Mitsubishi ASX Tuning

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We review ASX tuning and summarise the greatest modifications for your car. Mitsubishi ASX's make great bases for a tuning project and with the optimum tuning upgrades you can certainly increase your driving opportunities.

The ASX is a awesome project car to try. The key to ASX tuning is balancing power and reliability you can waste loads of money if you do it wrong.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are top of many to do lists for the ASX.

Adding a small amount of negative camber at the front and around 1 to 1.7 degrees of toe in to improve stability or toe out for better cornering, will greatly improve your ASX in handling and cornering.

Drop the car optimally somewhere in the region of 23mm - 38 mm. and fit sports stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

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

Smaller engines do not provide much of a return in terms of power so start with a bigger engine. Engine swaps are a good option if you have a small engine size.

Engine Tuning.

The following parts are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to go before you begin.

Getting the correct grade of uprated modifications for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motor sport 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

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: Lighter flywheel, Alloy wheels, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Sports exhaust, Panel air filter, Suspension upgrade (drop 23mm - 38 mm.).

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

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

Peak power is nice in motorsport but for a drivable and fun car you need a wide torque band and perhaps extending the rev range.

The aim of our guides is to give a little insight into the world of customizing upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is the place to go for detailed advice and tips on your car tuning project, the best tuning modifications and all aspects of modding cars.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest torque gains for your money as far as a bolt on sports upgrades goes on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine.

It improves the intake and exhaust durations and increases the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a reflashed ECU. TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a competition cam as this upsets the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

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

Using high octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your Mitsubishi project after fitting other sports kits.

Increasing the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

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

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Contrary to popular belief there is generally a small power gain obtained by fitting an induction kit, they only become beneficial and are recommended after you boost the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

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 ASX engines you should settle for a performance panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

Sports exhausts can help equal out the flow of air through the engine. But if the exhaust is too large, ie: over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the exhaust flow rate and end up sapping power and torque.

Polishing and porting the head will allow you to maximise your air/fuel charge. Leave this to a professional though with a proper flow bench and machine tools.

Your clutch can slip as the power goes up if it starts to complain and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of up to 43%. Fit an upgraded clutch to avoid power loss through the transmission. The best mods in our experience for your ASX are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements.

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

We've also seen some tuners playing with twincharging conversions and making some very high power gains.

Adding forced induction will see impressive power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. It is generally easier to bolt on a supercharger than it is to fit a working turbo. Turbos provide boost in increasing proportion to increasing engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.

Superchargers, however will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is simpler. Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

The benefits of alloy wheels include a lower unsprung weight and more efficient brake cooling. Pay attention to your choice of tyres (tires) for your car, a good soft compound tire can really enhance your cars handling. Large ASX alloy wheels can decrease performance.

If you get big alloy wheels you will be changing your final drive ratio.

Although some people have gone larger than this we would restrict ourselves to a 18 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 ASX options in more detail with our ASX owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Mitsubishi tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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