Tuning the MG Montego

"Thank you for reading this MG Montego tuning guide."

The Montego is a great car tuning project to try. If you do your planning then you can create an awesome Montego but don't be fooled there are lots of motorsport inspired modifications out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.

Here we review Montego tuning and provide tips on the optimum mods that work. The MG Montego offer good returns when tuned and with the optimum sports parts like a remap, turbo improvements and camshafts you will greatly maximise your driving enjoyment.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many Montego owners uprate the handling of their cars with fast road suspension upgrades as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

We found that most Montego factory suspension setups need tweaking, a few degrees of toe out for cornering or toe in for stability, around 1.5, and a small amount of negative camber will usually improve your cornering and handling.

Drop the car by as much as 21mm - 42 mm. and fit motorsport grade stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Top end power should be your overall aim on the Montego 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.

These are the mods are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you start.

The 150 bhp (112 kW) MG Montego, released in early 1985 was the fastest production MG ever with a 7.3 second sprint to 60 plus a top speed of 126 mph and is capable of keeping up with many modern cars.

Getting the correct grade of modified upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 motor sport parts just don't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.

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Modifying to Stage 1:

 Alloy wheels, Panel air filter, Lighter flywheel, Suspension upgrade (drop 21mm - 42 mm.), Sports exhaust, Remap.

Modifying to Stage 2:

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

Modifying to Stage 3:

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

Your aim when tuning should be a flat and wide torque output. You want to avoid sending all the power to be at the top end of the rev range unless you are creating a motor sport car.

In this article we shall give a little insight into the world to the best performance parts for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance upgrade.A fast road cam is generally one of the best NASP power mods you can do from a single upgrade to your engine.

It maximises the intake and exhaust flow and increases 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 upsets the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

When pushing up the power you will need to increase to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

If you find you have flat spots and surges after your modifications you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Upgraded 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.  Please note that WE DO NOT FIND IMPROVEMENTS WITH INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car with over 30 percent more power and are finding that the standard air intake has become a limitation.

Derestricting the flow of air into the engine is the primary part of performance tuning so get a better flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound sporty but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not do much to increase power and often rob you of power on most cars.

Do not go with the biggest exhaust you can find this will slow up the exhaust flow rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

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 multi plate fast road uprated clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or think that the standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods we would do for your Montego are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements.

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 impressive power gains and fully release the potential power of the engine.

We've also come across some owners playing with twincharged conversions and making some very high power figures.

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

Superchargers however will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is easier to map. Adding forced induction will generally require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

The benefits of alloy wheels include a lower unsprung weight and more efficient brake cooling via the extra air flow they allow. Pay attention to your choice of tyres (tires) for your car, a good soft compound tire can really enhance your cars handling. Please note that although they can look cool on the Montego big alloy wheels will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this to the change in your effective final drive ratio.

Due to this fact try to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the OEM setup. In all cases without going bigger than 16 inches.

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