MENUTuning the Vauxhall Insignia
"What are the best Insignia performance parts?"
We look at Insignia tuning and report on the optimum modifications for this popular large family car. The Insignia came with a wide choice of engine options and there are a few notable performance variants already in the line up based on the 2.0 Turbo and and 2.8 V6 engines.
Insignias make a good tuning project and with the right performance tuning mods you can substantially increase your driving pleasure. Even if you have one of the lower powered Insignias you can make a dramatic difference with some sensible performance mods.
You can do a lot to improve the performance of your Insignia with our step by step tuning tips. The key to Insignia tuning is getting the right mods you can waste loads of money if you do it wrong.
Handling modifications are usually your first port of call for the Insignia. Drop the car optimally somewhere in the region of 35mm and fit stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.
Turning our attention to the Insignias engine we need to get a bit more power out of 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.
This list of the stages and mods that are usually performed by our members, decide how far you want to go before you get going.
Getting the correct grade of mods for your planned usage of the car is vital. 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
- Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings, aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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,Panel air filter,alloy wheels,lighter flywheel,suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm),sports exhaust.
Typical stage 2 mods often include:Ported and polished head,power clutch,Fast road cam,fuel injector & fuel pump upgrades,.
Typical stage 3 mods often include:sports gearbox,Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves),adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), competition cam,Engine balancing.
Engine tuning mods.
Peak power is good on competition cars but for a daily driven car you need a wide torque band and perhaps extending the rev range. In this article we shall give your a good starting base to the best upgrades for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance upgrade.It improves 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 motorsport cam as this upsets the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.When pushing up the power you will need to pay attention to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel. If you find you get flat spots and power surges after your mods you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. 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.
Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Contrary to popular belief there is usually very little power gain to be had by fitting an induction kit, they only work well and are recommended after you increase the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!
For most Insignia 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 needing cold air.
Do not go with the largest exhaust you can get this will reduce the exhaust flow rate - the best for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.
Getting the flowed (ported and polished) will further help more air into each cylinder.
When you heavily modify your Insignia you will reach a point that the standard clutch starts to fail so get an uprated clutch. 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.
Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains.
Turbos are often harder to add than a supercharger. With a turbo the boost curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it hard to map. The nice steady boost to rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them easier to map. Alternatively you could add water injection to control knock.
Alloy wheel upgrades.
The benefits of alloy wheels include a lower unsprung weight and more efficient brake cooling. Large Insignia alloy wheels can decrease performance.
If you get big alloy wheels you will be changing your 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 gone larger than this 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 car forums where you can discuss Insignia options in more detail with our Insignia 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.
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One Response to “Insignia Tuning”
Hi, You recommend a lighter flywheel, but Ive read some sites that say lighter flywheel can lead to idling issues. Do the bebefits outway the potential problems?