C2 Tuning

"C2 The Baby Boomer"

The C2 is popular among our members for tuning projects due in part to it's low cost and small size. This all helps to keep insurance premiums down and we tip the C2 to be the ideal first car when residual values have dropped to a more affordable level.

This car replaces the credible Saxo and Citroen have improved and revised the car offering a more mature grown up styling.

Many C2 owners uprate the handling of their cars as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car. We suggest that you fit uprated suspension and lower the car by 30-35mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with sports suspension.

Top end power should be your overall aim on the C2 with a nice fat peak torque band.

Sadly the 1.1 and 1.4 engines do not provide much of a return in terms of power to cost ratio, so start with a bigger engine like the 1.6 VTR or VTS and even the 1.4 HDi. Engine swaps to these larger engines are a good option if you have a small engine size.

Citroen C2 Tuning modifications.

Peak power is all well and good but a drivable and fun car needs a wide power band and lots of low down torque. A fast road cam will be one of the best power mods you can do mechanically to your engine. When pushing up the power you will need to pay attention to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel. A fuel pressure boost valve can make the car more responsive and respond better although it will not increase the power output. To get sufficient fuel you may need to uprate the injectors on your engine. A fuel pump will only deliver a finite amount of fuel, so you may need to uprate this if your injectors are demanding more fuel.

Citroen C2 Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Induction kits work well on turbo engines and larger engines (if supplied with a suitable cold air feed or air box), for the smaller C2 engines you should go with a sports panel air filter. A good sports exhaust is essential to balance your freer flowing air filter, just adding an induction kit on it's own will do little to increase your power.

Gas flowing the head will allow you to maximise your air/fuel charge. Leave this to a professional though with a proper flow bench and machine tools Your clutch can seriously let you down if it starts to slip and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of upto 50%. Fit an uprated clutch to avoid power losses through the transmission.

If you own one of the HDi Diesels engines based on the Ford DLD engine you can eaily up the power by applying a remap, these offer significant power gains on all turbo charged cars and keep the reliability and fuel economy you bought the C2 for.

On the Petrol engines in the C2 range the benefits are doubtful. However a remap on a NASP engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods perhaps adding another 10 or so bhp.

If you are power mad then adding forced induction will see big power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Turbos are harder to add than supercharger because on a  turbo the boost curve is related exponentially to the engine speed and this makes it hard to map. It is easier to map a supercharger because the boost is proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.

We recommend a specialist who can setup the mapping and provide a full supercharger or turbo kit for your C2. You could always drop in a larger engine from the Citroen range but as the car is still quite new we haven't at the time of writing this seen any engine conversions done. If you know of any drop us a line in the comments field below or join our forum and see what our C2 members are up to!

Citroen C2 Wheel modifications.

The benefits of alloy wheels include a lower unsprung weight and more efficient brake cooling. Large C2 alloy wheels can decrease performance. If you get big alloy wheels you will be changing your final drive ratio. For this reason we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 16 inches, although we know some of our members have gone larger than this with no problems.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss C2 options in more detail with our C2 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Citroen tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

This article was written by Waynne Smith on TorqueCars, and I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Citroen. 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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