Everything You Need To Know About "HR10DDT Modifications"

How to modify and upgrade the Nissan HR10DDT

"Comprehensive guide to tuning and performance parts on the Nissan HR10DDT engine!"

Forums like the one at TorqueCars are regularly getting emails asking about how to improve the HR10DDT from people wanting to know what are the things tuners are recommending when it comes to HR10DDT power upgrades. So let us look into Nissan HR10DDT upgrades and outline the best mods that work on this great engine and point out some common pitfalls along the way.

The Nissan HR10DDT provide a fun base for your project and with the ultimate performance upgrades like remaps, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will definitely enhance your driving experience.

This pages aim is detail the best approach to HR10DDT tuning and highlight the best modifications for your car.

When talking about the greatest parts for your HR10DDT engine, we are going to focus on the upgrades that give the best power gain for you money.

Improving air intake on the HR10DDT

You need air matched to fuel for an engine to work. If there is little supply of fuel then it will run lean, if there is too little air it runs rich losing power which risks damage to the HR10DDT. We'll pick up on fuelling later in this article but for now we shall look at air supply.

So Forcing air into your HR10DDT is the aim to any engine modification project.

It is not unusual that there is a restriction in the air flow sensor AFM/MAP on the HR10DDT 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 carry the during the engines suck phase from the air filter and allow it to be pulled into the engine cylinders with fuel for the squish phase.

The size of bore and shape and flow rate of the Intake can make a noticeable improvement to fuel atomisation on the HR10DDT.

I usually find intake manifold are in desperate need of an upgrade, although some makers provide fairly well optimized intake manifold.

Big valve conversions on the HR10DDT, carrying out 3 or 5 angle valve jobs and porting and head flowing will also increase torque, the fantastic side effect is it will allow you to get a greater torque increase on other modifications.

HR10DDT performance cam tips.

Different HR10DDT engines respond better to extreme camshaft durations so set your engine up on a rolling road.

The ecu map and fuelling also will make differences on the bhp gains you'll achieve.

Altering valve durations can alter the bhp 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 HR10DDT camshaft will make a dramatic difference to the engine bhp. Choosing a higher performance camshaft profile raises the bhp accordingly.

NB: Fast road cams normally boost the power throughout the rpm band, you may sacrifice a little low end bhp but your higher rpm power will be lifted.

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

For a road car you need to match your torque band to your cars usage.

I'd be amazed if you have ever thought a HR10DDT Race camshaft is a pleasure to live with when driving in heavy traffic.

Stage 1, 2 and 3 mods for the HR10DDT

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 HR10DDT parts:

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

Stage 2 HR10DDT parts:

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

Stage 3 HR10DDT parts:

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

Remapping helps fully realize the full potential of all the parts you've done to your HR10DDT.

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 often differs on the parts you've applied and the condition of your engine.

Turbo modifications on the HR10DDT

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 HR10DDT.

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

When the engine has a turbocharger mods are going to make more power and you'll see that turbo charged engines are made with harder and stronger components.

There are common areas of failure for every engine, with some being very over engineered and some just sufficiently able to handle stock power

Research these restrictions and install stronger pistons, crank and engine components to survive the power.

There are many people spending a lot of money on turbo upgrades on the HR10DDT only to experience the engine block throw a rod soon after it's been enthusiastically driven.

Big turbo chargers tend to experience no power at low rpm, and small turbo chargers spool up much more quickly but don't have the peak end power band gains.

Thanks to progress the range of turbochargers is always developing and we are seeing variable vane turbochargers, allowing the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end power.

Twin scroll turbochargers divert the exhaust gases into two channels and feed these at differently angled vanes in the turbocharger. 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 power gains, although harder to setup. We have this feature on twinchargers if you want to read more.

Tips about fuel supply on the HR10DDT

Don't dismiss the need increase the fuel system when you are increasing the bhp and torque - it makes the car more thirsty. Don't forget to over specify your injector capacity.

As a rule of thumb add 15% capacity when fitting an injector, this accounts for injector deterioration and affords you some 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 HR10DDT performance exhaust upgrades

You only need to to boost your exhaust system with an upgraded one is if your current exhaust is creating a flow problem.

On most factory exhausts you'll find your flow rate is ok 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 increase the flow of air through the engine.

But if your exhaust pipe is too big, ie: it's over two and a half inches diameter, you will lose much of the exhaust flow rate and end up lacking power and torque.

Typically exhaust restrictions can be traced to the filters installed, so adding a freer flowing sports alternative will help avoid this restriction.

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

Faults issues and things to look out for on the HR10DDT

Like most engines an HR10DDT, 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 HR10DDT, failure to do this will exacerbate engine wear, on a tuned HR10DDT 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 HR10DDT why not pop over to the forums at TorqueCars where you can chat about HR10DDT tuning options and read about others projects who may be planning to do similar modifications on their HR10DDT.

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