Vauxhall Viva Tuning

Tuning the Vauxhall Viva and best Viva performance parts.

The Vauxhall Viva became obsolete but has been ressurected and forms the small fun car sitting just below the Corsa.

The small light body lends itself well to mods and the Vauxhall parts shelf has no shortage of suitable parts.

We look at Viva tuning and point out the premier modifications. Vauxhall Vivas are popular tuning projects and with a few sensible motorsport tuning mods you can assuredly increase your driving fun.

You can do a lot to improve the performance of your Viva with our step by step tuning tips. With the right mods your Viva can be transformed into a stunning project.

It only came with one engine, a zippy and economical 1.0 unit pushing out a respectable 75bhp.

Don't waste money, do your homework and follow our unbiased guides to each performance upgrade so you don't waste your money.

Many Viva owners uprate the handling of their cars with a sporty suspension kit as a priority, this will certainly increase your enjoyment of the car. Drop the car by as much as 40mm and fit sports stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Don't go too low or too stiff, it will just cause the car to become skippy and jumpy. Coilovers are a good option.

Top end power should be your overall aim on the Viva with a nice fat 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.

Tuning modifications.

The following performance mods are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you get going.

Getting the correct grade of tuning parts for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 motor sport parts just won't work well on the road hard to control in slow traffic.

Modifying to STAGE 1:

Alloy wheels (lighter weight!), Panel air filter, Remap, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Sports exhaust, Lighter flywheel. (max 10% power gains)

Modifying to Stage 2:

high flow fuel injector, Fast road cam, Power/Sport clutch, fuel pump upgrades, Ported and polished head. (This should give you upto a 15% power gain).

Modifying to Stage 3:

Engine balancing, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Competition cam, Sports gearbox, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger). (25% power gains+ but much more expensive and harder to setup)

Engine swaps are a good option and we have not been able to confirm this but the 1.4T engine looks like it will fit the engine bay with a little modification. (Look at the Corsa engine range for suitable engine swap candidates.)

Peak power is nice in motorsport but for a driveable and fun car you need a long power band and perhaps extending the rev range.

In this article we shall give a limited 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 part.A fast road cam often proves to be one of the best NASP power mods you can do mechanically to your engine.

The intake and exhaust durations play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car hard to drive in traffic.

You'd need to follow a cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a performance chip to fully realise your gains.When pushing up the power you will need to increase to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

If you find you have flat spots and power surges after your uprated parts you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Most flat spots are caused by running lean, or sensor issues.

Uprating the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel. A fuel pump will only deliver a finite amount of fuel, so you may need to uprate this if your injectors are demanding more fuel but you'll need to have done some serious tuning to warrant needing better fuelling.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Air induction kits are only beneficial to increase power if your cars air intake is struggling!

The most frequent mod we see on the Viva are induction kits, but in our experience these are a waste of money. What you might gain at the top end, you'd sacrifice low down, where you need it the most in the Viva.

NB: Adding an induction kit to the 1.0 engine will see little to 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.

Derestricting the airflow into the engine is a primary goal of performance tuning so get a freer flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean only if you find the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound fun but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and often rob you of power.

Sports exhausts can help equal out the flow of air through the engine. But if the exhaust is too large, ie: over 2.0 inches bore, you will lose much of the exhaust flow rate and end up losing power and torque.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional polishing and ported. These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods.

When you heavily modify your Viva you will discover that the standard clutch starts to fail so get an uprated clutch. 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.

We've heard talk of supercharger kits, but any have yet to properly materialise. It shouldn't be too complex to add a basic supercharger to this engine,  uprate the fuelling and adjust the mapping to get a very zippy and fun car to drive indeed.

The nice correlating boost and rpm characteristics of the supercharger make them easier to map compared with adding on a turbo kit.

Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

The benefits of alloys include reducing your unsprung weight and more efficient brake cooling via the extra air flow they allow. Large Viva alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your final drive ratio.

Due to this fact try to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the same as supplied from the factory. In all cases without going larger than 16 inches.

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