MENUTuning the Dodge Daytona
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The Daytona is a great project car to execute. If you do your planning then you can create an awesome Daytona but don't be fooled there are lots of sports mods out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.
Handling/Suspension upgrades
Improving the handling for lots of DIY modders first priority in your Daytona tuning project.
We found that most Daytona factory suspension setups need tweaking, a few degrees of toe out for cornering or toe in for stability, , and some negative camber will substantially improve your cornering and handling.
Drop the car by as much as 22mm - 43 mm. and fit uprated stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.
Top end power should be your overall aim on the Daytona 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.
The following upgrades are usually installed by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you start.
- 2.2 L K I4
- 2.2 L Turbo I I4
- 2.2 L Turbo II I4
- 2.2 L Turbo III I4
- 2.5 L K I4
- 2.5 L Turbo I I4
- 3.0 L Mitsubishi 6G72 V6
Getting the correct grade of tuning upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motor sport mods just don't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.
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How to tune your car
- Improve the handling
Focus on Suspension improvements, such as coilovers and make sure the bushings are in good order and that the alignment is correct. Then focus on improving the brakes, with a big disk brake conversion kit and fast road brake pads.
- Remove restrictions
Focus on the intake and exhaust with filters being the common point of restriction in a tuned car. Intercoolers may also become restrictive on turbo engines so this may also need to be uprated.
- Burn more fuel & air
Increase the fuelling so it matches the air coming into the engine. The ratio is important so you need to improve the fuel pump and injectors, so the head mods, big valve conversions, fast road camshafts and forced induction upgrades extra supply of air is adequately met.
- Test and replace any weak parts
Weak areas are commonly the clutch, the turbocharger and pistons and crankshaft in a highly tuned engine. Makes sure these components will cope with your power aspirations.
- The Tune or Remap
A cars ECU controls the fuel, timing, spark and even the turbo in some cases, so to fully extract your gains you should remap the car last and this will fully release the power. Some cars are easy to map, and others require piggyback ECU's or aftermarket ECU's but this is the most vital step of your tuning project.
Modifying to Stage 1:
Suspension upgrade (drop 22mm - 43 mm.), Panel air filter, Alloy wheels, Sports exhaust, Remap, Lighter flywheel.
Modifying to Stage 2:
Power/Sport clutch, high flow fuel injector, Ported and polished head, Fast road cam, fuel pump upgrades.
Modifying to Stage 3:
Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Engine balancing, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Sports gearbox, Competition cam.
Peak power is good on competition cars but for a daily driven car you need a long torque 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 modification.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest torque gains for your money as far as a single modified mods goes on a NASP engine.
It maximises the intake and exhaust durations and pushes up the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a remap. We'd also 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 look at to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.
Frequently power losses, flat spots and erratic idling after sports kits are done can usually be traced to timing or fuelling issues. To get sufficient fuel you may need to improve the injectors on your 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. Please note that WE DO NOT FEEL YOU GET POWER GAINS FROM INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car a lot and are finding that the standard air intake has become a restriction.
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 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 can help increase the flow of air through the engine. But if your exhaust is too large, ie: over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the exhaust flow rate and end up sapping power and torque.
Head work including a polish and port and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. A good multi plate fast road upgraded clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never skimp or assume your standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods that we recommend for your Daytona 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 massive power gains and fully release the potential power of the engine. Adding forced induction will see large power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Turbos are usually harder to add than a supercharger. It is more challenging to map a turbo as the boost increases exponentially with revs.
It is simpler to map a supercharger because the boost is directly proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. Alternatively you could perhaps install water injection to cut down knock.
Alloy wheel upgrades.
Alloy wheels can help the brakes cool down and are generally lighter than the steel ones. If you are serious about performance then you will need to carefully choose your tires - ideally with a track legal slick tire. Large Daytona alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your final drive ratio.
Due to this we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 17 inches, although we know some of our members have installed larger rims with no problems.
For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Daytona options in more detail with our Daytona owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Dodge tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.
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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.
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