Find out about "TD42 Modifications"

How to modify and upgrade the Nissan TD42

"Comprehensive guide to tuning the Nissan TD42 engine!"

TorqueCars often are seeing threads requesting information on how to improve the TD42 from people inquiring about getting more power from the TD42 and wanting to know what are the greatest TD42 power upgrades. So let us look into Nissan TD42 tuning mods and outline the best mods that work on this great engine and point out some problems along the way.

The Nissan TD42 are good project engines and with the optimum sports mods like a remap, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will greatly enhance your driving fun.

Car Tuning Tips will examine the options for your TD42 tuning and show the best modifications.

When talking about the ultimate parts for your TD42 engine, we are going to focus on the modifications that give the biggest return for your cash.

Improving air intake on the TD42

You need fuel and air for an engine to work. If there is little supply of fuel then it will run lean, if there is a lack of 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 it's important to any tuning project to pull fuel and air into the TD42 engine but this has a knock on effect with the air flow sensor.

It is not unusual that there is a limitation in the air flow sensor (AFM/MAF/MAP) on the TD42 when a lot more air is being drawn into the engine.

We see 4 bar air sensors coping with quite large power gains, whereas the OEM air sensor sapped torque at a much lower level.

Air Intake manifolds carry the on the suck phase from the air filter and allow it to be drawn into the engine cylinders with fuel for the squish phase.

The shape and flow rate of the Intake headers can make a noticeable improvement to fuel engine efficiency on the TD42.

Many mass produced engine intake headers are begging for aftermarket tuning parts, although some manufacturers provide fairly well optimized intake headers.

Adding a TD42 larger valve kit, getting 3 or 5 angle valve jobs and porting and head flowing will also increase power, & importantly will permit a greater power increase on other tuning mods.

TD42 performance cam tips.

Each engine responds better to different cam durations check your engine on a rolling road.

The engine timing and injectors and fuel pump also have an effect on the power gains you'll achieve.

A longer valve duration can alter the power 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.

The camshaft profile plays a big part in the engines power output so camshaft upgrades make quite a large difference. The intake & exhaust durations will alter depending on the chosen camshaft profile, so large torque gains are on offer for camshaft upgrades.

NB: Fast road cams tend to raise the power through the rpm range, you may sacrifice a little low down torque but your higher rpm power will be higher.

Motorsport and 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.

For a car used daily you should ideally to optimize your power band to your typical driving style.

You will never have found a TD42 Competition cam is a pleasure to live with when on the daily commute.

Stage 1, 2 and 3 mods for the TD42

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 TD42 parts:

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

Stage 2 TD42 parts:

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

Stage 3 TD42 parts:

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

ECU mapping will help release the full potential of all the upgrades you've done to your TD42.

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 the end result usually rely on the upgrades you've applied and the condition of your engine.

Turbo modifications on the TD42

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 TD42.

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 is turbo charged upgrades are more reliable and we find turbocharged engines are built with better components.

There are weak spots for every engine, with some being very over engineered and some just sufficiently able to handle stock power

We recommend you find these restrictions and install stronger pistons, crank and engine components to handle the power.

We've seen people spending a lot of money on turbo upgrades on the TD42 only to see the engine catastrophically fail soon after it's used in anger.

Larger turbochargers commonly suffer a bottom end lag, and small turbochargers spool up quickly but don't have the top end engines power gains.

Thanks to progress the world of turbochargers is always evolving and we commonly find variable vane turbochargers, where the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end bhp and torque.

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

Beefing up the air intake by adding a supercharger or additional turbo will help you achieve very large bhp gains, although harder to get working. We have this in depth look at twinchargers if you want to read more.

Tips about fuel supply on the TD42

Don't miss you'll need to raise the fuel delivery when you are increasing the bhp and torque - it makes the car more thirsty. We would recommend you to be generous with your injectors flow rate.

The rule of thumb is to add another 20% when specifying an injector, this allows for injector deterioration and allows 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 TD42 performance exhaust upgrades

You may need to uprate your exhaust system with an upgraded one is if your exhaust is creating a restriction.

On most factory exhausts you'll find your 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.

Do not go with the largest exhaust you can source this will reduce the exhaust flow rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between one and a half to two and half inches. Your exhaust design, the bend angles and construction are what have more effect on flow rates than your pipe width to a certain extent. So the exhaust design is a big factor.

Usual exhaust restrictions come around the catalysts installed, so adding a higher flowing high performance alternative will help avoid this restriction.

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

Faults issues and things to look out for on the TD42

Like most engines an TD42, 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 TD42, failure to do this will exacerbate engine wear, on a tuned TD42 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 TD42 why not pop over to the forums at TorqueCars where you can chat about TD42 tuning options and read about others projects who may be planning to do similar modifications on their TD42.

We need your help to complete and improve this page, so do give us your feedback in the comments box below.

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