Suzuki SX4 Tuning

"Thanks for reading our Suzuki SX4 tuning tips."

The SX4 is a good car tuning project to play with. We see DIY mechanics wasting money on their SX4 doing the wrong mods and then having to start over. Follow our pointers to avoid making the common mistakes

We examine SX4 tuning and summarise the best modifications. Suzuki SX4s are good project cars and with the ultimate uprated tuning mods you can definitely maximize your driving pleasure.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are often a priority for the SX4.

Fully adjustable suspension allows you to fine tune the handling of you SX4 substantially improving your drive.

Drop the car optimally somewhere in the region of 28mm - 35 mm and fit performance stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Turning our attention to the engine we need to get a bit more torque out of the top end.

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.

Engine Tuning.

This list of the stages and motorsport parts are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you begin.

Getting the best uprated upgrades for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 (competition) mods just don'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: Alloy wheels, Sports exhaust, Lighter flywheel, Panel air filter, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Remap.

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

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

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

The whole point of our guides is to give a limited introduction of car tuning upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is best place to go if you need more detailed advice and tips on your modified car project, the best tuning modifications and all aspects of modding cars.A fast road cam is one of the best NASP power modifications you can do with a single part fitted to your engine.

It maximises the intake and exhaust durations and pushes up the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a remap. We'd also caution you not to go with a motor sport cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

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

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

If have increased your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Please note that WE DO NOT RECOMMEND INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car massively and are finding that the standard air intake has become the bottleneck.

Derestricting the air feed into the engine is the primary part of car tuners so get a freer flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound fun but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and often rob you of power on most cars.

Sports exhausts increase the flow of air through the engine. But if the exhaust is too large, ie: over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose much of the exhaust flow rate and end up sapping power and torque.

Head work including a gas flow and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. Your clutch can lose you loads of power as you increase the power if it starts to complain and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of up to 45%. Fit a competition clutch to avoid power losses through the transmission. The best mods we recommend for your SX4 are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaust.

Turbo engines are just crying out to be Remapped. You will see significant power gains on most modern turbocharged cars including diesels making a tune/remap one of the most cost effective and significant modifications for your money.

We've also seen some tuners playing with twincharged conversions and making some very high power figures.

Adding forced induction will see phenomenal power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. It is generally cheaper to bolt on a supercharger than it is to fit a working turbo. It is harder to map a turbo as the boost comes on exponentially with rpm.

The nice steady boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them more straight forward to map. Alternatively you could add water injection to cut down knock.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels can help the brake cooling and are usually lighter than steel ones. If you are serious about performance then you will need to carefully choose your tires - ideally with a directional tread pattern tire. The downside to large alloys on your SX4 is that you're altering your effective final drive ratio and this will have a negative effect on performance.

Although some people have installed larger rims without issues we would restrict ourselves to a 16 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 SX4 options in more detail with our SX4 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Suzuki tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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