Lantra Tuning

"The Lantra Mantra is 'Go Faster'"

Many Lantra owners uprate the handling of their cars as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car. Drop the car optimally somewhere in the region of 35mm and fit stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

We were asked questions for more information on tuning and building a modified Lantra and particularly which turbo upgrades work best, so we've put together this feature which covers our go to parts for this engine and what we feel are the optimum value parts you can do.

The Lantra is a good tuning project to try. With the right mods your Lantra can be transformed into a fun car. Don't waste money, do your homework and follow our unbiased guides to each performance upgrade so you don't waste your money.

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

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. By raising peak power you maintain economy in the low end and ensure reliability (unless you drive it like you stole it!).

Hyundai Lantra Tuning modifications.

A fast road cam will be one of the best power mod you can do mechanically to your engine. You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to uprate the fuelling.

You can get a more snappy acceleration by fitting a fuel pressure boost valve. 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.

Lantra Turbo upgrades

NA (naturally aspirated) engines need quite a lot of work when you add a turbo, so we have a separate guide to help you take into account the pros and cons of going this route on your Lantra.

The more air you can get into an engine, the more fuel it can burn and uprating the induction with a turbocharger upgrade makes massive power gains.

If your car has forced induction tuning mods are giving better power gains and you will discover turbo engines are made with harder and stronger components.

However engines have limits so discover these limitations and fit better quality crank and pistons to utilize the power.

We see many tuners spending a lot of money on turbocharger upgrades on the Lantra only to have the engine go up in smoke on it's first outing after it's been completed.

Big turbos will usually experience low end lag, and low capacity turbos spool up more quickly but do not have the peak end bhp gains.

We are pleased that the market of turbo chargers is always increasing and we commonly find variable vane turbo chargers, allowing the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end performance.

Twin scroll turbo chargers divert the exhaust flow into two channels and direct these at differently designed vanes in the turbocharger. They also help the scavenging effect of the engine.

You'll commonly see there's a limit in the air flow sensor MAP/MAF/AFM on the Lantra when loads more air is being drawn into the engine.

You'll see that 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor sapped bhp and torque at a much lower level.

Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large performance gains, although more complex to install. We have this guide to twinchargers if you want to read more.

Hyundai Lantra Intake and Exhaust.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Induction kits work well on turbo engines and larger engines, for the smaller Lantra engines you should go with a sports panel air filter. Do not go with the biggest exhaust you can find - the best for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches.

In nearly all cases of Lantra tuning your clutch will start to slip and this needs to be uprated - read our article on clutches for more information.

Superchargers are generally easier to add than turbos. Turbos give boost in exponential proportion to increasing engine speed and this can make mapping difficult. Superchargers however will give a boost which is proporttional 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.

Hyundai Lantra Wheel modifications.

Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are usually lighter than the steel ones. The downside to large alloy wheels on your Lantra is that you alter your effective final drive ratio and this will have a detrimental effect on performance.

Although some people have gone larger we would stick to a 18 inch rim size as the maximum.

Please join us in our forum to discuss the Lantra options in more detail with our Lantra owners. It would also be worth reading our Hyundai tuning articles to get a full grasp of the pros and cons of each type of modification.

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 Hyundai. 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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