MENUInfiniti QX70 Tuning
"Thanks for reading our Infiniti QX70 tuning guide."
One engine that keeps cropping up in emails and questions we get sent, is the QX70, and what parts work best on it. So we've put together this feature to cover the primary areas you should tune and outline which modifications we feel are the best.
The QX70 is a good car modification project to carry out. We see people wasting money on their QX70 doing the wrong mods and then having to start over. Follow our articles to avoid making the common mistakes
Handling/Suspension upgrades
Handling modifications are often a priority for the QX70.
Putting some negative camber on the wheels and around 1 to 1.7 degrees of toe (in for better stability or out to improve cornering), will usually improve your QX70 in handling and cornering.
We would go to a maximum drop of 23mm - 43 mm. on most models. You risk grounding out if you go lower than this.
For dramatically improved braking you should get better brake pads and combine this with bigger discs.
Please note that motorsport friction pads will be noisy and will need a lot of heat before they are effective.
On your regular commute to work the brakes are only applied now and then, therefore will not be effective so select pads which don't need to be really hot.
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 QX70.
First generation S50 2003
Second generation S51 2008
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.
This list of the stages and motorsport parts are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to go before you start.
Getting the right modified modifications for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 (competition) mods just won't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.
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
- Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings, aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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, Lighter flywheel, Alloy wheels, Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 23mm - 43 mm.), Remap.
Typical stage 2 mods often include: Power/Sport clutch, fuel pump upgrades, high flow fuel injector, Ported and polished head, Fast road cam.
Typical stage 3 mods often include: Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Competition cam, Sports gearbox, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Engine balancing.
Peak power is nice in motorsport but for a daily driven car you need a long power band and perhaps extending the rev range.
The point of our tips is to give a limited introduction of car tuning mods and point you in the right direction, our forum is the place to go for detailed advice and tips on your tuning project, the best uprated modifications and all aspects of modding cars.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest torque gains for your money as far as a single uprated upgrades 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 upsets the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.
When pushing up the power you will need to uprate to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.
If you find you get flat spots and power surges after your sports modifications you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. 
Bigger injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.
If have increased your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.
Intake and Exhaust Tuning.
Breathing mods are usually next up. 
Please note that WE DO NOT FIND IMPROVEMENTS WITH INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car extensively and are finding that the standard air intake has become the bottleneck.
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 QX70 engines you should settle for a high performance panel air filter preferably made from cotton.
Do not go with the largest exhaust you can find this will reduce 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.
Getting a professionally ported and polished head with larger valves can fully release the engines power. In nearly all cases of QX70 tuning your clutch will start to complain and this needs to be uprated - read our guide on clutches for more information. The best mods that we recommend for your QX70 are a tune/remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.
Remaps offer big power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NA (naturally aspirated) engines the benefits are doubtful. However a flashed ecu on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods.
We've also come across some owners playing with twincharged applications and making some impressively high power figures.
Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains. Turbos are often harder to add than a supercharger. Turbos increase power in exponential proportion to th engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.
The nice proportional boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them more straightforward to map. Alternatively you could fit water injection to cut down knock.
Alloy wheel upgrades.
Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are generally less heavy than steel ones. Get a good soft compound tire to improve your handling and help improve traction on your QX70. Large QX70 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 restrict ourselves to a 19 inch rim size as the maximum. We've seen these third generation special edition QX70's come with 21 inch rims, and although they look cool they don't do much for your ride quality.
For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss QX70 options in more detail with our QX70 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.
If you've enjoyed this page we would be very grateful if you could share a link to it on your favourite forums or on your social media profiles, it helps us keep going.
Please Check out my YouTube channel, we're regularly adding new content...
Click to accept YouTube Cookies & Play.Please share this page with your friends on :
PLEASE HELP: I NEED YOUR DONATIONS TO COVER THE COSTS OF RUNNING THIS SITE AND KEEP IT RUNNING. I do not charge you to access this website and it saves most TorqueCars readers $100's each year - but we are NON PROFIT and not even covering our costs. To keep us running PLEASE Donate here
If you liked this page please share it with your friends, drop a link to it in your favourite forum or use the bookmarking options to save it to your social media profile.
Feedback - What do You Think?
Please use our forums if you wish to ask a tuning question, and please note we do not sell parts or services, we are just an online magazine.
Help us improve, leave a suggestion or tip
Please watch this video and subscribe to my YouTube channel.