Tuners tips on "F16D3 Modifications"

F16D3 Modifications Guide

How to modify and upgrade the Chevrolet F16D3

"Comprehensive guide to tuning the Chevrolet F16D3 engine!"

Popular tuning sites like TorqueCars often are getting messages about how to improve the F16D3 from people wanting to know what are the best tips on F16D3 power upgrades. So let us look into Chevrolet F16D3 tuning mods and outline the best modifications on this great engine and point out some frequent tuning mistakes along the way.

We shall detail the best approach to F16D3 tuning and report on the ultimate mods that work. Chevrolet F16D3 are awesome to work on and with the best sports upgrades like ECU maps, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will dramatically increase your driving experience.

When talking about the top parts for your F16D3 engine, we are going to focus on the ones that give the best value for money.

Improving air intake on the F16D3

You need air and fuel for an engine to work. If there is too little 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 Forcing more air into the F16D3 engine is the whole point to any car tuning project.

You'll commonly see there's a limit in the air flow sensor MAP/MAF/AFM on the F16D3 when a lot more air is being sucked into the engine.

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

Intake manifolds flow the air from the intake filter and allow it to be drawn into the engine cylinders.

The size of bore and shape and flow characteristics of the Plenum can make a substantial difference to to fuel atomisation and engine efficiency on the F16D3.

It's not uncommon that air intake manifolds are ripe for an upgrade, although some OEM provide decently flowing air intake manifolds.

Larger F16D3 valves, doing some port work and head flowing will also lift power, and as an added benefit will permit raising the power increase on other modifications.

F16D3 performance cam tips.

Some F16D3 engines respond better to more aggressive cam durations check your engine on a rolling road.

The ECU mapping and fuelling also will say much 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.

Significant air intake, and exhaust improvements on the F16D3 can be made from camshaft upgrades. Changing the camshaft profile alters the intake and exhaust durations on the engine and can dramatically change the bhp and power output.

NB: Fast road camshafts usually boost the bhp and torque across the rpm range, you could drop a little low end torque but higher rpm power will be higher.

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

A Motorsport camshaft will just annoy you whilst on the daily commute.

You should ideally optimize your bhp range to your cars usage so for a daily driver stick with a shorter duration F16D3 camshaft

Stage 1, 2 and 3 mods for the F16D3

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 F16D3 parts:

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

Stage 2 F16D3 parts:

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

Stage 3 F16D3 parts:

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

A remap should help to fully realize the full potential of all the upgrades you've done to your F16D3.

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 outcome often rely on the upgrades you've applied and the condition of your engine.

Turbo modifications on the F16D3

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 F16D3.

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

If the engine is fitted with a turbo parts are going to net you a larger power gain and you'll see that turbo charged engines are built using uprated components.

However every engines will have power limits

See where you'll find these limits and fit higher quality crank and pistons to survive the power.

We see many guys spending a a stack of money on turbo upgrades on the F16D3 only to suffer the indignity of watching the engine go up in smoke when it's been finished.

Large upgraded turbochargers often suffer low end lag, and smaller turbochargers spool up really quickly but won't have the top end power band gains.

We are pleased that the choice of turbo chargers is always increasing and we now see variable vane turbo chargers, allowing the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end bhp.

Twin scroll turbo chargers divert the exhaust flow into 2 channels and flow these at differently profiled vanes in the turbo charger. They also help the scavenging effect of the engine.

Beefing up the air intake by adding a supercharger or additional turbo will help you achieve very large performance gains, although more complex to get working. We have this article covering twinchargers if you want to read more.

Tips about fuel supply on the F16D3

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so should ramp up the fuelling when you start extending past 20% of a bhp hike. We strongly recommend you to be generous with your injector capacity.

The rule of thumb is to add 20% when specifying an injector, which takes into account injector deterioration and affords a bit of spare capacity should the engine need 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 F16D3 performance exhaust upgrades

You should look to uprate your exhaust system with an upgraded one is if the current exhaust is actually causing a restriction.

On most factory exhausts you'll see your flow rate is fine 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 gases through the engine.

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

The usual suspects causing problems in your exhaust flow rate are in the filters 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 F16D3

Like most engines an F16D3, 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 F16D3, failure to do this will exacerbate engine wear, on a tuned F16D3 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 F16D3 why not pop over to the forums at TorqueCars where you can chat about F16D3 tuning options and read about others projects who may be planning to do similar modifications on their F16D3.

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