Tuning the Alfa Romeo Spider

"Tuning guide to the greatest Alfa Romeo Spider modifications."

The Spider is a good car modification project to do. We see car owners wasting money on their Spider doing the wrong mods and then having to start over. Follow our guides to avoid wasting your money

We shall look into Spider tuning and outline the best upgrades. Alfa Romeo Spider are popular cars and with the ultimate performance tuning mods like remaps, turbo kits and camshafts you will noticeably enhance your driving opportunities.

A facelift in 2003 offered a new exterior design, with the new Alfa 147 style grille, and the 163hp JTS and 247hp V6 were offered.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are top of many to do lists for the Spider.

Fully adjustable suspension allows you to fine tune the handling of you Spider often improving your drive.

We suggest that you fit motorsport suspension and lower the car by 23mm - 42 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with performance suspension.

Fitting better brake discs and better quality pads will make for radically improved stopping.

We should point out that some performance friction pads can be noisier and will need a lot of heat before they are effective.

In every day driving the brakes are only applied now and then, therefore won't be all that effective so select pads which work well in daily use.

Top end power should be your overall aim on the Spider with a nice fat 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.

The following parts are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you begin.

• 1.8 L Twin Spark 16V I4
• 2.0 L Twin Spark 16V I4
• 2.0 L JTS 16V I4
• 2.0 L Alfa Romeo 12V turbo V6
• 3.0 L Alfa Romeo 12V V6
• 3.0 L Alfa Romeo 24V V6
• 3.2 L Alfa Romeo 24V V6

Getting the correct grade of tuning modifications for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 competition upgrades just won't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

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Modifying to Stage 1:

 Sports exhaust, Panel air filter, Remap, Suspension upgrade (drop 23mm - 42 mm.), Lighter flywheel, Alloy wheels.

Modifying to Stage 2:

 Power/Sport clutch, Fast road cam, high flow fuel injector, fuel pump upgrades, Ported and polished head.

Modifying to Stage 3:

 Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Competition cam, Sports gearbox, Engine balancing, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger).

Peak power is nice in motorsport but for a drivable and fun car you need a wide power band and perhaps extending the rev range.

The aim of our advice is to give a starting base of modifying upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is best place to go if you need more detailed advice and tips on your tuning project, the best modified parts and all aspects of modding cars.A fast road cam often proves to be one of the best NASP power mods you can do mechanically to your engine.

It improves the intake and exhaust flow and pushes up the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a remap. TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a competition cam as this affects 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.

If you find you experience flat spots and power surges after your modified upgrades you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Uprating the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

If you are increasing your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up.  Air induction kits are only beneficial to boost performance if your cars air intake is restricted! Adding an induction kit to most low power engines will see LITTLE 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 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 get this will slow up 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.

Head work including a polish and port and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. When you heavily modify your Spider you will reach a point that the standard clutch starts to complain so get an uprated clutch. The best mods in our opinion for your Spider are a remap especially on a turbo, a fast road camshaft and sports exhaust, with a good air intake.

NASP engines do not achieve big power gains if you remap them, unless you have done extensive modifications. With turbocharged engines this is another story. A remapped turbo will give phenomenal power gains and fully release the potential power of the engine.

We've also seen some tuners playing with twincharging conversions and making some very high power hikes.

The most phenomenal power gains for NASP engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. Superchargers are usually easier to add than a turbo. Turbos provide boost in exponential proportion to rising engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.

The nice directly proportional boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them more straightforward to map. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the engine compression ratio .

Alloy wheel upgrades.

As alloys are lighter they improve performance and they help to cool the brake disks. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of directional tread pattern tire. The drawback to large alloys on your Spider is that you're altering your effective final drive ratio so this will have a detrimental effect on performance and acceleration.

Although some people have with bigger wheels we would restrict ourselves to a 17 inch rim size as the maximum.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Spider options in more detail with our Spider owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Alfa Romeo 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 to hear what our visitors have got up to and which mods work best for them on each model of car. Comments are used to improve the accuracy of these articles which are continually updated.

This article was written by Waynne Smith on TorqueCars, and I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Alfa Romeo. You can leave a response below or join TorqueCars forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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