Nissan Micra Tuning

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We provide a guide to Micra tuning and outline the best mods that work. Nissan Micras are popular tuning projects and with the ultimate modified tuning mods you can really maximise your driving enjoyment.

The Micra is a good tuning project to fill your spare time. With the right mods your Micra 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 disappointment.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

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

Fully adjustable suspension allows you to fine tune the handling of you Micra substantially benefitting your drive.

We would go to a maximum drop of 27mm - 41 mm. on most models. You risk compromising your handling if you go lower than this.

A nice wide torque band and sweet spot of peak power at one third of your RPM range is optimum.

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.

Power mods.

Typically these tuning upgrades are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you begin.

Getting the right uprated mods for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 (competition) mods just don'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: Suspension upgrade (drop 27mm - 41 mm.), Panel air filter, Sports exhaust, Alloy wheels, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Lighter flywheel.

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

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

Peak power is good on competition cars but for a daily driven car you need a long torque band and perhaps extending the rev range.

In this article we shall give a limited introduction to the best modifications 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.A fast road cam is one of the best NASP power mods you can do mechanically to your engine.

The exhaust & intake valve durations play a big role in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car awkward to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a reflashed ECU for the best performance gains.

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

Most power losses, flat spots and erratic idling after tuning parts are done can usually be traced to timing or fuel delivery issues. Higher capacity injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.

A fuel pump will only deliver a finite amount of fuel, so you may need to uprate this if your injectors are demanding more fuel.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Please note that WE DO NOT FEEL YOU GET POWER GAINS FROM INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car extensively and are finding that the standard air intake has become a limitation.

Derestricting the airflow into the engine is the primary part of performance tuning so get a freer flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound great but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and actually rob you of power.

Do not go with the biggest exhaust you can get this will slow the exhaust rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

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 lose you loads of power as the power goes up if it starts to slip and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of up to 45%. Fit a sports clutch to avoid power leak through the transmission. The best mods that we recommend for your Micra are sports camshafts and induction improvements.

The most impressive power gains for NA (naturally aspirated) engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. It is often simpler to bolt on a supercharger than it is to install a turbo. It is harder to map a turbo as the boost comes on exponentially with rpm.

It is simpler to map a supercharger because the boost is correlating to engine speed on a linear curve. Alternatively you could install water injection to cut down knock.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels can help the brake cooling and are generally lighter than steel ones. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of directional tread pattern tire. Large Micra alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your final drive ratio.

Although some people have gone larger than this we would restrict ourselves to a 15 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 Micra options in more detail with our Micra owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Nissan tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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