Infiniti QX30 Tuning

"Tuning guide to the greatest Infiniti QX30 modifications."

One engine that keeps cropping up in emails and questions we get sent, is the QX30, and what upgrades work best on it.

So this feature has been assembled to take you through what we feel are the main modifications that you should tune and outline which modifications we feel are the best.

The QX30 is a good car tuning project to execute. With the right mods your QX30 can be transformed into a fun car. Don't waste money, do your homework and follow our unbiased guides to each performance upgrade to avoid wasting money.

 

Tuning tips and articles

Engine tuning Transmission tuning Care care Intake & exhaust mods Improve handling Forums

 

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many QX30 owners uprate the handling of their cars with suspension parts as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

Good suspension tweaks that greatly improve handling for the QX30 include a couple of degrees negative camber and 1-1.5 degrees of toe (set out to improve cornering or in for better stability) on the front wheels.

We would go to a maximum drop of 30mm - 42 mm. on most models. You risk compromising your handling if you go lower than this.

For sharper improved braking you should get better performance pads and combine this with larger brake discs.

Note that some performance brake pads will be noisy and will need a lot of heat before they are effective.

In every day driving the brakes are occasionally used so won't be all that effective so source brake pads which work well in daily use.

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

Enjoy your QX30 to the limit with our reliable performance tuning articles - do the right mods in the right order.

  • 1.6 L Mercedes M270 I4-T
  • 2.0 L Mercedes M270 I4-T
  • 2.2 L Mercedes OM651 I4-T (diesel)

To be completely frank and honest, on the more modest engine sizes you are wasting your time spending money on modifications, so if this applies to you get yourself an engine swap then apply the following mods.

Tuning modifications.

This list of the stages and sports mods are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to go before you start.

Getting the right sports upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 motor sport mods 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, Sports exhaust, Lighter flywheel, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Alloy wheels, Suspension upgrade (drop 30mm - 42 mm.).

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

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

Peak power is all well and good but for a daily driven car you need a wide torque band and perhaps extending the rev range.

In this article we shall give your a good starting base to the best upgrades for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance mod.One of the biggest mechanical upgrades you can do to your NA (naturally aspirated) engine is to fit a fast road cam .

The intake & exhaust durations play a huge factor in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car challenging 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.

Don't forget to uprate the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty.

If you find you have flat spots and power surges after your modified kits you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Larger injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.

Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned QX30's uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up.  Air induction kits will only help to increase power if the cars air intake is restricted! Adding an induction kit to most low power 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 QX30 engines you should settle for a high performance panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

Sports exhausts balance the flow of air through the engine. But if the exhaust is too big, ie: it's over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the exhaust flow rate and end up sapping power and torque.

Head work including a gas flow (ported and polished) and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. In nearly all cases of QX30 tuning your clutch will start to slip and this needs an upgrade - read our tips on clutches for more information. The best mods that we recommend for your QX30 are a tune/remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.

Turbo engines are just pleading to be Reprogrammed. You will see significant power gains on most modern turbocharged cars including diesels making a tune/remap one of the most cost effective and significant modifications for your money.

We've also seen some tuners toying with twincharged conversions and making some impressively high power hikes.

Adding forced induction will see large power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Turbos are often harder to add than a supercharger. It is difficult to map fuelling with a turbo as the boost builds exponentially with rpm.

 

The nice proportional boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them more straightforward to map. Alternatively you could fit water injection to reduce the risk of knock.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Due to the fact that alloys are less heavy they improve performance and they can help to cool the brake disks. If you are serious about performance then you will need to carefully choose your tires - ideally with a track legal slick tire. Large QX30 alloy wheels can decrease performance. If you get big alloy wheels you will be changing your final drive ratio.

For this reason we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 20 inches, although we know some of our members have with bigger wheels with no problems.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss QX30 options in more detail with our QX30 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Infiniti tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below.

We love hearing about our website visitors projects, especially the mods done and which work best for you on your car. Which helps us keep our guides and tips up to date helping others with their modified car projects. Your feedback and comments are used to keep this page up to date, and help improve the accuracy of these articles which are kept updated and constantly revised.

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