Subaru XV Tuning

"Tuning guide to the most effective Subaru XV modifications."

The XV is a very capable off road car, and manages to keep on the sporty side of SUV!

Subaru, pioneers of the 4 wheel drive, needed a credible small sports utility vehicle and came up with the XV, a great car with lots of potential for the tuner.

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

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are often a priority for the XV.

Putting a little negative camber on the wheels and a degree or two of toe in to improve stability or toe out for better cornering, will greatly enhance your XV in handling and cornering.

We suggest that you fit modified suspension and lower the car by 21mm - 39 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with uprated suspension.

Our aim in engine tuning should be to increase peak power and torque 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.

Tuning modifications.

These are the uprated upgrades are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you begin.

Getting the right sports upgrades 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: Sports exhaust, Panel air filter, Alloy wheels, Lighter flywheel, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Remap.

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

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

Peak power is nice in motorsport but for a drivable and fun car you need a long torque band and perhaps extending the rev range.

The point of our pointers is to give a starting base of tuning modifications and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your modified car project, the best modified modifications and all aspects of modding cars.One of the biggest mechanical tuning upgrades you can do to your NA (naturally aspirated) engine is to fit a fast road camshaft .

The exhaust and intake durations play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car impossible to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a reflashed ECU for the best performance gains.

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to pay attention to the fuelling.

Most power losses, flat spots and erratic idling after performance modifications are done can usually be traced to fuelling or timing issues.To get sufficient fuel you may need to uprate the injectors on your engine.

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 if any power gain reached by fitting an induction kit, they only help and are recommended after you boost the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

For most XV 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 supplying cold air.

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 2.5 inches for best results.

Getting a professionally polished and ported head with larger valves can fully release the engines power. Your clutch can seriously let you down as the power goes up if it starts to break and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of up to 45%. Fit an uprated clutch to avoid power loss through the transmission. The best mods we recommend for your XV are a tune/remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.

Turbo engines are just asking to be remapped. You will see phenomenal power gains on most modern turbo charged cars including diesels making a tune/remap one of the most cost effective and phenomenal modifications for your money.Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains. It is often easier to bolt on a supercharger than it is to install a turbo. It is difficult to map fuelling with a turbo as the boost comes on exponentially with engine speed.

The nice steady boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them more straightforward to map. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the engines compression ratio .

Alloy wheel upgrades.

The benefits of alloy wheels include reducing your unsprung weight and more efficient brake cooling via the extra air flow they allow.

Don't forget that your choice of rubber greatly affects your cars grip and handling. It is not worth compromising performance with cheap tyres when you can buy directional tread pattern performance tires.It is worth noting that although they can look cool on the XV big alloys 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.

For this reason 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 friendly forum where you can discuss XV options in more detail with our XV 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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