Citroen DS5 Tuning

"Thank you for reading my DS5 tuning guide."

The engine Citroen mated with the DS5 was the HP163 a 1.6L GDI Turbocharged petrol engine, a couple of diesel engines and a diesel electric hybrid.

All engines respond well to tuning and we are sure the C5 replacement will prove popular with car enthusiasts around the world.

The interior doesn't feel much unlike sitting in the cockpit of a well designed airplane.

A DS5 handles nicely on standard suspension if you get a toe out of around 1-1.5 degrees and a very slight negative camber, however the chassis really does come alive when performance suspension is added.

So let's take an overview of DS5 tuning, but please also read our indepth articles for each modification, this page is only really a summary of what can be done to modify the DS5.

We have seen some awesome DS5 tuning projects and there seems to be quite a loyal fan base of DS5 owners.

We see many tuners wasting money on their DS5 doing the wrong mods and then having to start over. Follow our guides to avoid ruining your car

Many DS5 owners uprate the handling of their cars with modified suspension parts as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car. We would go to a maximum drop of 35mm on most models. You risk rubbing on the arches if you go lower than this.

Turning our attention to the DS5's engine we need to get a bit more power out of the top end.

Smaller engines do not provide much of a return in terms of power so start with a bigger engine. Engine swaps are a good option if you have a small engine size.

Engine Tuning.

Typically these modified parts are usually installed by our members, decide how far you want to go before you get going.

Getting the right performance upgrades for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 motor sport parts just won't work well on the road hard to control in slow traffic.

Please watch our introduction Video tutorial to car tuning. Be sure to subscribe and support our new channel.

Modifying to Stage 1:

 Lighter flywheel, Remap, Sports exhaust, Panel air filter, Alloy wheels, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm).

Modifying to Stage 2:

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

Modifying to Stage 3:

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

Peak power is all well and good but for a drivable and fun car you need a wide power band and perhaps extending the rev range.

In this article we shall give an overview and introduction to the best modifications for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance modification.One of the biggest mechanical tuning parts you can do on your NASP engine is to fit a fast road cam .

The intake and exhaust flow play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car impossible to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a reflashed ECU to fully realise your gains.When pushing up the power you will need to uprate to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

Using high octane fuel is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your Citroen project after fitting other parts. Uprated injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the 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.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. 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 of cotton gauze fabric, 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 reduce the exhaust flow rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between 1.0 to 2.0 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

On the petrol engines a non resonated silencer will really sound nice. We can't see the point or benefit of fitting a performance exhaust to the diesel engines though, as the standard exhausts flow really well and diesel's don't sound that great through sports exhausts (in our opinion).

Head porting and polishing 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

A good heavy duty fast road uprated clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or think that your standard OEM clutch to cope. Turbo engines are just asking to be Reprogrammed.

You will see phenomenal power gains on most modern turbo charged cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective and phenomenal modifications for your money.

The diesel DS5's will actually see more fuel economy from a remap, as well as a massive 30bhp or more in extra peak power and lots more torque.

We've also come across some owners experimenting with twincharged applications and making some very high power gains.

The most impressive power gains for NASP engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. Turbos are usually harder to add than a supercharger. Turbos increase power in exponential proportion to rising engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.

It is simpler to map a supercharger because the boost is correlating to engine speed on a linear curve. Alternatively you could fit water injection to control knock.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Because alloy wheels are less heavy they improve performance and they will help to cool the brake disks. Large DS5 alloy wheels can decrease performance. If you get big alloy wheels you will be changing your final drive ratio.

Because of this we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 17 inches, although we know some of our members have with bigger wheels with no problems other than tramlining and .

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss DS5 options in more detail with our DS5 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.

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 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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