Scion xD Tuning

"Thanks for reading this Scion xD tuning tips."

As many of our readers have emailed and posted questions about the xD and tips on how to modify one, so we've created an article to cover the primary areas which make for improvement and tuning success on this engine.The xD is a good project car to carry out. The key to xD tuning is doing it right - a lot of money can be wasted if you do it wrong.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many xD owners uprate the handling of their cars with sports suspension modifications as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

Good suspension tweaks that substantially benefit handling for the xD include a couple of degrees negative camber and 1-1.5 degrees of toe (set out to improve cornering or in for better stability) on the front wheels.

Drop the car optimally somewhere in the region of 24mm - 38 mm. and fit uprated stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Putting bigger discs and better high friction brake pads can make for greatly enhanced braking.

As a word of warning please note that motorsport pads can be noisier and will need a lot of heat before they are effective.

In every day driving the brakes are only used rarely, therefore won't stop you as well so select friction pads which have a low working temperature.

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 xD.

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.

Power mods.

The following modified kits are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you get going.

Getting the right sports parts for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motor sport parts just don't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

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: Remap, Sports exhaust, Lighter flywheel, Suspension upgrade (drop 24mm - 38 mm.), Panel air filter, Alloy wheels.

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

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

Peak power is all well and good but for a daily driven car you need a long torque band and perhaps extending the rev range.

The aim of our guides is to give a brief overview of tuning mods and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your customized car project, the best motorsport upgrades and all aspects of modding cars.One of the best mechanical performance parts you can do to your NA (naturally aspirated) engine is to fit a fast road camshaft .

The intake and exhaust valve durations play a big role in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car difficult to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a performance chip to fully realise your gains.

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

If you find you suffer from flat spots and surges after your modifications you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Improving the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned xD's uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up.  Induction kits are only beneficial to increase performance if the air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most small 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.

Maximum power gains come from a full induction kit with a cold air feed on heavily tuned engines, this can be sited within an air box but a panel filter should suffice for most applications. TorqueCars suggest you use a panel air filter as these are easy to clean and maintain and generally perform better than paper ones.

Sports exhausts balance the flow of air through the engine. But if your exhaust pipe is too large, ie: over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the exhaust flow rate and end up lacking power and torque.

Getting a professionally ported and polished head with larger valves can fully maximise your power gains. When you tune up your xD you will often find that the standard clutch starts to fail so get an uprated clutch. The best mods we would do for your xD are fast road camshaft, remap, induction and exhaust, suspension.

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 phenomenal power gains and fully release the potential power of the engine. The most significant 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 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.

As alloys are lighter they improve performance and they can help to cool the brake disks. Get a good directional tread pattern tire to improve your handling and help improve traction on your xD. Please note that although they can look cool on the xD large alloy wheels 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.

Although some people have installed larger rims without issues we would restrict ourselves to a 16 inch rim size as the maximum.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss xD options in more detail with our xD owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Scion 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 Toyota. 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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