer and maintain the car's handling for longer.

They may also hasten the depreciation of other suspension components due to the increased vibration and play.

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

Rarer and older models may only have polyurethane versions of the main bushes available as aftermarket bushing kits, however the majority of recent models have a complete set of suspension bushes for all parts of your suspension mounts.

Custom bushes are often built to i40 your requirements.

A common misconception is that a non-adjustable suspension system that lowers the vehicle by 30mm from a franchised component shop is the best option.

Vendors may assert that their i40 suspension kits are compatible with any or all of the i40 model years.

For a vast variety of vehicles, a 'one size fits all' approach is obviously incorrect.

How low should you go on the i40?

According to TorqueCars research and testing, the maximum amount of suspension drop for most road vehicles is 27 - 42 millimetres, whereas hot hatchbacks with lower OEM suspension have a maximum suspension drop of 17 millimetres.

These tolerances may be drastically lowered if the wheel size is changed. Even with 17"wheels and stock suspension, lowering the vehicle might result in a slew of complications.

Because the i40 is lower, less air travels under it, which may aid in stability; nonetheless, the main goal should always be to enhance handling. It is critical to use the proper shocks when employing lower springs buying matched components as a kit.

We found that most i40 factory suspension setups need tweaking, a few degrees of toe (set some toe out to improve cornering or use toe in for better stability) and you only need around degrees, and some negative camber will radically improve your cornering and handling.

If you set the toe out to 0.9 to 1.5 degrees on the front, and add a small amount of negative camber then cornering will often benefit.

Drop the car optimally somewhere in the region of 25mm - 39 mm. and fit modified stiffer dampers or coilovers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

A front strut brace and high quality bushing will go a long way to sharpen up the handling.

Don't just look at the peak power figures, you need to see the whole torque curve when determining if a mod is right for you i40.

The best power gains come from larger engine sizes. The more you start with the bigger the return on investment so engine swaps are good value mods for small engined cars.

i40 Tuning modifications.

These mods performance parts are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you start.

• 1.6 L Gamma GDI i4 133hp
• 2.0 L Nu i4 164hp/150hp
• 2.0 L Nu GDI i4 176hp/162hp
• 1.7 L U2 CRDI i4 diesel

Getting the best modified upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motor sport mods just don't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

You should keep as much low end power as you can and aim to achieve a wide power band rather than a narrow top end power spike.

So what power gains can you expect and what will this do to the quarter mile times?

The point of our advice is to give a limited introduction of modding upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is best place to go if you need more detailed advice and tips on your tuning project, the best motorsport kits and all aspects of modding cars.One of the biggest mechanical modified parts you can do to your NA (naturally aspirated) engine is to fit a fast road camshaft .

The intake & exhaust flow play a huge role 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 cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a tune/remap to fully release the power gain.

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to increase the fuelling.

Frequently power losses, flat spots and erratic idling after uprated parts are done can usually be traced to timing or fuelling issues. To get sufficient fuel you may need to improve the injectors on your engine.

If you are increasing your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

i40 Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Please note that WE DO NOT SEE IMPROVEMENTS WITH 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.

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 i40 engines you should go with a high performance panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

Sports exhausts equal out the flow of gases through the engine. But if your exhaust is too big, ie: over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose much of the exhaust flow rate and end up lacking power and torque.

Getting a professionally flowed (ported and polished) head with larger valves can fully release the engines power. When you tune up your i40 you will often find that the standard clutch starts to complain so get an uprated clutch. The best mods in our experience for your i40 are fast road camshaft, remap, induction and exhaust, suspension.

NA (naturally aspirated) engines do not achieve big power gains if you tune/remap them, unless you have done extensive modifications. With turbocharged engines this is another story. A tuned/remapped turbo will give large power gains and fully release the potential power of the engine. Adding forced induction will see phenomenal power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Turbos are often harder to add than a supercharger. With a turbo the power curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it difficult to map fuelling with.

It is simpler to map a supercharger because the boost is directly proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. Adding forced induction will generally require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

i40 Alloy wheel upgrades.

Because alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they will help to cool the brake disks. We can't go into too much detail here about tires but they are how the car puts the power down on the road so are a critical choice. track legal slick tires work well on i40, and make a big difference over budget tires. Large i40 alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your final drive ratio.

Although some people have installed larger rims we would stick to a 16 inch rim size as the maximum.

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 i40 options in more detail with our i40 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Hyundai tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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