Tuning the Renault Kwid

"Tuning guide to the greatest Renault Kwid modifications."

Originally unveiled at the 2014 Auto Expo the Kwid sets a new bar for compact crossover.

Much of the radical concept styling has been refined into a more standard looking car, but it shows what is possible looks wise.

The Kwid is a awesome car modification project to try. With the right mods your Kwid can be transformed into a stunning project. Don't waste money, do your homework and follow our unbiased guides to each performance upgrade to avoid wasting money.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are often a priority for the Kwid.

Good suspension tweaks that substantially enhance handling for the Kwid include a couple of degrees negative camber and 1-1.5 degrees of toe in or out on the front wheels. Toe in for stability, or Toe out to improve cornering. It would also pay to improve the brakes, by adding larger discs and or higher friction pads..

We would go to a maximum drop of 24mm - 40 mm. on most models. You risk grounding out if you go lower than this.

Top end bhp should be your overall aim with a nice fat wide peak torque band.

Sadly with smaller engine sizes you are wasting your time spending money on modifications, so if this applies to you get yourself an engine swap then apply the following mods.

Engine tuning mods.

• 0.8 L I3 gasoline (petrol)
• 1.0 L I3 (petrol)

The following uprated mods are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to go before you start.

Getting the right modified parts for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 (competition) mods just don't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.

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Modifying to Stage 1:

 Remap, Panel air filter, Sports exhaust, Alloy wheels, Lighter flywheel, Suspension upgrade (drop 24mm - 40 mm.).

Modifying to Stage 2:

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

Modifying to Stage 3:

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

Your aims when modding your car should be a nice flat torque range. You don't want all the power to be at the top end of the rev range unless you are creating a competition car.

In this article we shall give a brief overview to the best mods for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance upgrade.Fast road cams offer one of the biggest torque gains for your money as far as a single performance modifications goes on a NASP engine.

It improves the intake and exhaust flow and pushes up the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a performance chip. TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a motor sport cam as this upsets the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

Don't forget to look at the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty.

Using higher octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from pinking or premature ignition on your Renault project after fitting other motorsport parts. To get sufficient fuel you may need to uprate the injectors on your 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. Air induction kits only help to increase power if the air intake is restricted! Adding an induction kit to most stock 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.

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 sporty but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not really increase power and actually rob you of power on most cars.

Do not go with the biggest exhaust you can find 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 the cylinder head polished and ported will help get more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a pro with a flow bench. When you tune up your Kwid you will see that the standard clutch starts to slip so get an uprated clutch. The best mods in our experience for your Kwid are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvements.

Remaps offer large power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful. However a remap 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 impressively high power gains.

The most impressive power gains for NASP engines usually involve the addition of forced induction. Superchargers are often easier to add than a turbo. With a turbo the boost curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it harder to map.

The nice directly proportional boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them simpler to map. Adding forced induction will generally require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

The benefits of alloys include a lower unsprung weight and more efficient brake cooling. Get a good directional tread pattern tire to improve your handling and help improve traction on your Kwid. The downside to large rims on your Kwid is that you're changing your effective final drive ratio so this will have a detrimental effect on performance and acceleration.

Due to this we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 17 inches, although we know some of our members have with bigger wheels with no problems.

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