Tuning the Cadillac Escalade

"Tuning guide to the greatest Cadillac Escalade modifications."

We review Escalade tuning and highlight the premier upgrades. Cadillac Escalades are awesome to work on and with the ultimate tuning mods you can greatly maximise your driving opportunities.

The Escalade is a brilliant car modification project to carry out. With the right mods your Escalade can be transformed into a stunning project. Don't waste money, do your homework and follow our unbiased guides to each performance upgrade so you don't waste your money.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many Escalade owners uprate the handling of their cars with modified suspension mods as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

We found that most Escalade factory suspension setups need tweaking, a few degrees of toe out for cornering or toe in for stability, 0.8 to 1.3, and slight negative camber will substantially improve your cornering and handling.

Drop the car by as much as 22mm - 35 mm. and fit performance stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Turning our attention to the 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.

Power mods.

Mk1

• 4L60-E automatic
• 5.7 L L31 V8 (gasoline) 4-speed

Mk2

• 4-speed 4L65-E automatic
• 5.3 L LM7 V8 (gasoline)
• 6.0 L LQ9 V8 (gasoline)

Mk3

• 6-speed 6L80 automatic & CVT 2ML70 automatic
• 6.0 L LFA V8 (hybrid gasoline / electric)
• 6.0 L LZ1 V8 (hybrid gasoline / electric)
• 6.2 L L92 V8 (gasoline)
• 6.2 L L9H V8 (gasoline / E85)
• 6.2 L L94 V8 (gasoline / E85)

Mk4

• 6-speed GM 6L80 automatic (2015)
• 8-speed GM 8L90 automatic (2015-2017)
• 10-Speed Ford-GM 10-speed automatic transmission (2018- )
• 6.2L EcoTec3 L86 V8

This list of the stages and performance parts are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you begin.

Getting the right motorsport parts for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 competition upgrades just don't work well on the road hard to control in slow traffic.

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Modifying to Stage 1:

 Panel air filter, Alloy wheels, Remap, Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 22mm - 35 mm.), Lighter flywheel.

Modifying to Stage 2:

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

Modifying to Stage 3:

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

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

In this article we shall give an overview and introduction 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 mod.One of the best mechanical modified upgrades you can do to your NASP engine is to fit a fast road cam .

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

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

Using higher octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from detonation or premature ignition on your Cadillac project after fitting other modified mods. To get sufficient fuel you may need to uprate the injectors on your engine.

If have increased your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

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 a lot and are finding that the standard air intake has become limited.

For most Escalade engines TorqueCars would suggest you just go with a washable panel air filter. On heavily tuned engines and turbo vehicles an induction kit will help release the power providing you address the problem of needing cold air.

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

Head work including a gas flow and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. A good triple plate fast road sports clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or ask a standard clutch to cope. The best mods we would do for your Escalade are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements.

Turbo engines are just crying out to be flashed. You will see big power gains on most modern turbo charged cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective and big modifications for your money.Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give large power gains. It is often simpler to bolt on a supercharger than it is to install a turbo. It is difficult to map fuelling with a turbo as the boost comes on exponentially with rpm.

The nice correlating boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them easier to map. Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

The benefits of alloy wheels include reducing your unsprung weight and better brake cooling via the extra air flow they allow. Pay attention to your choice of tyres (tires) for your car, a good track legal slick tire can really enhance your cars handling. The drawback to large alloys on your Escalade is that you're altering your final drive ratio and this will have a negative effect on acceleration and performance.

Although some people have with bigger wheels without issues we would restrict ourselves to a 18 inch rim size as the maximum.

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