Infiniti QX4 Tuning

"Tuning guide to the most effective Infiniti QX4 modifications."

One engine that keeps cropping up in emails and questions we get sent, is the QX4, and what tuning modifications work best on it.

So this page has been assembled which covers our go to modifications that you should tune and outline which modifications we feel are the best.The QX4 is a awesome car modification project to have. We see car owners wasting money on their QX4 doing the wrong mods and then having to start over. Follow our guides to avoid making the common mistake.

The QX4 is based on the Nissan Pathfinder but with some stylish interior revisions and updates.

 

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many QX4 owners uprate the handling of their cars with fast road suspension kits as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

Good suspension tweaks that greatly benefit handling for the QX4 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.

Drop the car optimally somewhere in the region of 27mm - 43 mm. and fit motorsport grade stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

For radically improved stopping you should get better high friction brake pads and combine this with better brake discs.

We should point out that some performance pads will be noisy and will need to be really hot before they are effective.

In every day driving the brakes are only applied now and then and won't stop you as well so select friction pads which work well in daily use.

Top end power should be your overall aim with a nice fat wide peak torque band.

With our tips your QX4 can be a track day fun car and be reliable daily run around.

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.

Power mods.

Typically these tuning modifications are usually installed by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you get going.

• 3.3 L VG33E V6
• 3.5 L VQ35DE V6

Getting the correct grade of performance upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motor sport parts just don't work well on the road difficult in stop start traffic.

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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, Alloy wheels, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Lighter flywheel, Suspension upgrade (drop 27mm - 43 mm.), Sports exhaust.

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

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

Peak power is nice in motorsport but for a daily driven car you need a long torque band and perhaps extending the rev range.

In this article we shall give an overview and introduction 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 modification. A fast road camshaft usually proves to be one of the best NASP power modifications you can do with a single part fitted to your engine.

The intake & exhaust durations play a huge role in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car hard to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a tune/remap to fully realise your gains.

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

If you find you suffer from flat spots and surges after your motorsport modifications you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Higher capacity 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 QX4's uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up.

Contrary to popular belief there is generally very little if any power gain to be had by fitting an induction kit, they only help and are recommended after you boost the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

Derestricting the air feed into the engine is a primary goal of tuning so get a better 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 fun but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not do much to increase power and more often than not rob you of power on most cars.

Sports exhausts can usually air flow through the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too large or you may end up will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Getting the cylinder head flowed (ported and polished) will assist in flowing more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a pro with a flow bench. When you start tuning your QX4 you will find that the standard clutch starts to fail so get an uprated clutch. The best mods that we recommend for your QX4 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 massive power gains and take full advantage of the strength of the block. Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains. Superchargers are often easier to add than turbos. With a turbo the power curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it difficult to map fuelling with.

It is easier to map a supercharger because the boost is correlating to engine speed on a linear curve. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the compression ratio of the engine .

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brake cooling and are usually less heavy than the steel ones. Get a good directional tread pattern tire to improve your handling and help improve traction on your QX4. The downside to large alloys on your QX4 is that you alter your effective final drive ratio so this will have a detrimental effect on performance.

Although some people have with bigger wheels we would stick to a 18 inch rim size as the maximum.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss QX4 options in more detail with our QX4 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.

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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 Infiniti. 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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