TVR Tuscan Tuning

"Tuning guide to the greatest TVR Tuscan modifications."

Tuscan production ran from 1999 to 2006, and the car was very boldly styled and one of my personal favorites from the TVR factory.

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

Lets look at the engines TVR offered on the Tuscan, all were NASP units and put out plenty of power.

• 3.6L Mk1: 350 bhp (261 kW; 355 PS), 290 lbft (393 Nm)
• 4.0L Mk1: 360 bhp (268 kW), 310 lbft (420 Nm)
• 4.0L Mk1 Red Rose: 380 bhp (283 kW; 385 PS), 310 lbft (420 Nm)
• 4.0L Mk1 S (pre-2003): 390 bhp (291 kW; 395 PS) at 7,000 rpm 310 lbft (420 Nm) at 5,250 rpm
• 4.0L Mk1 S (2003 onwards): 400 bhp (298 kW; 406 PS), 315 lbft (427 Nm)

Mk 2 Tuscan range had new engine options with more power.

• 4.0L Mk2 (2005 onwards): 380 bhp (283 kW), 310 lbft (420 Nm)
• 4.0L Mk2 S (2005 onwards): 400 bhp (298 kW; 406 PS), 315 lbft (427 Nm)
• 4.0L Mk2 Convertible (2005 onwards): 360 bhp (268 kW), 310 lbft (420 Nm)
• 4.0L Mk2 Convertible Red Rose (005 onwards): 380 bhp (283 kW), 310 lbft (420 Nm)
• 4.2L Mk2 T440R (2003): 440 bhp (328 kW) at 7,600 rpm, 350 lbft (475 Nm) at 6,000 rpm.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

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

Setting a tiny bit of negative camber at the front and a degree or two of toe in to improve stability or toe out for better cornering, will radically improve your Tuscan in handling and cornering.

We would go to a maximum drop of 20mm - 25 mm on most models. You risk handling compromises if you go lower than this.

With each revision and model in the Tuscan range we see many tweaks and innovations to the suspension.

Top end power should be your overall aim on the Tuscan with a nice fat peak torque band.

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.

These are the performance modifications are usually installed by our members, decide how far you want to go before you get started.

Getting the correct grade of modified mods for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motor sport mods just don't work well on the road hard to control in slow 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, Suspension upgrade (drop 20mm - 25mm), Sports exhaust, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Lighter flywheel.

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

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

Your aims when modding the engine should be a nice flat torque range. You don't want all the torque to be at the top end of the rev range unless you are creating a motor sport car.

The whole aim of our articles is to give a limited introduction of modifying upgrades 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 motorsport modifications and all aspects of modding cars.A fast road cam is generally one of the best NASP power modifications you can do from a single upgrade to your engine.

The intake & exhaust flow play a large part 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 camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a tune/remap for the best performance gains.

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

Using high octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from detonation or premature ignition on your TVR project after fitting other sports parts. To get sufficient fuel you may need to upgrade the injectors on your engine.

If you've uprated 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. Air induction kits only help to boost power if your air intake is restricted! Adding an induction kit to most low power engines will see ZERO 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.

Induction kits can work well on turbo engines and larger engines (if supplied with a suitable cold air feed or air box), generally though we'd just recommend for Tuscan engines you should go with a performance panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

Do not go with the widest exhaust you can find this will slow up the exhaust flow rate - the best for power gains are usually between 2 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

Head work including a gas flow and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. When you heavily modify your Tuscan you will discover that the standard clutch starts to suffer so get an uprated clutch. The best mods we would do for your Tuscan are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements

Remaps offer massive 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. Adding forced induction will see large power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. It is generally easier to add a supercharger than it is to install a turbo.

With a turbo the boost curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it difficult to map fuelling with. Having said that do you really need to add this much more power to your TVR? Traction is a problem with stock engines, we would prefer to add a little more top end power and raise low down torque to improve drivability.

It is easier to map a supercharger because the boost is proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. Alternatively you could perhaps fit water injection to cut down knock.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Because alloys are lighter they improve performance and they will help to cool the brake disks. 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 Tuscan 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.

Although some people have fitted larger wheels without problems 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 Tuscan options in more detail with our Tuscan owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased TVR tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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This article was written by me, Waynne Smith TorqueCars founder, and I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under TVR. 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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