MENUTuning the Nissan Silvia S14
"Tuning guide to the greatest Nissan Silvia S14 modifications."
Produced between 1994 and 1999 the S14 also got branded as the 200SX and 250SX in some regions.
Lower and wider than it's forbear, it looked more aggressive and the new styling was well received.
1996 saw some minor trim revisions and all new headlamps and rear lights.
We review and look at Silvia S14 tuning and report on the best upgrades. Nissan Silvia S14s make awesome project cars and with carefully picked upgrades you can noticeably maximise your driving enjoyment.
The Silvia S14 is a good car modification project to have. With the right mods your Silvia S14 can be transformed into a stunning project. Don't waste money, do your homework and follow our unbiased guides to each performance upgrade so you don't waste your money.
Handling/Suspension upgrades
Handling modifications are top of many to do lists for the Silvia S14.
If you set the toe out to 1 to 2 degrees on the front, and add a tiny bit of negative camber then cornering will substantially improve.
Drop the car by as much as 30mm - 36 mm. and fit uprated stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.
Our aim in engine tuning should be to increase peak bhp at the top end.
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.
Engine Tuning.
These mods uprated parts are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you begin.
Getting the correct grade of uprated upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 (competition) mods just don't work well on the road hard to control in slow traffic.
For engine specific mods please see our SR20DET engine tuning article here or the larger KA24DE.
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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:
Alloy wheels, Suspension upgrade (drop 30mm - 36 mm.), Remap, Lighter flywheel, Panel air filter, Sports exhaust.
Modifying to Stage 2:
Ported and polished head, Power/Sport clutch, high flow fuel injector, fuel pump upgrades, Fast road cam.
Modifying to Stage 3:
Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Engine balancing, Competition cam, Sports gearbox, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves).
Your goal when tuning should be a wide torque output. You don't want all the power to be at the top end of the rev range unless you are creating a motor sport car.
In this article we shall give an overview and introduction 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 power gains for your money as far as a bolt on tuning mods goes on a NASP engine.
The intake & exhaust valve timings play a huge factor 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.
When pushing up the power you will need to uprate to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.
If you find you get flat spots and power surges after your modified mods you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Increasing the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.
Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned Silvia S14's uprated injectors.
Intake and Exhaust Tuning.
Breathing mods are usually next up. Induction kits will only help to increase performance if the cars air intake is restricted! Adding an induction kit to most small engines will see NONE OF A 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.
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 generally help improve air flow out of the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too large or you may end up will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches for best results.
Head work including a polish and port and 3 or 5 angle valve job will really help to release the potential of the engine. Your clutch can fail as the power goes up if it starts to suffer and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of up to 46%. Fit an upgraded clutch to avoid power leak through the transmission. The best mods we recommend for your Silvia S14 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 large power gains and fully release the potential power of the engine.
We've also seen some tuners toying with twincharged applications and making some very high power gains.
The most significant power gains for NASP engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. Superchargers are generally easier to add than a turbo. With a turbo the power curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it difficult to map fuelling with.
It is easier 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.
Because alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they 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 Silvia S14, and make a big difference over budget tires. The drawback to large alloys on your Silvia S14 is that you're altering your final drive ratio so this will have a detrimental effect on performance and acceleration.
For this reason try to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the standard factory sizes. In all cases avoid going over 18 inches.
For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Silvia S14 options in more detail with our Silvia S14 owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Nissan 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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