Tuning the BMW x7

"Thanks for reading our BMW x7 tuning guide."

The x7 is a good project car to do. Plan ahead and research x7 tuning to avoid making the usual tuning errors we regularly hear people complain about.

The X7 is a best of a car, aimed at the large luxury SUV market where it actually performs really well. A great overall design and choice of great engines finish off what is a great package.

Our aim here is to review and look at x7 tuning and outline the optimum mods that work. BMW x7 offer good returns when tuned and with the ultimate performance parts like a remap, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will dramatically improve your driving opportunities.

• 3.0 L B58 i6 turbo (petrol)
• 3.0 L B57 i6 turbo (diesel)
• 4.4 L N63 v8 twin-turbo (petrol)
• 3.0 L B57 i6 quad-turbocharged

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are at the top of your mod list for the x7.

Adding a little negative camber to the front and a degree or two of toe (in for better stability or out to improve cornering), will greatly benefit your x7 in handling and cornering.

We suggest that you fit motorsport suspension and lower the car by 27mm - 38 mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with motorsport suspension.

For sharper enhanced braking you should get better high performance brake pads and match this with better brake discs.

Bear in mind that race pads will be noisy and will have to be hot before they are effective.

In every day driving the brakes are only applied now and then and won't be all that effective so select brake pads which have a low working temperature.

Don't just look at the peak power figures, you need to see the whole torque curve when determining if a mod is right for you x7.

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.

Tuning modifications.

Typically these modified upgrades are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to go before you start.

Getting the best sports parts for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 motor sport mods just don't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

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Modifying to Stage 1:

 Alloy wheels, Suspension upgrade (drop 27mm - 38 mm.), Sports exhaust, Panel air filter, Remap, Lighter flywheel.

Modifying to Stage 2:

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

Modifying to Stage 3:

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

You should keep as much low end torque as you can and aim to get a long power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power hike.

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.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest bhp gains for your money as far as a bolt on sports upgrades goes on a NASP engine.

The exhaust & intake valve durations play a major role in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car challenging to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a remap for the best performance gains.

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will need to look at the fuelling.

Using higher octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your BMW project after fitting other motorsport modifications. Improved 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.

Breathing mods are usually next up.  Contrary to popular belief there is generally a small if any power gain reached by fitting an induction kit, they only help and are recommended after you increase the engines power to the point where the standard air intake box cannot cope!

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 performance panel filter should suffice for most applications. TorqueCars suggest you use a panel air filter as these are easy to clean and maintain and generally perform better than paper ones.

Sports exhausts increase the flow of gases through the engine. But if your exhaust is too big, ie: it's over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the exhaust flow rate and end up lacking power and torque.

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 A good fast road upgraded clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never cut corners or ask a standard clutch to cope. The best mods in our opinion for your x7 are fast road camshaft, remap, induction and exhaust, suspension.

Turbo engines are just pleading to be Reprogrammed. You will see phenomenal power gains on most modern turbo engined cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective and phenomenal modifications for your money.Adding forced induction will see phenomenal power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Turbos are often harder to add than a supercharger. Turbos give boost in exponential proportion to th engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.

It is simpler 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.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brake cooling and are generally less heavy than steel ones. Don't forget that your choice of rubber greatly affects your cars grip and handling. It is not worth compromising performance with cheap tyres when you can buy track legal slick performance tires.We'd like to point out although they can look cool on the x7 big alloys 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.

For this reason endeavour to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the same as supplied from the factory. In all cases without going above 19 inches.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss x7 options in more detail with our x7 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased BMW 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 BMW. 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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