Tuning the MG MG HS
"Tuning guide to the greatest MG MG HS modifications."
The MG HS is a good tuning project to try. Take your time and research MG HS tuning to spare yourself making the usual disastrous errors we typically see.
The MG MG HS have loads of potential and with the best performance upgrades like ECU maps, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will maximize your driving pleasure.
We shall examine the options for your MG HS tuning and show the ultimate upgrades.
Handling/Suspension upgrades
Improving the handling for many people first priority in your MG HS tuning project.
Good suspension tweaks that substantially improve handling for the MG HS 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 - 41 mm. on most models. You risk grounding out if you go lower than this.
Top end torque should be your overall aim with a nice fat wide peak torque band.
Sadly with smaller engine sizes you are wasting your time spending money on modifications, so if this applies to you get yourself an engine swap then apply the following mods.
Power mods.
Typically these tuning parts are usually installed by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get going.
Getting the best tuning upgrades for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 motor sport mods just don't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.
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How to tune your car
- Improve the handling
Focus on Suspension improvements, such as coilovers and make sure the bushings are in good order and that the alignment is correct. Then focus on improving the brakes, with a big disk brake conversion kit and fast road brake pads.
- Remove restrictions
Focus on the intake and exhaust with filters being the common point of restriction in a tuned car. Intercoolers may also become restrictive on turbo engines so this may also need to be uprated.
- Burn more fuel & air
Increase the fuelling so it matches the air coming into the engine. The ratio is important so you need to improve the fuel pump and injectors, so the head mods, big valve conversions, fast road camshafts and forced induction upgrades extra supply of air is adequately met.
- Test and replace any weak parts
Weak areas are commonly the clutch, the turbocharger and pistons and crankshaft in a highly tuned engine. Makes sure these components will cope with your power aspirations.
- The Tune or Remap
A cars ECU controls the fuel, timing, spark and even the turbo in some cases, so to fully extract your gains you should remap the car last and this will fully release the power. Some cars are easy to map, and others require piggyback ECU's or aftermarket ECU's but this is the most vital step of your tuning project.
Modifying to Stage 1:
Alloy wheels, Lighter flywheel, Sports exhaust, Panel air filter, Suspension upgrade (drop 23mm - 41 mm.), Remap.
Modifying to Stage 2:
Ported and polished head, Power/Sport clutch, high flow fuel injector, Fast road cam, fuel pump upgrades.
Modifying to Stage 3:
Engine balancing, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Competition cam, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Sports gearbox.
Peak power is all well and good but for a daily driven car you need a long power band and perhaps extending the rev range.
The point of our hints is to give a limited introduction of car tuning performance parts and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your modified car project, the best sport modifications and all aspects of modding cars.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest torque gains for your money as far as a single performance mods goes on a NASP engine.
It improves the intake and exhaust durations and increases the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a reflashed ECU. We'd also caution you not to go with a competition 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 pay attention to the fuelling.
Using higher octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your MG project after fitting other modified modifications. To get sufficient fuel you may need to increase the injectors on your engine.
Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned MG HS's uprated injectors.
Intake and Exhaust Tuning.
Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Induction kits will only help to increase performance if your air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most stock engines will see NONE OF A LOW END 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.
Maximum power gains come from a full induction kit with a cold air feed on heavily tuned engines, this can be sited within an air box but a performance panel filter should suffice for most applications. TorqueCars suggest you use a panel air filter as these are easy to clean and maintain and generally perform better than paper ones.
Do not go with the widest exhaust you can buy this will slow the exhaust 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.
Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional flowed (porting and polishing). These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. In nearly all cases of MG HS tuning your clutch will start to complain and this needs an upgrade - read our article on clutches for more information. The best mods we would do for your MG HS are fast road camshaft, remap, induction and exhaust, suspension.
Turbo engines are just begging to be Reprogrammed. You will see significant power gains on most modern turbocharged cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective and significant modifications for your money.Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give large power gains. It is generally easier to bolt on a supercharger than it is to fit a working turbo. With a turbo the boost curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it harder to map.
It is easier to map a supercharger because the boost is directly proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the engine compression ratio .
Alloy wheel upgrades.
Because alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they can help to cool the brake disks. Don't forget that your choice of rubber greatly affects your cars grip and handling. It is not worth compromising performance with cheap tyres when you can buy track legal slick performance tires.Large MG HS alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your final drive ratio.
Because of this endeavour to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the recommended OEM sizes. In all cases avoid going bigger than 18 inches.
For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss MG HS options in more detail with our MG HS owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased MG tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.
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