best value performance upgrades?

[Guest]

Not from your nose!From the noise!

[Guest]

you would notice a huge improvement in acceleration and handling if you removed all the crap.....sorry but i reckon you could easily remove 100kg from the saxo. time you remove the carpet, back seats, spare wheel, roof carpet, door cards, electric mirrors, electric windows......your right about the glass to - he should remove them and get some perspex windows! much lighter!

[Exodus]

The person is driving a daily driver, not a pro-ralley stock car people. Removing all the interior of the car is just going to get the person laughed at and he'll get a headache from all the noise. That kind of weight reduction won't do anything when to comes to acceleration. He'll get the same gaines by removing the spare tire, lol. Work on the minor performance such as the intake and chipping.

[Guest]

its a 120 bhp saxo....boy racers love these cars.

i assume it weights the same or is very similar to the 106 gti (which this car was based on and shared many of the components with it) the gti weights 925kg while the stripped rally weights 810kg......thats a whopping 115kg they have saved by avoiding heavy electric bits everywhere. if you were to rip out everything else that would save even more.......come on!! they guy wants his car to go fast. Ripping out this S*** is going to save him carrying around over 140kg! thats 2 extra people!

[Exodus]

If he wants speed, he should put in performance. Go all out, get new cams, exhaust, and a turbo. Wham, thats like a 90-120hp gain depending on what kind of boost you are putting out. That way, you can keep the interior of your car, yet get the power you really want without making the car look stupid.

[Guest]

I believe the 106 gti is a faster car than the saxo vts but this will be comparable. The gti will do 0-60 in 7.2s the vts won't be far behind because it does have a different box.

by doing simple maths.....by reducing the weight of the gti to 800kg (very easy to do as the rallye weights 810 kg and that has carpet!) you reduce the 0-60 time by a whole second! I know this is crude maths and the assumptions i made arn't completely accurate but its good enough to show the effects of excess weight.

Thats a car that all do 0-60 in 6.2 for free!!!!!!!!!!! (yep - the seconds is a bit much - but say you dropped 1/2 second - 6.7 seconds!?) 6.7s - thats as fast as the mk 5 golf gti and faster than the civic type r!

come back saxo owner - tell us what you think? if your on a budget sod chipping and £400 exhausts! rip out the shite and make your car fly!

[Guest]

that sounds good - i like what both of you have to say. I never thought about removing the rear seats - it would look wicked like a rally car! i saw a nice momo steering wheel in halfords - that would look mint with that!

will also change the exhaust and buy an induction kit - thanks exodus + guest for your advice!

[anitaleeds]

Just wondering, but why take a perfectly good car and make it look like a dog's dinner? I got a good price for my Corsa when I sold it because it was the same as it was the day it rolled out of the factory. The girl who bought it said she had a nightmare trying to find something that didn't have loads of tacky rubbish bolted onto it, like stupid lights, chrome stuff and tinted windows etc.

Surely if you want a faster car you'd be better off just buying one instead of mutilating a perfectly good runaround and trying to explain it to your insurance company? Can't stand the word, but isn't it a bit chav?

[Yamaharley_UK]

I agree entirely with Anitaleeds. Also be aware that if you carry out any performance-enhancing mods, you MUST tell your insurance company or they'll void your insurance if you (or a third party) tries to make a claim. If you want a faster car, get a faster car.

[Guest]

what are the best value performance modifications for a car?

Nitrous, but it'll eat your car from the inside out.

Work on the intake first. K&N filter, turbo if you can afford it, intake manifold etc. That car seems to have an issue with the intake cracking with too much horsepower, so be careful. A modest chip improvement can be a help.

Then fork out the money for the exhaust system. You'll have to seriously increase your horsepower before tackling the exhaust. A bigger exhaust system than you need is the fastest way to slow down your car.

At this point you've probably driven the crankshaft out of the car in a big fireball. Put in bracing for the new forged crank and performance pistons. Add in a few dollars for oversized valves and a new cam. Smoothing intake flow and polishing the chambers helps a very little bit, but sometimes just makes it slower. If your mechanic tells you to try that first, find another mechanic.

Tuning the car comes almost last. High powered ignition and a better chip that makes the most of the cars new potential.

Last but not least. You notice that crease down the side of your car? That's the car twisting and buckling the sheet metal. It's time to think about how to keep the tyres on the pavement. Brace the engine against torque, put in a big sway bar, cross brace under the hood and put on nice new fat tyres.

Following this will let you make the most of the car while not breaking something you wouldn't have replaced eventually anyway. It''ll also give you the best chance of making a few quid.

[Exodus]

Uhhhh, hey buddy, this isn't Need for Speed Underground, lol. The upgrades you are talking about would cost over 10,000 in the long run . . .

Great instructions on how to build a track car though . . .

[Guest]

Nah, just common sense. The more air you get in (a K&N filter is about 50 quid) the faster you go. A mild increase in the chip helps, but a radical chip increase without a new cam makes the car undrivable. Then you work on the next piece. I don't know how many cars I've seen with huge exhaust systems that would be a second faster without it. Only when you have a turbo does a huge exhaust help and even then you still need to tune the exhaust to your specific car.

Taking weight out of the car is great by the way, but it looks like a hack job unless you have superb metal working skills.

[Guest]

does the thought of having a decat pipe get your panties wet?

[Moto Head]

. wrote:
what are the best value performance modifications for a car?

This will depend very much on what the stock vehicle has to offer. For example, I once had a 167kw 6-cylinder car. The manufacturer had put a 1.76" exhaust on it with a restrictive mid section muffler despite being a "sports" sedan. For as little as 200 English pounds, I had a 2.5" system fitted with a simple easy flowing resonator and muffler. Picked up an extra 15kw at the rear wheels On the other hand, the manufacturer had fitted as stock quite a generously proportioned air filter with well positioned and large cold air in take that worked quite well. Changes I made here were a poor investment only delivery 2-3kw improvement. A change in the carburetion program, on the other head, delivered a big improvement - simply, the manufacturer had programmed the car to run efficiently on the lowest octane fuel and actually constrained performance in order to reduce engine component stress. I picked up an easy 20kw with a mild re-program. Other cars I've owned, like the 4ltr Turbo one I have now, have needed a different approach – the stock exhaust flows very well as does the in-take, the most immediate gain is attained through the chip and the injectors – which turned out to be very restrictive. The rear wheel gain in power was a dramatic at around 50kw for the equivalent of 750 English pounds.

So the challenge, in my experience, is to find the weakness in the manufacture’s decisions and start there. If you're driving a car that already has a following for performance modifications there will be plenty of businesses and owners around that will know how to get the most bang for your budget.

[Guest]

i found out that the best way to get my car to go quicker was to let my boyrfriend drive!

lets face it, us women do suck at driving...

i'l get on with the ironing