Seat Alhambra Tuning

"Tuning guide to the best Seat Alhambra modifications."

The Alhambra is a good car modification project to do.

With the right mods your Alhambra 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 wasting money.

Tuning tips and articles

Engine tuning Transmission tuning Care care Intake & exhaust mods Improve handling Forums

 

Handling/Suspension upgrades

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

Adding a tiny bit of negative camber on the fronts and around 1 to 1.7 degrees of toe in to improve stability or toe out for better cornering, will greatly benefit your Alhambra in handling and cornering.

We suggest that you fit motorsport suspension and lower the car by 23mm - 37 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with performance suspension.

Our aim in Alhambra engine tuning should be to increase peak power and Torque at the top end.

Alhambra make good sleepers if you keep to subtle mods, and fit the most powerful engine upgrades and handling mods you can source!

Sadly with smaller NA (naturally aspirated) engines you are not going to see much of a power gain effectively wasting your time spending money on modifications.

You could always get yourself an engine swap then apply our recommended mods detailed below.

Thankfully the Alhambra uses popular engines from the VAG group and there is not a shortage of upgrade parts.

Engine tuning mods.

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

Getting the best tuning upgrades for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 competition upgrades just won't work well on the road difficult in stop start 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: Lighter flywheel, Panel air filter, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Alloy wheels, Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm).

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

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

You need to keep as much low end torque as you can and aim for a long power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power hike.

In this article we shall give your a good starting base 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.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest bhp gains for your money as far as a single motorsport upgrades goes on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine.

It maximises 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. We'd also caution you not to go with a motor sport 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 look at the fuelling.

If you find you get flat spots and surges after your upgrades you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Improving the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

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. Contrary to popular belief there is generally very little power gain to be had by fitting an induction kit, they only become beneficial and are recommended after you increase the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

Maximum power gains come from a full induction kit with a cold air feed on heavily tuned engines, this can be sited within an air box but a panel filter should suffice for most applications. TorqueCars suggest you use a panel air filter as these are easy to clean and maintain and generally perform better than paper ones.

Sports exhausts increase the flow of gases through the engine. But if your exhaust is too large, ie: it's over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the exhaust flow rate and end up losing power and torque.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional gas flowing. These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. A good multi plate fast road sports clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or think that the standard clutch to cope. The best mods that we recommend for your Alhambra are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaust.

Remaps offer massive power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NA (naturally aspirated) engines the benefits are doubtful. However a tuned/remapped ECU on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods.

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

Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains. Superchargers are often easier to add than turbos. With a turbo the power curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it more challenging to map.

It is easier to map a supercharger because the boost is correlating to engine speed on a linear curve. 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 alloys include a lower unsprung weight and better 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 Alhambra 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 without issues we would stick to a 16 or 17 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 Alhambra options in more detail with our Alhambra owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Seat tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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