VW Touareg Tuning

"Turning the Touareg into a real tourer!"

The Touareg is a good tuning project and although still quite a new model we are starting to see a lot of Touareg tuning options. Many Touareg owners uprate the handling of their cars as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car. The car was not really built for the tracks but instead for rough terrain. The car would benefit greatly from stiffer suspension and an uprated anti roll bar and strut brace.

Our aim in Touareg engine tuning should be to increase peak power and Torque at the top end and you want a nice flat torque curve.

The amazing V8 engine is just crying out for a major tune up. It certainly needs a lot of power and Torque to shift the body weight.some aggressive mods you can up the power to almost 480bhp and over 540nm of Torque.

The 2.5 TDI is also a good base to work from with a base power figure of 174bhp remappable to over 200bhp and taking torque to around 260nm! The V6 TDi is probably the tuners diesel engine of choice though and this can be taken to an unbelievable 280bhp and 525nm of torque!

It is also worth looking at the V10 5.0 TDi if you dare with power figures after tuning approaching a heady 800nm of torque.

The Touareg is quite heavy and will respond well to a strict program of weight reduction. Before you start increasing the power though you should look to uprate the brakes. Aim for larger discs all round say 390+mm on the front and 375+ on the rear depending on your wheel clearances and offset.

Bigger 6 pot calipers allow a larger pad to be used which will further enhance your ability to stop this behemoth when it really gets moving.

The simplest mod would have to be a remap, which would handle every aspect of engine management. The remap should ideally be done last to tie in all your other tuning mods.

VW Touareg Tuning modifications.

Peak power is all well and good but a driveable and fun car needs a wide power band and lots of low down torque. Fast road cams offer one of the biggest performance gains as far as a bolt on part goes. It would also pay to get the head gas flowed and ported. A big valve conversion will also help airflow.

If you are dramatically increasing power you should pay attention to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel - it is as simple as that. Uprating the injectors is the obvious way to go if you find the engine running lean. 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.

VW Touareg Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Induction kits work well on turbo engines and larger engines (if supplied with a suitable cold air feed or air box), for the smaller Touareg engines you should go with a sports panel air filter or induction kit with an enclosed airbox and cold air feed.

Do not go with the biggest exhaust you can find this will slow up the exhaust flow rate - the best for power gains are usually a big single exhaust of around 3 to 4 inches, or smaller twin pipes between 2 to 2.5 inches depending on your engine choice.

A good fast road power clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or expect a standard clutch to cope when you raise the power over 40% of standard.  

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. It is harder to map a turbo as the boost comes on exponentially with engine speed.

Supercharger kits however will give a boost which is proportional to engine speed so is easier to map and we have already seen some stunning supercharger conversions for the Touareg V8. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the compression ratio of the engine unless you fit water injection, use high octane fuel and use a more conservative boost setting.

VW Touareg Wheel modifications.

Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are usually lighter than the steel ones. The downside to large alloy wheels on your Touareg is that you alter your effective final drive ratio and this will have a detrimental effect on acceleration and performance.

For this reason we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 18/19 inches, although we know some of our members have gone larger than this with no problems when they used lower profile tyres and added some suspension mods.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Touareg options in more detail with our Touareg owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased VW 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 Volkswagen. 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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