Everything You Need To Know About "VW Lupo Tuning"

As the Polo improved and got bigger VW saw a need to develop a new small car. The Lupo was born and became VW's city car.

The Lupo has a great range of engines and a very good chassis making it ideal for a tuning project. It only had a short 6 year lifespan but was quite popular and won a few notable car awards.

So onto our Lupo tuning tips:-
The 1.0 engines are really a waste of time when it comes to tuning them as they are really built for economy and nothing else. 

If you have a 1.0 Lupo instead of spending money on performance parts you could do an engine swap and get a 50% power hike. Car Tuning Tips would focus on improving the handling and braking of these smaller engined models with some fully adjustable suspension and a drop of 35mm. 

This will create a fun car that is good in the corners and an anti roll bar and strut brace will really tighten things up for you. We always recommend that you get fully adjustable suspension kits so you can set this up to suit your driving style

The 1.6 is a lovely engine and the Lupo GTi is a real fun car. You will need some major work doing to it if you are after a good power gain but as the car is small and light you will notice pretty much every mod you do. Ideally you should investigate the following Lupo mods:- larger valves, get the a 3 angle valve job done and get the head fully ported and polished. Increasing the compression of this engine will further maximise your power gains but don't go too mad with this or you risk detonation and knock. Blueprinting and balancing the engine will allow you to fully exploit the top end power of this engine and this will help to raise the rev limit - ideal if you are after a light track day car.

Other modifications you should consider for your Lupo engine. Fast road cams, air intake and sports exhaust & port matching.

For the power mad you always have the option of fitting a supercharger or turbo and we are sure there are a few kits around for the Lupo. Another option you may consider is adding nitrous injection kits, this alone can add 50bhp more power to your engine but we at Car Tuning Tips would suggest you stick with a modest 25bhp power gain.

What other modifications?
Brake upgrades are popular. We have seen some Lupo owners using the larger brakes from the sportier Polo and later Fox models. We suggest you check the offset and clearance behind your alloys before purchasing a much larger brake kit.

If you are lowering your Lupo then stick with a drop of 20-35mm. You will find that the sporty GTi models already have a good suspension setup so this may prove a useful alternative option for the 1.4 engined Lupos.

Further reading.
We suggest that if you want a bit more information on Lupo Tuning you consult the following sources. TorqueCars have a comprehensive  Lupo tuning article and also a very active, friendly and helpful VW forum.

If you have any tips to pass on please use our comments box below and we will update this article, after all we are all here to share knowledge. Please also let us know if we've missed out an engine or performance mod that you feel should be included in here.

This entry was posted under Makes and Models. Tags: lupo, volkswagen, vw
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