Modding tuning and best performance upgrades on the Hyundai Omega engine!

Tuning guide "Omega Modifications"

How to modify and upgrade the Hyundai Omega

"Comprehensive guide to tuning the Hyundai Omega engine!"

TorqueCars are always getting emails about how to improve the Omega from people inquiring about getting more power from the Omega and wanting to know what are the best Omega mods that work. So let us look into Hyundai Omega upgrades and outline the best upgrades on this great engine and point out some potential pitfalls along the way.

Now we will provide a guide to Omega tuning and point out the greatest mods that work. Hyundai Omega are fantastic to work on and with the right performance tuning mods like remaps, turbo improvements and camshafts you will definitely maximise your driving pleasure.

When talking about the top parts for your Omega engine, we are going to focus on the parts that give the best power gain for you spend.

Omega induction kits

Improving air intake on the Omega

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 not enough air it runs rich sapping power which risks damage to the Omega. We'll pick up on fuelling later in this article but for now we shall look at air supply.

So the primary aim to any car tuning project to pull fuel and air into the Omega engine but this has a knock on effect with the air flow sensor.

It is common that there's a limitation in the air flow sensor MAP/MAF/AFM on the Omega 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 power at a much lower level.

Engine intake manifolds carry the during the engines suck phase from the air cleaner and allow it to be sucked into the engine cylinders with fuel for the squish phase.

Structure and flow rate of the Intake can make a large change to fuel delivery on the Omega.

I usually find intake headers are in dire need of aftermarket tuning parts, although a few OEM provide reasonably well designed intake headers.

Increasing the Omega valve size, carrying out port matching and head flowing will also improve torque, and as an added benefit will allow you to get a better torque increase on other tuning mods.

Omega performance cam tips.

Each engine responds better to different cam durations so view each engine as unique.

The ECU mapping and fuelling also will say much on the bhp gains you'll make.

A longer valve duration 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.

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

NB: Fast road camshafts tend to bump the bhp through the rev range, you may sacrifice a little low down power but top end will improve.

Race camshafts, bump the top end band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

A Race cam will just annoy you whilst driving around busy urban areas.

You should ideally match your power band to your typical driving style so for a daily driver stick with a shorter duration Omega cam

Stage 1, 2 and 3 mods for the Omega

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 Omega parts:

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

Stage 2 Omega parts:

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

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

Stage 3 Omega parts:

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

Review your options and then acquire your tuning mods and set yourself a power target to avoid disappointment.

Remapping allows a tuner to to establish the full potential of all the modifications you've done to your Omega.

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 power output usually vary depending on the modifications you've carried out and the condition of your engine.

Turbo modifications on the Omega

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 Omega.

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.

When an engine has forced induction tuning mods are giving better power gains and you'll see that turbocharged engines are made using stronger components.

There are tuning limits for every engine, with some being incredibly solid and some only able to handle stock power

Discover these limitations and install stronger pistons, crank and engine components to cope with the power.

There are many people spending a a stack of money on turbo upgrades on the Omega only to have the car literally blow up when it's been finished.

Bigger turbo chargers commonly experience no power at low rpm, and little turbo chargers spool up more quickly but do not have the high rpm torque gains.

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

Twin scroll turbo chargers divert the exhaust gases into two channels and feed these at differently angled vanes in the turbo charger. 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 configure. We have this article on twincharging if you want to read more.

Tips about fuel supply on the Omega

When you improve the performance you will need to uprate to the fuelling.

More performance needs more fuel. We would recommend you to over specify your injectors flow rate.

The rule of thumb is to add 20% when specifying an injector, helps cope with 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 Omega performance exhaust upgrades

We'd only recommend you look to replace your exhaust system with an upgraded one is if the existing exhaust is actually causing a restriction in flow.

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

Note that with the widest exhaust you can find this will slow up the exhaust flow rate - the best 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.

The usual suspects causing problems in your exhaust flow rate come around the catalyst installed, so adding a better flowing sports alternative will help avoid this restriction.

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

Faults issues and things to look out for on the Omega

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

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