Modding upgrading and tuning the Nissan VE30DE engine!

Fully Explore "VE30DE Modifications"

How to modify and upgrade the Nissan VE30DE

"Comprehensive guide to performance parts and tuning the Nissan VE30DE engine!"

Sites like TorqueCars are always getting posts about how to improve the VE30DE from people wanting to know what are the optimum VE30DE mods that work. So let us look into Nissan VE30DE modifications and outline the best upgrades on this great engine and point out some common pitfalls along the way.

The Nissan VE30DE are good project engines and with carefully picked motorsport tuning mods like a remap, turbo kits and camshafts you will increase your driving pleasure.

This pages aim is review VE30DE tuning and outline the ultimate modifications.

The ultimate VE30DE upgrades on an engine are usually the ones that give the biggest return for your money.

We won't be swayed by popular VE30DE upgrades, they need to be cost effective.

VE30DE induction kits

Improving air intake on the VE30DE

You need fuel and air for an engine to work. If there is insufficient fuel then it will run lean, if there is not enough air it runs rich sapping power and potentially damaging the engine. 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 engine performance tuning task to feed more air and fuel into each cylinder but this has a knock on effect with the air flow sensor.

It is common that there is a limitation in the air flow sensor AFM/MAF on the VE30DE when considerably more air is being drawn into the engine.

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

Engines intake headers flow the air during the suck phase from the filter and allow it to be sucked into the engine cylinders.

The size of bore and shape and flow characteristics of the Air Intake manifolds can make a large change to fuel atomisation and engine efficiency on the VE30DE.

Many mass produced engine intake headers are in dire need of aftermarket tuning parts, although some car makers provide reasonably well designed intake headers.

Adding a VE30DE larger valve kit, doing some VE30DE port enlargement and head flowing will also raise torque, & importantly will make space for increasing the torque increase on other mods.

VE30DE performance cam tips.

Different VE30DE engines even from the same production line will vary with some working better on different setups or needing less aggressive camshaft durations, but porting and flowing the head should reduce the differences and give consistent results.

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

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

NB: Fast road cams usually increase the bhp and torque over the rpm range, you may sacrifice a little low end power but your top end will be lifted.

Competition cams, increase the top end band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

For a car used daily you need to optimize your engines power to your cars usage.

You will never find a VE30DE Competition camshaft is a pleasure to live with when in heavy traffic.

Stage 1, 2 and 3 mods for the VE30DE

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 VE30DE parts:

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

Tuning tips and articles Engine tuning Transmission tuning Care care Intake & exhaust mods Improve handling Forums

Stage 2 VE30DE parts:

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

Stage 3 VE30DE parts:

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

Plan your options and then find your upgrades and set yourself a power target to avoid wasting your time and money.

Remaps helps unlock the full potential of all the parts you've done to your VE30DE.

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 parts you've done and the condition of your engine.

Turbo modifications on the VE30DE

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 VE30DE.

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

If the engine has a turbo already fitted tuning mods are simpler to install and most turbo charged engines are made with more solid components.

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

It is important to find these limitations and upgrade to better quality crank and pistons to utilize the power.

There are many guys spending a fortune on turbo upgrades on the VE30DE only to watch the engine block literally blow up just after it's used in anger.

Large turbo units commonly experience low end lag, and little turbo units spool up much more quickly but won't have the top end torque gains.

Thanks to new tech the selection of turbo chargers is always moving on and we now see variable vane turbo chargers, permitting the vane angle is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end torque.

Twin scroll turbo chargers divert the exhaust gases into a couple of channels and feed these at differently designed vanes in the turbocharger. They also boost 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 and torque gains, although more challenging to get working. We have this feature on twinchargers if you want to read more.

Tips about fuel supply on the VE30DE

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

The rule of thumb is to add 15% capacity when specifying an injector, this takes into account injector deterioration and provides a little 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 VE30DE performance exhaust upgrades

You only need to to uprate your exhaust system with an upgraded one is if your exhaust is actually causing a restriction in flow.

On most factory exhausts you'll see 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 help balance the flow of gases through the engine.

But if your exhaust pipe is too big, ie: over two and a half inches diameter, you will lose a great deal of the exhaust flow rate and end up losing power and torque.

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

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

Faults issues and things to look out for on the VE30DE

Like most engines an VE30DE, 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 VE30DE, failure to do this will exacerbate engine wear, on a tuned VE30DE 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 VE30DE why not pop over to the forums at TorqueCars where you can chat about VE30DE tuning options and read about others projects who may be planning to do similar modifications on their VE30DE.

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