Citroen C4 Tuning

"Tuning guide to the greatest Citroen C4 modifications."

A great little car from Citroen, the C4 has proved popular among our members, and we've finally been able to write a C4 Tuning guide.

The smaller size and great choice of engines mean the C4 is a good car modification project to do.

Take your time and research C4 tuning to spare yourself making the usual tuning slip ups we frequently see.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Many C4 owners uprate the handling of their cars with modified suspension mods as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car.

Fully adjustable suspension allows you to fine tune the handling of you C4 greatly improving your drive.

Drop the car by as much as 30mm - 39 mm and fit performance stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Top end power should be your overall aim on the C4 with a nice fat peak torque band.

The best power gains come from larger engine sizes. The more you start with the bigger the return on investment so engine swaps are good value mods for small engined cars.

Tuning modifications.

First generation engines options

• 1.4 L ET3 I4 petrol
• 1.6 L TU5 I4 petrol
• 2.0 L EW10 I4 petrol
• 1.6 L DV6 HDi I4 diesel
• 2.0 L DW10 HDi I4 diesel

The second generation from 2010-2018 offered

• 1.4 VTi: 1397cc, 95 PS (70 kW)
• 1.6 VTi: 1598cc, 120 PS (88 kW)
• 1.6 THP: 1598cc, turbo, 155 PS (114 kW)
• 1.6 HDi: 1560cc, 90 PS (66 kW)
• 1.6 HDi 16v: 1560cc, 110 PS (81 kW)
• 1.6 e-HDi 16v: 1560cc, 110 PS (81 kW)
• 2.0 HDi 16v: 1997 cc, 150 PS (110 kW)

These mods tuning upgrades are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to go before you get going.

Getting the correct grade of sports upgrades for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motor sport mods just don't work well on the road difficult in stop start traffic.

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Modifying to Stage 1:

 Lighter flywheel, Remap, Panel air filter, Alloy wheels, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Sports exhaust.

Modifying to Stage 2:

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

Modifying to Stage 3:

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

Peak power is good on competition cars but for a daily driven car you need a wide power band and perhaps extending the rev range.

In this article we shall give a little insight into the world to the best modifications 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.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest performance gains for your money as far as a bolt on motorsport parts goes on a NASP engine.

It improves the intake and exhaust flow and pushes up the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a performance chip. We'd also caution you not to go with a motor sport cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

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

If you find you get flat spots and surges after your modified modifications you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Larger 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. Air induction kits are only beneficial to increase power if your air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most standard engines will see NO LOW END POWER GAIN AT ALL. If you have heavily modified your engine and it's need for air INCREASES DRAMATICALLY then an induction kit is the answer and will help remove this restriction.

Derestricting the air feed into the engine is a primary goal of car tuners so get a freer flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound great but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and more often than not rob you of power.

Sports exhausts can usually air flow out of the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too big or you may end up will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches as a rule of thumb.

Polishing and porting 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 power clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or ask a standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods in our experience for your C4 are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaustNASP 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 large power gains and fully release the potential power of the engine.

We've also come across some owners experimenting with twincharging conversions and making some seriously high power figures.

Adding forced induction will see big power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Superchargers are usually easier to add than a turbo. Turbos provide boost in increasing 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 nearly always require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

The benefits of alloys include a lower unsprung weight and better brake cooling. Get a good directional tread pattern tire to improve your handling and help improve traction on your C4. We should point out that although they can look cool on the C4 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.

With this in mind we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 16 inches, although we know some of our members have with bigger wheels with no problems.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss C4 options in more detail with our C4 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Citroen 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 Citroen. 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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