Tuning the Jeep Commander

"Tuning guide to the best Jeep Commander modifications."

The Commander is a great car tuning project to try. Take your time and research Commander tuning to avoid making the usual costly errors we hear people complain about.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Improving the handling for loads of people first priority in your Commander tuning project.

Putting a bit of negative camber at the front wheels and a few degrees of toe in to improve stability or toe out for better cornering, will usually enhance your Commander in handling and cornering.

We would go to a maximum drop of 22mm - 40 mm. on most models. You risk compromising your handling if you go lower than this.

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 Commander.

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.

The following tuning upgrades are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get started.

Getting the best performance mods for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 motor sport mods just won't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.

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Modifying to Stage 1:

 Remap, Suspension upgrade (drop 22mm - 40 mm.), Sports exhaust, Lighter flywheel, Alloy wheels, Panel air filter.

Modifying to Stage 2:

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

Modifying to Stage 3:

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

Your aim when tuning the engine should be a nice flat torque range. You don't want all the torque to be at the top end unless you are creating a competition car.

The whole point of our pointers is to give a little insight into the world of customizing performance parts and point you in the right direction, our forum is best place to go if you need more detailed advice and tips on your tuning project, the best modified parts and all aspects of modding cars.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest torque gains for your money as far as a stand alone upgrades goes on a NASP engine.

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

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

If you find you suffer from flat spots and power surges after your tuning mods you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Upgrading the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

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.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Induction kits only help to boost performance if your air intake is restricted! Adding an induction kit to most low power 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 airflow into the engine is the primary part of tuning so get a better flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound fun but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and often rob you of power.

Sports exhausts generally help improve air flow through the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too large or you could 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 Your clutch can slip as you increase the power if it starts to suffer and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of up to 43%. Fit a competition clutch to avoid power losses through the transmission. The best mods in our opinion for your Commander 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 take full advantage of the strength of the block. Adding forced induction will see phenomenal power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Superchargers are usually easier to add than turbos. Turbos increase power in increasing proportion to rising 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. Adding forced induction will generally require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

As alloys are lighter they improve performance and they can help to cool the brake disks. We can't go into too much detail here about tires but they are how the car puts the power down on the road so are a critical choice. soft compound tires work well on Commander, and make a big difference over budget tires. The downside to large alloys on your Commander is that you're altering your final drive ratio so this will have a detrimental effect on acceleration.

With this in mind aim to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the OEM setup. In all cases not going over 18 inches.

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