MENUSubaru Levorg Tuning
The best performance mods and upgrades
The much desired Levorg, (incidentally the name was derived from Legacy, revolution and touring) is a credible car which offers great reward to the tuner.
We take a peek at Levorg tuning and report on the best modifications. Subaru Levorgs are not that popular but still have plenty of tuning parts and options out there if you know where to look, which can really enhance your driving enjoyment.
Don't view the Levorg as a cut down budget WRX STi or Legacy, it sits cleanly in it own niche offering a good blend of performance and economy. Remaps along make quite a difference but factor in some serious investment and you'll get a practial daily driver and track day rocket rolled into one.
You can do a lot to improve the performance of your Levorg with our step by step tuning tips. Think carefully and research Levorg tuning to spare yourself making the usual common mistakes we regularly come across.
Many Levorg owners uprate the handling of their cars with modified suspension mods as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car. We suggest that you fit performance suspension and lower the car by 30-35mm. Larger drops require arch work and require setting up properly.
Our aim in Levorg engine tuning should be to increase peak power and Torque at the top end.
The 1.6 litre turbo engine offers around 170bhp in standard form, and is able to handle more power than this without breaking a sweat.
Tuning modifications.
Typically these uprated kits are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you get started.
Getting the right uprated upgrade kits 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
- Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings, aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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:
Panel air filter,Lighter flywheel,Alloy wheels,Sports exhaust,Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm),Remap.
Typical stage 2 mods often include:
Ported and polished head,Fast road cam,Fuel injector & fuel pump upgrades,Power clutch,.
Typical stage 3 mods often include:
Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves),Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger),Engine balancing,Sports gearbox,Competition cam.
You need to keep as much low end power as possible and aim to achieve a long power band rather than a narrow top end power hike.
The whole aim of our tips is to give a starting base of car tuning modifications and point you in the right direction, our forum is the place to go for detailed advice and tips on your modified car project, the best modified upgrades and all aspects of modding cars.One of the best mechanical tuning modifications you can do to your NA (naturally aspirated) engine is to fit a fast road camshaft .
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 performance chip. TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a motor sports profile cam as this affects 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 increase the fuelling.
Using high octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your Subaru project after fitting other motorsport modifications. To get sufficient fuel you may need to uprate the injectors on your engine. Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned Levorgs 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 an untuned Levorg engine and you 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. Derestricting the air flow into the engine is a primary goal of tuning so get a better flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound sporty but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not do much to increase power and actually rob you of power.
Sports exhausts can usually air flow from the engine but do not go too big or you might just stuff your flow rate and make things worse. So generally speaking, keep to a size of 1.5 to around 2.5 inches to maximise flow rates, and this should take into account the amount of air your engine is moving.
Getting the head gas flowed will help get more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a pro with a flow bench. When you heavily modify your Levorg you will usally see that the standard clutch starts to suffer so get an uprated clutch. Turbo engines are just asking to be Reprogrammed. You will see impressive power gains on most modern turbochaged cars including diesels making a tune/remap one of the most cost effective and impressive modifications for your money.
We've also seen some tuners experimenting with twincharged conversions and making some impressively high power hikes.
Adding forced induction will see significant power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Turbos are generally harder to add than a supercharger. Turbos give boost in exponential proportion to rising engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.
The nice proportional boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them more straightforward to map. Adding forced induction will nearly always require a lower compression ratio or water injection.
Alloy wheel upgrades.
As alloys are lighter they improve performance and they will help to cool the brake disks. The downside to large alloy wheels on your Levorg is that you alter your final drive ratio and this will have a detrimental effect on acceleration and performance.
Due to this we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 18 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 car forums where you can discuss Levorg options in more detail with our Levorg owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Subaru tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.
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