MENUTuning the Jeep Renegade
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The Renegade is a awesome car modification project to take up your weekends. We see car owners wasting money on their Renegade doing the wrong mods and then having to start over. Follow our pointers to avoid ruining your car
Handling/Suspension upgrades
Improving the handling for people first priority in your Renegade tuning project.
Fully adjustable suspension allows you to fine tune the handling of you Renegade greatly benefiting your drive.
We would go to a maximum drop of 22mm - 41 mm. on most models. You risk handling compromises if you go lower than this.
Our aim in engine tuning should be to increase peak power and torque at the top end.
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.
These are the performance modifications are usually installed by our members, decide how far you want to go before you get going.
Getting the best performance upgrades for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 competition upgrades just won't work well on the road hard to control in slow traffic.
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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:
Remap, Panel air filter, Sports exhaust, Alloy wheels, Lighter flywheel, Suspension upgrade (drop 22mm - 41 mm.).
Modifying to Stage 2:
Fast road cam, high flow fuel injector, Ported and polished head, fuel pump upgrades, Power/Sport clutch.
Modifying to Stage 3:
Competition cam, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Engine balancing, Sports gearbox.
You need to keep as much low end torque as you can and aim to get a wide power band across the rev range rather than a narrow top end power spike.
The whole point of our articles is to give a little insight into the world of tuning upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your customized car project, the best sport kits and all aspects of modding cars.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest power gains for your money as far as a single modified parts goes on a NASP engine.
The exhaust and intake valve timings play a huge role in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car impossible to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a remap to fully realise your gains.
Don't forget to ramp up the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty.
Most power losses, and erratic idling after tuning mods are done can usually be traced to fuel delivery or timing issues. Higher capacity injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.
If you are increasing your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.
Intake and Exhaust Tuning.
Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Please note that WE DO NOT RECOMMEND INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car massively 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.
Do not go with the largest exhaust you can buy this will reduce the exhaust flow rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.
Getting a professionally ported and polished head with larger valves can fully maximise your power gains. In nearly all cases of Renegade tuning your clutch will start to fail and this needs to be uprated - read our guide on clutches for more information. The best mods in our experience for your Renegade are fast road camshaft, remap, induction and exhaust, suspension.
Remaps offer significant power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful. However a remapped ECU on a NASP engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods.
We've also come across some owners toying with twincharged applications and making some seriously high power gains.
Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give large power gains. It is often easier to add a supercharger than it is to install a turbo. Turbos increase power in exponential proportion to rising engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.
The nice steady boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them simpler to map. Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.
Alloy wheel upgrades.
Due to the fact that alloy wheels are less heavy they improve performance and they will help to cool the brake disks. Pay attention to your choice of tyres (tires) for your car, a good soft compound tire can really enhance your cars handling. The downside to large rims on your Renegade is that you alter your effective final drive ratio and this will have a negative effect on performance.
Although some people have installed larger rims 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 Renegade options in more detail with our Renegade 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.
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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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