Skoda Roomster Tuning

"Thank you for reading my Skoda Roomster tuning article."

The Roomster is a brilliant tuning project to fill your spare time. The key to Roomster tuning is doing it right you can waste loads of money if you do it wrong.

Our aim here is to review Roomster tuning and provide tips on the optimum mods that work. Skoda Roomster offer good returns when tuned and with carefully picked modifications like remaps, turbo improvements and camshafts you will noticeably maximise your driving opportunities.

Tuning tips and articles

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

Handling/Suspension upgrades

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

Good suspension tweaks that usually improve handling for the Roomster 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 24mm - 40 mm. on most models. You risk compromising your handling if you go lower than this.

Turning our attention to the Roomster's engine we need to get a bit more power out of the top end.

Following our tips for tuning your Roomster you will create a practical but scorching car that will out perform bigger cars.

The best power gains come from larger engine sizes. The more you start with the bigger the return on investment so engine swaps are good value mods for small engined cars.

Tuning modifications.

These mods parts are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you get started.

  • 1.2 L I3 HTP (petrol)
  • 1.2 L I4 TSI (petrol)
  • 1.4 L I4 16V (petrol)
  • 1.6 L I4 16V (petrol)
  • 1.2 L I3 TDI CR (diesel)
  • 1.4 L I3 TDI PD (diesel)
  • 1.6 L I4 TDI CR (diesel)
  • 1.9 L I4 TDI PD (diesel)

We have some tuning guides to the entire Audi engine range, some of which may make good engine swap options in your Roomster.

Getting the correct grade of performance upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 (competition) mods just won't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.

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, Alloy wheels, Lighter flywheel, Panel air filter, Suspension upgrade (drop 24mm - 40 mm.), Remap.

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

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

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

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.A fast road cam is generally one of the best NASP power mods you can do from a single upgrade to your engine.

It improves 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. TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a motor sports profile cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

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

Using higher octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your Skoda project after fitting other mods. Increasing 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.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine.  Induction kits only help to add power if your cars air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most standard engines will see NO 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.

Derestricting the air feed 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 sporty but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and usually rob you of power on most cars.

Do not go with the largest exhaust you can get this will slow up the exhaust flow 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.

Getting the head gas flowed will further help more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a pro with a flow bench. In nearly all cases of Roomster tuning your clutch will start to complain and this should be improved - read our tips on clutches for more information. The best mods that we recommend for your Roomster are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaust.

NA (naturally aspirated) engines do not achieve big power gains if you tune/remap them, unless you have done extensive modifications. With turbocharged engines this is another story. A tuned/remapped turbo will give impressive power gains and fully release the potential power of the engine.

We've also come across some owners experimenting with twin charging applications and making some very high power hikes.

The most phenomenal power gains for NA (naturally aspirated) engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. Superchargers are usually easier to add than turbos. With a turbo the boost curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it more challenging to map.

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.

The benefits of alloy wheels include reducing your unsprung weight and more efficient brake cooling. Get a good directional tread pattern tire to improve your handling and help improve traction on your Roomster. Large Roomster alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your final drive ratio.

Because of this try to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the recommended OEM sizes. In all cases we do not recommend going larger 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 Roomster options in more detail with our Roomster owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Skoda 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.

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