Ssangyong Musso Tuning

"Thank you for reading my Musso tuning tips"

We review and look at Musso tuning and outline the premier upgrades. Ssangyong Mussos make awesome project cars and with the ultimate performance tuning mods you can really improve your driving opportunities.

The Musso is a good project car to try. If you do your homework then you can create an awesome Musso but don't be fooled there are lots of motorsport upgrades out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Improving the handling for DIY mechanics first priority in your Musso tuning project.

Putting slight negative camber at the front and around 1 to 1.7 degrees of toe in to improve stability or toe out for better cornering, will substantially benefit your Musso in handling and cornering.

Drop the car optimally somewhere in the region of 26mm - 36 mm and fit sports stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Don't just look at the peak power figures, you need to see the whole torque curve when determining if a mod is right for you Musso.

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.

Engine choices, were 2 petrol units and 2 diesels. All engines seem to be hiding power, just waiting to be unlocked with the right mods.

• 2.3 L i4 (petrol)
• 3.2 L I6 (petrol)
• 2.3 L i4 (diesel)
• 2.9 L I5 (diesel)

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

Getting the best tuning upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is essential. 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: Alloy wheels, Panel air filter, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Lighter flywheel, Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm).

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

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

You need to keep as much low end power as possible and aim to achieve a wide power band rather than a narrow top end power spike.

In this article we shall give a little insight into the world to the best upgrades for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance part.A fast road camshaft will be one of the best NASP power modifications 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 performance chip. We'd also caution you not to go with a competition cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

When pushing up the power you will need to ramp up to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

Using higher octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from detonation or premature ignition on your Ssangyong project after fitting other tuning mods. 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 Mussos uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust.  Air induction kits are only beneficial to add performance if the cars air intake is struggling!

Adding an induction kit to most standard engines will see NO 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 Musso 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 needing cold air.

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

Getting a professionally polished and ported head with larger valves can fully release the engines power. A good triple plate fast road power clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never make false economies or think that a standard clutch to cope. The best mods we recommend for your Musso are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaustRemaps offer phenomenal power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NA (naturally aspirated) engines the benefits are doubtful. However a chipped ECU on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods.

We've also come across some owners experimenting with twincharged applications and making some seriously high power gains.

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

Superchargers, however will give a boost which is directly proportional to engine speed so is easier to map. Alternatively you could perhaps add water injection to reduce the risk of knock.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels can help the brakes cool down and are generally less heavy than the steel ones. If you are serious about performance then you will need to carefully choose your tires - ideally with a directional tread pattern tire. Large Musso alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your 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 with bigger 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 Musso options in more detail with our Musso owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Ssangyong 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 SsangYong. 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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