Car tuning tips:Campro Modifications"

How to modify and upgrade the Proton Campro

"Comprehensive guide to performance parts and tuning the Proton Campro engine!"

Our friends at TorqueCars are regularly getting messages asking how to improve the Campro from people inquiring about getting more power from the Campro and wanting to know what are the greatest Campro power upgrades. So let us look into Proton Campro upgrades and outline the best upgrades on this great engine and point out some problems along the way.

The Proton Campro are fantastic to work on and with the best sports upgrades like ECU maps, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will maximize your driving experience.

We shall look into Campro tuning and point out the greatest upgrades.

Just because particular tuning parts are popular with Campro owners it doesn't mean it is good, we will focus on the top tuning parts that will give your Campro the best power gain for you spend.

Without us subscribing to the popular myth of 'if it's shiny and makes more noise it must be good' you seem to get in many tuning magazines and on car forums'.

Improving air intake on the Campro

You need fuel and air for an engine to work. If there is insufficient fuel then it will run lean, if there is too little air it runs rich resulting in lost 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 modification task to pull air into each cylinder but this has a knock on effect with the air flow sensor.

You'll commonly see there's a limitation in the air flow sensor MAP/MAF/AFM on the Campro when loads more air is being fed into the engine.

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

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

The size of bore and shape and rate of flow of the Intake headers can make a noticeable change to fuel delivery on the Campro.

On popular production engines intake headers are in desperate need of an upgrade, although a few makers provide decently flowing intake headers.

Increasing the Campro valve size, doing some Campro port enlargement and head flowing will also boost power, and more importantly will permit raising the power increase on other upgrades.

Campro performance cam tips.

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

The map and injectors and fuel pump also will make differences on the torque gains you'll hit.

Altering valve durations 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.

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

NB: Fast road cams normally increase the performance over the rpm band, you might lose a little bottom end bhp but higher rpm power will be lifted.

Motorsport and race cams, increase 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 won't do well if driving around busy urban areas.

You should ideally match your torque band to your driving style so for a road car stick with a mild fast road Campro cam

Stage 1, 2 and 3 mods for the Campro

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 Campro parts:

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

Stage 2 Campro parts:

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

Stage 3 Campro parts:

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

Mapping allows a tuner to unlock the full potential of all the tuning parts you've done to your Campro.

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 figures achieved usually depend much on the tuning parts you've fitted and the condition of your engine.

Turbo modifications on the Campro

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 Campro.

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.

If your motor is turbo charged parts are simpler to install and you will discover turbo charged engines use harder and stronger components.

There are tuning limits for every engine, with some being extremely strong and some just sufficiently able to handle stock power

We recommend you find these limits and install higher quality crank and pistons to survive the power.

There are many drivers spending a lots of money on turbo upgrades on the Campro only to watch the whole thing go up in smoke soon after it's been completed.

Large upgraded turbochargers commonly suffer low end lag, and low capacity turbochargers spool up much more quickly but won't have the peak rpm power band gains.

In the last 10 years the selection of turbos is always increasing and we are seeing variable vane turbos, permitting the vane profile is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end power.

Twin scroll turbos divert the exhaust gases into two channels and feed these at differently designed vanes in the turbocharger. 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 torque gains, although more complex to install. We have this guide to twinchargers if you want to read more.

Tips about fuel supply on the Campro

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so must look at the fuelling when you start exceeding 20% of a bhp and torque hike. Most tuners we speak with say to over specify your injectors flow rate.

As a rule of thumb add 20% when specifying an injector, which takes into account injector deterioration and allows 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 Campro performance exhaust upgrades

We'd only recommend you look to improve your exhaust system with an upgraded one is if your current exhaust is actually creating a restriction in flow.

On most factory exhausts you'll find the flow rate is still 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.

Please dont run with the widest exhaust you can find you'll slow up 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.

Typically exhaust restrictions can be located the emissions filters installed, so adding a higher flowing 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 Campro

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

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