Proton Saga Tuning

"Thanks for reading this Proton Saga tuning guide."

The Saga is a brilliant car tuning project to have. The key to Saga tuning is getting the right mods you can waste loads of money if you do it wrong.

We review Saga tuning and outline the best upgrades. Proton Sagas offer good returns when tuned and with carefully chosen performance mods you can certainly maximize your driving experience.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are high on most peoples lists for the Saga.

Good suspension tweaks that often enhance handling for the Saga include a couple of degrees negative camber and 1-1.5 degrees of toe in or out on the front wheels. Toe in for stability, or Toe out to improve cornering. It would also pay to improve the brakes, by adding larger discs and or higher friction pads..

We would go to a maximum drop of 29mm - 42 mm. on most models. You risk handling compromises 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.

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.

This list of the stages and mods are usually installed by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get started.

Getting the best performance upgrades for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 motor sport parts just won't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

• 1.3L S4PE IAFM
• 1.6L S4PH IAFM
• 1.3L S4PE IAFM+
• 1.6L S4PH IAFM+
• 1.3L S4PE VVT

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: Sports exhaust, Panel air filter, Lighter flywheel, Alloy wheels, Suspension upgrade (drop 29mm - 42 mm.), Remap.

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

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

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

The aim of our pointers is to give a starting base of modifying upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your modified car project, the best modified mods and all aspects of modding cars.A fast road cam will be one of the best NASP power mods you can do with a single part fitted to your engine.

The exhaust & intake 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 difficult 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.

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

Frequently power losses, and erratic idling after performance upgrades are done can usually be traced to fuelling or timing issues. Bigger 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 Saga's uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Air induction kits are only beneficial to increase performance if your cars air intake is restricted! Adding an induction kit to most low power engines will see LITTLE LOW END POWER GAIN AT ALL. If you have heavily modified your engine and it's need for air INCREASES DRAMATICALLY then an induction kit is the answer and will help remove this restriction.

For most Saga engines TorqueCars would suggest you just go with a washable panel air filter. On heavily tuned engines and turbo vehicles an induction kit will help release the power providing you address the problem of supplying cold air.

Sports exhausts will certainly help air flow out of the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too large or you might just stuff your flow rate and make things worse. So generally speaking, keep to a size of 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional polishing and ported. These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. In nearly all cases of Saga tuning your clutch will start to slip and this needs to be uprated - read our overview on clutches for more information. The best mods in our opinion for your Saga are a tune/remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.

Turbo engines are just crying out to be Reprogrammed. You will see large power gains on most modern turbo charged cars including diesels making a tune/remap one of the most cost effective and large modifications for your money.Adding forced induction will see large power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. It is usually cheaper to add a supercharger than it is to fit a working turbo. It is harder to map a turbo as the boost increases exponentially with rpm.

Superchargers, however will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is easier to map. Adding forced induction will often require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Due to the fact that alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they will help to cool the brake disks. We can't go into too much detail here about tires but they are how the car puts the power down on the road so are a critical choice. directional tread pattern tires work well on Saga, and make a big difference over budget tires. It is worth noting that although they can look cool on the Saga large alloy wheels will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this to the change in your effective final drive ratio.

Due to this fact endeavour to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the OEM setup. In all cases avoid going over 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 Saga options in more detail with our Saga owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Proton tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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