Vauxhall Antara Tuning

Tuning the Vauxhall Antara and best Antara performance parts.

We examine at Antara tuning and report on the optimum modifications. The Antara is a great family car with good traction and off road capabilities with the right upgrades.

Vauxhall Antaras make good tuning projects and with carefully chosen performance upgrades you can substantially increase your driving enjoyment. The standard models are capable of so much more. 

antaraWe highly rate the 2.0 diesel engines which require only a tune/remap and minor performance parts to release around 30% more power. The later 2.2 diesel is also highly rated, but we couldn't see the merits of offering a similarly powered petrol engine with worse economy and note that Vauxhall have now dropped the petrol engine option.

A popular car for tuning up is the Antara and our members have some interesting projects on the go. With the right mods your Antara can be transformed into a fun car. Don't waste money, do your homework and follow our unbiased guides to each performance upgrade so you don't waste your money.

 

Tuning tips and articles

Engine tuning Transmission tuning Care care Intake & exhaust mods Improve handling Forums

Many Antara owners uprate the handling of their cars as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car. We suggest that you fit uprated suspension and lower the car by 30-35mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with sports suspension, but you have to bear in mind these cars are designed for a large suspension travel. Only drop and stiffen if you plant to use them on roads, off road and rough road use will be seriously compromised otherwise.

Our aim in Antara engine tuning should be to increase peak power and Torque at the top end.

Keep your car looking standard but take off the badges to make an awesome sleeper! They also look great with smoked lights but you'll need to check if this is legal in your area.

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.

Engine tuning mods.

The following modifications are usually performed by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you begin.

Getting the correct grade of mods for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 motorsport mods just don'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.
  6. Typical stage 1 mods often include:
    Lighter flywheel,Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm),Remap,Sports exhaust,Panel air filter,Alloy wheels.

    Typical stage 2 mods often include:
    Fast road cam,Fuel injector & fuel pump upgrades,Power clutch,Ported and polished head,.

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

    Your targets when modding your car should be a nice flat torque curve. You want to avoid sending all the torque to be at the top end unless you are creating a competition car. The aim of this article is to give a limited introduction 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 project and all aspects of modding cars.One of the most cost effective mechanical mods you can do to your NA (naturally aspirated) engine is to fit a fast road cam.

    Remaps are done with the ECU out on recent models due to the tri core locked ECU. From the factory you'll note that real world fuel economy is not great, a tune/remap will improve this and give you a much wider and taller torque band to play with.

    A turbo upgrade will also help you push power figures even higher, for simplicity a hybrid turbo will slot right in. Larger turbos can also be fitted but these will require more work to get them working properly and you'd really need a rolling road session to optimize it and extract the full performance.

    It maximizes the intake and exhaust flow and pushes up the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a performance chip. We'd also caution you not to go with a motor sports profile cam as this upsets 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 uprate the fuelling. Using higher octane fuel is another option if you find you are suffering from detonation or premature ignition on your Vauxhall project after fitting other mods. Uprating the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel. 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. Air induction kits are only beneficial to add performance if the cars air intake is struggling! The Antara intake does not struggle and can easily cope with 40% more power before you even need to think about uprating the filter system. Adding an induction kit to most standard engines 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.

    The 2.2 diesel 165bhp can see a power hike to around 205bhp with a remap, making it very lively indeed. All other turbo models respond well to remaps. Avoid the cheap plug in tuning boxes but the piggy back tuning devices can work well, the key is to do your research carefully.

    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 Antara engines you should just fit a high performance panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

    Sports exhausts equal out the flow of gases through the engine. But if your exhaust is too big, ie: it's over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the flow rate and end up sapping power and torque.

    Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional gas flowing. These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods.

    A good heavy duty fast road performance clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never cut corners or expect your standard clutch to cope. Remaps offer impressive 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. Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains. Superchargers are often easier to add than turbos. Turbos provide boost in exponential proportion to increasing engine speed and this can make mapping difficult. Superchargers however will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is easier to map. Adding forced induction will generally require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

    Alloy wheel upgrades.

    The benefits of alloys include a lower unsprung weight and more efficient brake cooling. Large Antara alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your final drive ratio. Due to this try to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the OEM setup. In all cases not going larger than 16 inches.

    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 Antara options in more detail
    with our Antara owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Vauxhall tuning
    articles
    to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks
    of each modification.

    Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below. We love hearing about our website visitors projects, especially the mods done and which work best for you on your car. Which helps us keep our guides and tips up to date helping others with their modified car projects. Your feedback and comments are used to keep this page up to date, and help improve the accuracy of these articles which are kept updated and constantly revised.

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