Tuning the Hyundai Lambda

"Building the best modified Hyundai Lambda engine!"

Carref prides itself on providing the latest tips and guides to your modification project.

We review and look at Lambda tuning and highlight the greatest modifications for your car.

We've seen power on the Lambda blocks hit 750bhp in race applications, it's nice to work on a well designed modern V6 block.

The larger the capacity the better your return on your tuning mods, so reboring and stroking are good at extracting all the power you can from your budget.

Hyundai Lambda blocks offer good returns when tuned and with the optimum upgrades like a remap, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will really maximize your driving fun.

We rely on our visitors to pass on tips and tell us about their projects and what worked on their car, and this article is the culmination of the feedback we have received. First let us look at the history and specs of this engine and then consider which tuning modifications work best on it.

History of the Engine

Lambda MPi

•  3.3 Lambda MPi G6DB 238 PS (175 kW; 235 hp) at 6,000 rpm and 31.2 kg⋅m (306 N⋅m; 226 lb⋅ft) of torque at 3,500 rpm
•  3.8 L (3,778 cc) G6DA  267 PS (196 kW; 263 hp) at 6,000 rpm and 35.5 kg⋅m (348 N⋅m; 257 lb⋅ft) of torque at 4,500 rpm

Lambda II MPi

•  3.0 Lambda II MPi 250 PS (184 kW; 247 hp) at 6,400 rpm and 28.8 kg⋅m (282 N⋅m; 208 lb⋅ft) of torque at 5,000 rpm
• 3.3 Lambda II MPi  266–274 PS (196–202 kW; 262–270 hp) at 6,200-6,400 rpm and 32.2–32.5 kg⋅m (316–319 N⋅m; 233–235 lb⋅ft) of torque at 4,500-5,300 rpm
• 3.5 L Lambda II MPi (3,470 cc) Lambda II MPi G6DC  280–290 PS (206–213 kW; 276–286 hp) at 6,300-6,600 rpm and 34.3 kg⋅m (336 N⋅m; 248 lb⋅ft) at 5,000 rpm
• 3.8 L Lambda II MPi   283 hp (211 kW; 287 PS) at 6,200 rpm and 263 lb⋅ft (357 N⋅m) of torque at 4,500 rpm

Lambda II GDi

• 3.0 Lambda II GDi G6DG  270 PS (199 kW; 266 hp) at 6,400 rpm and 32.3 kg⋅m (317 N⋅m; 234 lb⋅ft) of torque at 5,300 rpm
• 3.3L Lambda II GDi G6DH  284–298 PS (209–219 kW; 280–294 hp) at 6,400 rpm and 34.3–35.3 kg⋅m (336–346 N⋅m; 248–255 lb⋅ft) of torque at 5,200 rpm
• 3.8L Atkinson cycle  295 PS (217 kW; 291 hp) at 6,000 rpm and 36.2 kg⋅m (355 N⋅m; 262 lb⋅ft) of torque at 5,200 rpm

Lambda II RS MPi

•  3.8L 303–310 PS (223–228 kW; 299–306 hp) at 6,400 rpm and 36.6 kg⋅m (359 N⋅m; 265 lb⋅ft) of torque at 4,600 rpm
•  3.8L 290 PS (213 kW; 286 hp) at 6,200 rpm and 36.5 kg⋅m (358 N⋅m; 264 lb⋅ft) of torque at 4,500 rpm

Lambda II RS GDi

3.8 L

• 338 PS (249 kW; 333 hp) at 6,400 rpm and 40.3 kg⋅m (395 N⋅m; 291 lb⋅ft) of torque at 5,100 rpm
• 353 PS (260 kW; 348 hp) at 6,400 rpm and 40.8 kg⋅m (400 N⋅m; 295 lb⋅ft) of torque at 5,300 rpm
• 315 PS (232 kW; 311 hp) at 6,000 rpm and 40.5 kg⋅m (397 N⋅m; 293 lb⋅ft) of torque at 5,000 rpm

Lambda II RS T-GDi

3.3 Twin Turbo 370 PS (272 kW; 365 hp) at 6,000 rpm and 52 kg⋅m (510 N⋅m; 376 lb⋅ft) of torque between 1,300 and 4,500 rpm.

What are the most effective Lambda modifications

When talking about the best top for your Lambda engine, we are going to parts that give the biggest return for your cash.

Interestingly Hyundai rebored and stroked this engine to 4.1 liters and with forced induction were able to reach around 750bhp.

Altering your Lambda cam will make a dramatic difference to the engine power band. Choosing a higher performance cam profile raises the power band accordingly.

Fast road cams tend to push up the torque through the rpm range, you may lose a little bottom end torque but top end will improve.

Race cams, push up the top end band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

On a daily driver must carefully try to match your torque band to your driving style.

I'd be shocked have thought a Competition camshaft is a pleasure to live with when driving around busy urban areas.

Some Lambda engines respond better to extreme cam durations so set your engine up on a rolling road.

The map and fuel pump and injectors also will make differences on the power gains you'll achieve.

Extending exhaust or intake durations can alter the power band and on most engines the exhaust and intake durations do not need to match, although most cams and tuners use matched pairs there are some advantages to extending the intake or exhaust durations.

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Modifying to Stage 1:

 Remaps/piggy back ECU, Sports exhaust manifold, Drilled & smoothed airbox, Intake headers, Panel air filters, Fast road camshaft.

Modifying to Stage 2:

 fuel pump upgrades, Ported and polished head, Fast road cam, high flow fuel injectors, induction kit, Sports catalyst & performance exhaust.

Modifying to Stage 3:

 Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Competition cam, Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Twin charging conversions, Engine balancing & blueprinting.

A remap should help to fully realize the full potential of all the tuning parts you've done to your Lambda.

It will usually give around 30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and 15% on NASP engines, but you mileage will vary depending on the tuning parts you've done and the condition of your engine.

Pulling fuel and air into each cylinder is vital to any engine performance tuning task.

Intake flow the air during the suck phase from the intake filter and allow it to be pulled into the engine and mixed with fuel.

The shape and rate of flow of the Intake can make a large change to fuel engine efficiency on the Lambda.

Many mass produced engine plenum chambers are ripe for an upgrade, although some makers provide reasonably well designed plenum chambers.

Fitting big valve kits, doing some port work and head flowing will also improve bhp, this will raise potential for raising the bhp increase on other mods.

Which turbo upgrades are best?

NASP engines need quite a lot of work when you add a turbo, so we have a separate guide to help you take into account the pros and cons of going this route on your Lambda

The more air to get into an engine, the more fuel it can burn and uprating the induction with a turbocharger upgrade makes massive power gains.

If your motor has a turbo already fitted tuning parts are relatively easy and most turbocharged engines will have stronger components.

There are reliable limits for every engine, with some being very over engineered and some only able to handle stock power

Discover these limitations and fit higher quality crank and pistons to utilize the power.

It's not unheard of people spending a loads of money on turbo charger upgrades on the Lambda only to have the whole thing throw a rod soon after it's first rolling road session.

Bigger capacity turbo chargers will usually experience no power at low rpm, and low capacity turbo chargers spool up much more quickly but do not have the top end torque gains.

In the last 10 years the choice of turbos is always evolving and we commonly find variable vane turbos, allowing the vane angle is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end bhp.

Twin scroll turbos divert the exhaust gases into a couple of channels and feed these at differently angled vanes in the turbocharger. They also help the scavenging effect of the engine.

You'll commonly see there's a restriction in the air flow sensor MAP/MAF/AFM on these engines when a lot more air is being fed into the engine.

You'll see that 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor limited power at a much lower level.

Adding a supercharger or additional turbo will make large power gains, although more challenging to get working. We have a twincharger power adding guide if you want to read more.

Fuelling

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to pay attention to the fuelling when you start exceeding 20% of a bhp and torque increase.We would recommend you to over specify your injectors flow rate.

As a rule of thumb add 20% when buying an injector, helps cope with injector deterioration and affords a little spare capacity should the engine need more fuel.

We think this one is common sense, but you'll need to match your fuel injector to the type of fuel your car uses as well.

All the following flywheel power targets will assume an injector duty cycle of 80% and a base of 58 psi of fuel pressure at idle.

Choosing the right performance exhaust

One of the most common mistakes and problems we see in tuning projects is usually down to the exhaust, or rather a poorly chosen exhaust for your engine.

Only look to uprate your exhaust if your current exhaust is actually causing a flow problem.

On most factory exhausts you'll see your flow rate is still ok even on modest power gains, but when you start pushing up the power levels you will need to get a better flowing exhaust.

Sports exhausts can usually air flow through the engine but do not go too wide or you could will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.

Common exhaust restrictions are traced to the catalysts installed, so adding a freer flowing high performance alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Weak spots Issues & problem areas on the

The engines are generally reliable and solid as long as they are regularly serviced and maintained.

Regular oil changes are vital on the , especially when tuned and will help extend the life and reliability of the engine.

For more information on Tuning your engine please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss tuning options in more detail with our owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased 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 parts 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 Hyundai, Kia. 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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