Mazda 323 Tuning

"Small but with lots of potential"

The 323 is often overlooked by many and dismissed as a family car. The 4x4 Turbo 323 really shows what can be achieved with this platfom and gives inspiration to all those 323 owners looking for more power.

Many 323 owners uprate the handling of their cars as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car. Drop the car by as much as 35mm and fit good quality coil-overs, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Our aim in 323 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.

Mazda 323 Tuning modifications.

Your aim when tuning should be a nice flat torque curve and a wide power band. One of the best mechanical mods you can do on the 323 is to fit a fast road cam. You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will also need to uprate the fuelling, especially if you are making dramatic power increasses. A fuel pressure boost valve can make the car more responsive and respond better although it will not increase the power output. To get sufficient fuel you may need to uprate the injectors on your engine. Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned 323s uprated injectors.

Mazda 323 Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Induction kits work well on turbo engines and larger engines (if supplied with a suitable cold air feed or air box), for the smaller 323 engines you should go with a sports panel air filter. Sports exhausts balance the flow of air throught the engine. But if your exhaust is too large, ie it is over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the flow rate and lose power on most engines.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional porting and polishing. These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. Your clutch can seriously let you down if it starts to slip and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of upto 50%. Fit an uprated clutch to avoid power losses through the transmission. Turbo engines are just begging to be remapped. You will see big power gains on most turbo engined cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective modifications.

The largest power gains for NASP engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. Turbos are harder to add than supercharger. It is harder to map a turbo as the boost comes on exponentially with engine speed. It is easier to map a supercharger because the boost is proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. To cope with forced induction you will usually need to decrease the compression ratio of the engine.

Mazda 323 Wheel modifications.

The benefits of alloy wheels include a lower unsprung weight and more efficient brake cooling. Large 323 alloy wheels can decrease performance. If you get big alloy wheels you will be changing your final drive ratio. For this reason we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 15 inches, although we know some of our members have gone larger than this with no problems.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss 323 options in more detail with our 323 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Mazda tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

This article was written by Waynne Smith on TorqueCars, and I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Mazda. 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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