Ssangyong Musso Tuning

"Thank you for reading my Musso tuning tips"

We review and look at Musso tuning and outline the premier upgrades. Ssangyong Mussos make awesome project cars and with the ultimate performance tuning mods you can really improve your driving opportunities.

The Musso is a good project car to try. If you do your homework then you can create an awesome Musso but don't be fooled there are lots of motorsport upgrades out there that will simply not suit it read our unbiased guides first.

Tuning tips and articles

Engine tuning Transmission tuning Care care Intake & exhaust mods Improve handling Forums

 

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Improving the handling for DIY mechanics first priority in your Musso tuning project.

Putting slight negative camber at the front and around 1 to 1.7 degrees of toe out, will substantially benefit your Musso in handling and cornering.

Drop the car by as much as 26mm - 36 mm and fit sports stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

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 Musso.

Keep your car looking standard but take off the badges creating a sleeper!

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.

Power mods.

This list of the stages and sports parts are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you get going.

Getting the best tuning upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is essential. Stage 3 competition upgrades just won't work well on the road difficult in stop start traffic.

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How to tune your car

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

  5. 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, Panel air filter, Remap, Lighter flywheel, Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm).

Modifying to Stage 2:

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

Modifying to Stage 3:

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

You need to keep as much low end power as possible and aim to achieve a wide power band rather than a narrow top end power spike.

In this article we shall give a little insight into the world to the best upgrades for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance part.A fast road camshaft will be one of the best NASP power modifications you can do from a single upgrade to your engine.

It improves the intake and exhaust durations and increases the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a performance chip. We'd also caution you not to go with a competition cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

When pushing up the power you will need to ramp up to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

Using higher octane petrol is another option if you find you are suffering from detonation or premature ignition on your Ssangyong project after fitting other tuning mods. Bigger injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.

Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned Mussos uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Air induction kits are only beneficial to add performance if the cars air intake is struggling! Adding an induction kit to most standard engines will see NO 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.

For most Musso engines TorqueCars would suggest you just go with a washable panel air filter. On heavily tuned engines and turbo vehicles an induction kit will help release the power providing you address the problem of needing cold air.

Sports exhausts can help balance the flow of air through the engine. But if your exhaust pipe is too big, ie: it's over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a great deal of the flow rate and end up losing power and torque.

Getting a professionally polished and ported head with larger valves can fully release the engines power. A good triple plate fast road power clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never make false economies or think that a standard clutch to cope. The best mods we recommend for your Musso are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaustRemaps offer phenomenal power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful. However a chipped 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 experimenting with twincharged applications and making some seriously high power gains.

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

Superchargers, however will give a boost which is directly proportional to engine speed so is easier to map. Alternatively you could perhaps add water injection to reduce the risk of knock.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels can help the brakes cool down and are generally less heavy than the steel ones. If you are serious about performance then you will need to carefully choose your tires - ideally with a directional tread pattern tire. Large Musso alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your final drive ratio.

With this in mind we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 16 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 Musso options in more detail with our Musso owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Ssangyong 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.

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