Renault Koleos Tuning

"Thank you for reading our Renault Koleos tuning tips."

We consider Koleos tuning and report on the greatest upgrades for this crossover SUV from Renault which was released in 2000. Renault Koleoss are popular tuning projects and with the right modified upgrades you can definitely increase your driving enjoyment.

The Koleos was revised in 2013 with a minor facelift and revisions and then a new version was released in 2016 at the Beijing Motor Show.

The Koleos is a good car modification project to carry out. If you do your research then you can create an awesome Koleos but don't be fooled there are lots of competition inspired mods out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.

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 mods for your Koleos

1. Tunes - A Remapped Koleos ECU provides the most power compared to cost, replacement ECUs, and inline Tuning boxes are all alternatives.
2. Fast road Camshafts are are often the best upgrade for an engine, but they must be setup by someone who knows what they are doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
3. Air Induction and Exhaust Upgrades - Please 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. Koleos Suspension Upgrades - Fitting a more sporty Suspension kit dramatically improves Koleos handling Coilovers and Bushings are the usual go to mods
5. Braking Mods - Enhancing your stopping power should be near the top of your Mods list.
6. Forced induction upgrades - Adding a turbocharger is the most efficient approach to increase air supply, allowing you to burn more fuel and make more power. Although one of the most costly upgrades but provides the best gains.
7. Head work - The goals of porting and flowing the head are to get air flowing into the engine while removing flow restrictions and turbulence.

Koleos Tuning Stages

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Sports exhaust, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Alloy wheels, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Panel air filter, Lighter flywheel.

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

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

Koleos Handling/Suspension upgrades

Improving the handling for car enthusiasts first priority in your Koleos tuning project.

Good suspension tweaks that radically benefit handling for the Koleos 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 27mm - 36 mm on most models. You risk rubbing on the arches if you go lower than this.

Our aim in engine tuning should be to increase peak power at 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 mods.

First generation engines.

• 2.0 L i4 16V (China, Russia) 138 bhp
• 2.5 L i4 16V  169 bhp
• 2.0 L i4 dCi 148 bhp & 173 bhp versions

Second generation engines

• 2.0 i4 16V 150 bhp
• 2.5 I4 16v 185 bhp
• 1.6 I4 dCi 130 bhp
• 2.0 I4 dCi 177 bhp

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

Getting the right modified upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motor sport mods just don't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.

Peak power is all well and good but for a drivable and fun car you need a wide torque band and perhaps extending the rev range.

In this article we shall give a little insight into the world 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.One of the best mechanical motorsport parts you can do to your NA (naturally aspirated) engine is to fit a fast road cam .

It improves the intake and exhaust flow and increases 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.

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

Using higher octane fuel is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your Renault project after fitting other motorsport kits. 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 Koleoss uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Induction kits will only help to increase performance if your air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most small engines will see ZERO 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.

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 Koleos engines you should go with a sports panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

Sports exhausts can help balance the flow of gases through the engine. But if your exhaust is too big, ie: over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a great deal of your flow rate and end up lacking power and torque.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional flowed (porting and polishing). These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. A good fast road uprated clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or think that a standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods that we recommend for your Koleos 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 remapped. 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 come across some owners experimenting with twin charging applications and making some seriously high power gains.

The most impressive power gains for NA (naturally aspirated) engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. It is generally easier to add a supercharger than it is to bolt on a turbo. Turbos give boost 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. Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

As alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they can help to cool the brake disks. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of track legal slick tire. Please note although they can look cool on the Koleos big 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.

With this in mind we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 16 inches, although we know some of our members have fitted larger wheels with no problems.

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 Koleos options in more detail with our Koleos owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Renault 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.

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 Renault. You can leave a response below or join our forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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.