Perodua Nautica Tuning

"Tuning guide to the best Perodua Nautica modifications."

The Nautica is a good car tuning project to do. The key to Nautica tuning is balancing power and reliability - a lot of money can be wasted if you do it wrong.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are the thing most do first for the Nautica.

Setting some negative camber at the front wheels and a few degrees of toe in to improve stability or toe out for better cornering, will often benefit your Nautica in handling and cornering.

We would go to a maximum drop of 30mm - 40 mm on most models. You risk rubbing on the arches if you go lower than this.

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

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.

The following upgrades are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get started.

Getting the best sports upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 (competition) mods just don't work well on the road hard to control in slow 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, Sports exhaust, Alloy wheels, Lighter flywheel, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Remap.

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

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

Your aims when modding the engine should be a wide torque curve. You want to avoid sending all the torque to be at the top end unless you are creating a competition car.

The whole point of our hints is to give a starting base of car tuning upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is the place to go for detailed advice and tips on your customized car project, the best uprated upgrades and all aspects of modding cars.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest power gains for your money as far as a stand alone modifications 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. We'd also caution you not to go with a competition cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

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

Frequently power losses, and erratic idling after performance modifications are done can usually be traced to timing or fuel delivery issues.Bigger injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.

If you've uprated your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Contrary to popular belief there is often a small if any power gain reached by fitting an induction kit, they only work well and are recommended after you increase the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

Derestricting the air flow into the engine is a primary goal of car tuners so get a freer 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 add noticeable power and more often than not rob you of power.

Sports exhausts equal out 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 much of your flow rate and end up lacking power and torque.

Getting the cylinder head flowed (ported and polished) will assist in flowing more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a professional with a flow bench. A good fast road uprated clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or expect your standard clutch to cope. The best mods in our opinion for your Nautica are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaust.

Turbo engines are just crying out to be remapped. You will see large power gains on most modern turbo engined cars including diesels making a tune/remap one of the most cost effective and large modifications for your money.

We've also come across some owners toying with twin charging applications and making some seriously high power gains.

Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains. It is often simpler to bolt on a supercharger than it is to get a turbo working. Turbos provide boost in increasing proportion to increasing engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.

The nice correlating boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them easier to map. Alternatively you could add water injection to control knock.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Because alloy wheels are less heavy they improve performance and they will help to cool the brake disks. Don't forget that your choice of rubber greatly affects your cars grip and handling. It is not worth compromising performance with cheap tyres when you can buy track legal slick performance tires.The downside to large alloy wheels on your Nautica is that you alter your final drive ratio so this will have a detrimental effect on performance.

Because of this aim to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the same as supplied from the factory. In all cases without going bigger than 16 inches.

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 Nautica options in more detail with our Nautica owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Perodua 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 Perodua. 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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