Top Ten Tuning Tips

Given that feeding & clothing the kids takes priority ( she says),what would be the most effective mod for everyday usage/occasionally blart from a standard setup.Exchange rate, BHP to Tesco vouchers.

Gotta be a chip! Increases power by between 30 and 40bhp for £250 and is simple to fit.....did it not long ago (Thanks David G!!!!)....very noticable and if youre looking to save pennies you can turn the boost down again to increase your MPG. Ponud for pound nothing comes close. For a freebie, leave the spare wheel at home....it weighs as much as a child!!!! (can of foam anyone???? )

[Alpineandy]

The cheapest is to make sure it's working as it should be.
On a turbo Make sure the intercooler is intercooling.
Cool Air into the engine is v beneficial.
Next must be chipping (rather than fishing around for a couple of bhp here and a couple there).

how much more tourqe does chipping give you as this is what gives quicker acceleration. more bhp= more mph.

When I bought mine, David indicated it would cut the 0-60 by a second, and having used the car, it is noticably quicker accelerating. The chip allows you to run higher boost. Standard setting is 9psi, the chip allows virtually unlimited psi (well to the max anyway) and can be turned up or down by a valve in the egine bay which comes with the chip. I was advised about 15 or 16psi was good and safe, but I believe some have run 18 or more.

With the chip, beyond 16psi you have to look at changing the fuel regulator for an adjustable item to increase the top end fueling, a larger turbo would be advisable for lower temps on boost, and a good exhaust and air filter system......speaking of which, Ive just today finished a mirror polished mandrel bent intake system (3" diameter!) with alloy cone filter, and it routes down and suck air from low down in the rear wing area. Have pictures on line tommorow.

You can't 'chip' GTA's the eprom is not remappable. The ecu mod that is done simply takes out the factory boost limit in the ecu. All the extra power you get is made by increasing the boost pressure. And I'm sure they run considerably more than 9 psi standard - 11 if my memory serves me correctly. An extra 3 psi will add about 25bhp. The fueling gives up about that stage anyway and the tiny standard turbo is about done too. So boost increase exhaust and induction will give about 230 bhp . Uprate the fueling, turbo and intercooler and you should make 260 -270 bhp at 16-17psi ish. Beyond this lots of money - consider charge cooling, water injection, capacity increase, NO2 injection.

Tony...I think chip is used as a generic term rather than specific....all the firms that make them call them chips wether it is right or wrong. I am interested to hear about improvements to the intercooler and improvements in fuelling....what have you done to yours??

Trust me, the standard fueling will fuel up to 300bhp. Ive seen test plots on an Alpine GTA with a larger turbo and cams do 265bhp and 330lb ft on standard management, standard injectors and 14psi, fueling and air all in correct amounts. They also did the same car, with a remapped ecu, but same boost and if you think about it, same amount of fuel again..it has to. It gained no more torque (but peak torque moved up to 4000rpm) and peak power was 297bhp at 4900revs, lower revs than standard. If the fuel and air were the same, then all they would have played around with was the ignition, which would explain the shift in torque position.The problem with the standard Renault ecu, is Renault hardly mapped any ignition advance at top end to save it destroying itself. Ive never seen an Alpine engine dead through detonation. Fuel and air mean quite a lot, but get the ignition wrong and you can lose so much power.

O.K. so I could do with some ignition advance??!! I take it it cant be done with the standard ECU, am I also not right in thinking it will cause an increase in heat if I manage it?

It has been tested that filing out the TDC sensor mounting holes (an old trick) and moving the position can advance the timing...yes it will increase heat, but you will get more power, likewise you could run less boost, and get the same power as you are getting now. I would advise getting a rolling road to do this for you to make sure everything is safe. Im going to be doing this this month with my GTA as see what results I get.

Peter, before I took my car off the road it was running with stage 1 Hybrid turbo (not sure of spec but it was too small!), K&N Filter in the standard air box, Devil exhaust - the good one (there were 2 types), custom built chargecooler based round the standard intercooler, HKS EVC4 boost controller and an uprated fuel pressure regulator. This set up produce 260-270 bhp and 15psi. I can't believe a car will make 300 bhp with no fueling mods. Might run close to that figure with a big increase in fuel pressure but thats not really a good solution. The injectors on a GTA really are very small indeed. I can't think of any 200bhp car that runs with an overall smaller fuel flow capability than a GTA. Manufacturers recommend that injectors shouldn't be run too close to there 'maximum duty cycle' as they can become unreliable - making a cylinder run very lean. If you have lots of money I'm sure huge power gains could be made with aftermarket management. I'll be having a piggyback management system fitted on mine in a couple of months time when my 3 litre goes in so it will be interesting to see what can be achieved on a budget

Its all in the ignition. Take the 25 turbo, 180bhp, same injectors, turbo, boost pressure, but when they put the engine in the GTA they upped it to 200bhp. They only changed the ignition settings, and thats still within a 'factory' safe setting.On the late 25 turbo, they got 205bhp with a CAT, take the CAT off and your looking about 225bhp, again same boost and injectors. Tony's car was very good at getting 270bhp with not much work, but theres no reason that with aggressive advance, another 25bhp is achievable, and thats with no more boost, and therefore no need for more fuel. If you look closely on the Europa Cup cars engines, they are still running brown injectors, they were touching 300bhp and even if you double the fuel pressure through an injector you will only see about 10% increase in flow.

I have a normally aspirated GTA and wondered how I can achieve more power. Apart from the usual modifications, air filter etc has anyone ever fitted a larger carb? My daily car is a tweaked 9000 aero so find the GTA not quite as eager albeit a little bouncy on the corners...

I did find a noticeable increase in power the other day when I filled the car up with leaded fuel! A friend told me about a place in Kensington that still sells the stuff - pricey but good to know it's harming the environment.

I always think the best way to tune a car is to have clear goals at the start. Decide what you want the car to do and how much you have to spend. Big increases are expensive on naturally aspirated cars. Exhaust and manifold along with decent induction and rejetted carb would be the cheapest and simplest route. Matching manifolds to the head is worth a few more bhp. Then it starts to get expensive. Higher lift, longer duration cams, modded heads, triple webers, forced induction, NO2 injection - how fast do you want to go - or put another way how poor do you want to be! Remember some of these mods will be to the detriment of everyday commuter type driving too and increase fuel consumption.