Explore YD22DDT Modifications"

How to modify and upgrade the Nissan YD22DDT

"Comprehensive guide to tuning and performance parts on the Nissan YD22DDT engine!"

Sites like TorqueCars are regularly getting messages asking how to improve the YD22DDT from people inquiring about getting more power from the YD22DDT and wanting to know what are the best tips for YD22DDT upgrades. So let us look into Nissan YD22DDT upgrades and outline the best mods that work on this great engine and point out some frequent tuning mistakes along the way.

The Nissan YD22DDT make a good tuning project and with carefully chosen motorsport mods like ECU maps, turbo kits and camshafts you will really maximise your driving enjoyment.

Let us detail the best approach to YD22DDT tuning and show the best modifications for your car.

When talking about the top parts for your YD22DDT engine, we are going to focus on the upgrades that give the best power gain for you money.

Improving air intake on the YD22DDT

You need air and fuel for an engine to work. If there is insufficient fuel then it will run lean, if there is insufficient air it runs rich sapping power . We'll pick up on fuelling later in this article but for now we shall look at air supply.

So the fundamental goal to any engine upgrade job to feed more air into your YD22DDT but this has a knock on effect with the air flow sensor.

It is not unusual that there's a restriction in the air flow sensor AFM/MAP on the YD22DDT when loads more air is being sucked into the engine.

You'll see that 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor was restricting power at a much lower level.

The intake plenum flow the air from the air filter and allow it to be fed into the engine cylinders with fuel for the squish phase.

The shape and flow characteristics of the Intake headers can make a large improvement to fuel delivery on the YD22DDT.

We often see air intake manifolds are improved through motorsport parts, although some manufacturers provide reasonably good air intake manifolds.

Fitting big valve kits, doing a bit of YD22DDT port enlargement and head flowing will also increase bhp, and significantly will raise potential for increasing the bhp increase on other upgrades.

YD22DDT performance cam tips.

Each engine responds better to mild cam durations than others.

The ecu map and fuel pump and injectors also will say much on the torque gains you'll achieve.

A longer valve duration can alter the torque band and on most engines the exhaust and intake durations do not need to match, although most cams and tuners use matched pairs there are some advantages to extending the intake or exhaust durations.

Altering your YD22DDT cam will make a dramatic difference to the engine bhp. Choosing a higher performance cam profile raises the bhp accordingly.

NB: Fast road cams tend to raise the torque across the rpm band, you could sacrifice a little low end torque but the higher rpm power will be lifted.

Race cams, raise the higher rpm power band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

A Race cam is not great driving around busy urban areas.

You should ideally match your torque band to your preferences so for a road car stick with a shorter duration YD22DDT cam

Stage 1, 2 and 3 mods for the YD22DDT

Before we break the best tuning upgrades down into stages of tune, let's list the most effective tuning upgrades for you.

1. Suspension Upgrades - always improve your cars handling
2. Brake Upgrades - Even before adding power improve those brakes
3. Intake - make sure the intake is not restricted, use filters and intake upgrades to improve this
4. Exhaust - as with 3 ensure there is not restriction in the exhaust, cats are the usual bottleneck
5. Tunes - remapping, piggyback ECU's and aftermarket ECU's can all make decent gains
6. Fuelling - when you've increased power you'll need to match this with more fuel
7. Turbo upgrades - Improving the intake with a large turbo and better flowing intercooler will be the biggest power gain you'll see (but one of the most complex).

This video guide to tuning cars is a great starting point to work from in your project.

Stage 1 YD22DDT parts:

Sports exhaust manifold, Panel air filters, Intake headers, Drilled & smoothed airbox, Fast road camshaft, Remaps/piggy back ECU.

Stage 2 YD22DDT parts:

Sports catalyst & performance exhaust, fuel pump upgrades, Fast road cam, induction kit, high flow fuel injectors, Ported and polished head.

Stage 3 YD22DDT parts:

Internal engine upgrades (head flowing porting/bigger valves), Engine balancing & blueprinting, Twin charging conversions, Crank and Piston upgrades to alter compression, Competition cam, Adding or Upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger).

Mapping should help to release the full potential of all the upgrades you've done to your YD22DDT.

You will typically expect to see gains of approximately 20-30% more power on turbocharged vehicles and you can expect to see around 15% on NASP engines, but your mileage usually depend much on the upgrades you've applied and the condition of your engine.

Turbo modifications on the YD22DDT

To get a turbo working on a NASP engine there is a lot involved, from lowering compression ratio to improved fuel supply and mapping, so we have found a great guide to helpavoid the common pitfalls or end up with an unfinished project because you were not told what you were getting into by doing this on the YD22DDT.

The more air you can get into an engine, the more fuel it can burn and uprating the induction with a turbocharger upgrade makes massive power gains.

If a car is turbo charged mods are relatively easy and you will discover turbocharged engines use more solid components.

There are weak spots for every engine, with some being incredibly solid and some just sufficiently able to handle stock power

We recommend you find these restrictions and fit higher quality crank and pistons to handle the power.

There are many people spending a loads on turbo charger upgrades on the YD22DDT only to suffer the indignity of watching the YD22DDT literally blow up just after it's used on the roads.

Larger turbo units often experience a bottom end lag, and little turbo units spool up really quickly but don't have the peak rpm torque gains.

Over the last 20 years the selection of turbochargers is always evolving and we commonly find variable vane turbochargers, allowing the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end performance.

Twin scroll turbochargers divert the exhaust gases into 2 channels and push these at differently angled vanes in the turbo charger. They also increase the scavenging effect of the engine.

Beefing up the air intake by adding a supercharger or additional turbo will help you achieve very large torque gains, although more complex to configure. We have this feature on twinchargers if you want to read more.

Tips about fuel supply on the YD22DDT

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so need to increase the fuelling when you start going beyond 20% of a bhp and torque hike. Most tuners we speak with say to be generous with your injector capacity.

The rule of thumb is to add 15% to the flow rate when buying an injector, which takes into account injector deterioration and gives a bit of spare capacity should the engine require more fuel.

Don't forget that different fuel grades will usually require different settings, a high octane fuel will burn more efficiently than lower octane fuel for example. A car will trim fuel supply to keep within the ideal air fuel mix but at the extreme ends you may need to adjust your injector capacity, or the mapping or you'll get flat spots and potential lean or rich fuel issues..

Recommended YD22DDT performance exhaust upgrades

Only look to replace your exhaust system with an upgraded one is if the existing exhaust is actually causing a restriction.

On most factory exhausts you should find that the flow rate is good even on modest power gains, but on a serious tuning project with a big boost in power you will certainly need to get a better flowing exhaust.

Sports exhausts can usually air flow through the engine but avoid an exhaust that is too big or you may end up will reduce the flow rate. Stick to one and a half to two and half inches for best results.

The usual suspects causing problems in your exhaust flow rate can be traced to the catalyst installed, so adding a better flowing sports alternative will help avoid this restriction.

Cat bypassing (NB:catalysts reduce harmful engine emissions) is illegal in most countries and regions.

Faults issues and things to look out for on the YD22DDT

Like most engines an YD22DDT, should have few issues if it gets properly serviced and looked after.

We cannot stress enough the need for oil changes with the correct grade of oil on the YD22DDT, failure to do this will exacerbate engine wear, on a tuned YD22DDT this is more important than ever and close attention should be paid to your maintenance schedule.

If you are interested in learning more or getting impartial tuning advice for your YD22DDT why not pop over to the forums at TorqueCars where you can chat about YD22DDT tuning options and read about others projects who may be planning to do similar modifications on their YD22DDT.

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This entry was posted under Makes and Models. Tags: engine, nissan
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