VW Arteon Tuning
"Thank you for reading my VW Arteon tuning tips."
The Passat coupe was badged CC and was very stylish, so much better than the car it was based on.
When the CC was retired the VW group created the Arteon model, and put together a fine package indeed. Great engines, a well designed chassis and a great looking car.
The Arteon is a good car modification project to carry out. We see DIY mechanics wasting money on their Arteon doing the wrong mods and then having to start over. Follow our advice to avoid wasting your money
Please watch our video introduction to VW Tuning.
Handling/Suspension upgrades
Many Arteon owners uprate the handling of their cars with coilover suspension upgrades as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.
Good suspension tweaks that radically benefit handling for the Arteon include a couple of degrees negative camber and 1-1.5 degrees of toe in or out on the front wheels. Toe in for stability, or Toe out to improve cornering. It would also pay to improve the brakes, by adding larger discs and or higher friction pads..
We would go to a maximum drop of 23mm - 36 mm on most models. You risk rubbing on the arches if you go lower than this.
Turning our attention to the Arteon's 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.
Engine tuning mods.
Typically these uprated modifications are usually installed by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you start.
Getting the correct grade of uprated upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is vital. 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
- 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, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Sports exhaust, Alloy wheels, Lighter flywheel, Panel air filter.
Typical stage 2 mods often include: Power/Sport clutch, Ported and polished head, fuel pump upgrades, Fast road cam, high flow fuel injector.
Typical stage 3 mods often include: Sports gearbox, Engine balancing, Competition cam, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves).
Peak power is all well and good but for a drivable and fun car you need a long power band and perhaps extending the rev range.
Engine swaps are quite popular mods for this model, here are engine guides to all the VAG engines we've covered.
- 1.4 1.5 TFSi tuning
- 1.8 2.0 TFSi (ea888) Tuning
- 2.0 TFSi carbon issue & care guide
- 2.5tfsi tuning
- 3.0 V6 24v TFSI Tuning
- 2.8 V6 30 valve, 24 valve 3.0 V6 30v and 3.2 VR6 Tuning
- 3.6 VR6 Tuning
- 2.0 TDI 140-170 tuning
- 2.0 TDI tuning (EA188)
- 2.5 TDI tuning
- 2.7 & 3.0 TDI tuning
The aim of our articles is to give a little insight into the world of customizing mods and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your car tuning project, the best modified parts and all aspects of modding cars.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest performance gains for your money as far as a stand alone motorsport modifications goes on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine.
The intake & exhaust durations play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car hard to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a tune/remap to fully realise your gains.
When pushing up the power you will need to uprate to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.
If you find you suffer from flat spots and surges after your performance mods you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. To get sufficient fuel you may need to improve 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.
The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Please note that WE DO NOT SEE IMPROVEMENTS WITH INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car a lot and are finding that the standard air intake has become limited.
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 Arteon engines you should just fit a sports panel air filter preferably made from cotton.
Sports exhausts equal out the flow of gases through the engine. But if the exhaust pipe is too large, ie: it's over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose much of your flow rate and end up losing power and torque.
Getting the cylinder head polished and ported will assist in flowing more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a pro with a flow bench. In nearly all cases of Arteon tuning your clutch will start to slip and this needs to be uprated - read our overview on clutches for more information. The best mods we recommend for your Arteon 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. Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains. It is generally cheaper to bolt on a supercharger than it is to install a turbo. It is difficult to map fuelling with a turbo as the boost comes on exponentially with engine speed.
The nice proportional boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them simpler to map. Adding forced induction will nearly always require a lower compression ratio or water injection.
Alloy wheel upgrades.
Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are generally lighter than steel ones. Get a good directional tread pattern tire to improve your handling and help improve traction on your Arteon. The downside to large rims on your Arteon is that you're altering your effective final drive ratio and this will have a detrimental effect on acceleration and performance.
Although some people have fitted larger wheels we would stick to a 19inch 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 Arteon options in more detail with our Arteon owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased VW 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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