Modding upgrading and tuning the Mitsubishi 6A13 engine!

Tuners tips on "6A13 Modifications"

How to modify and upgrade the Mitsubishi 6A13

"Comprehensive guide to tuning the Mitsubishi 6A13 engine!"

Popular tuning sites like TorqueCars often are getting emails requesting info on how to improve the 6A13 from people wanting to know what are the ultimate 6A13 power upgrades. So let us look into Mitsubishi 6A13 upgrades and outline the best upgrades on this great engine and point out some potential pitfalls along the way.

Let us provide a guide to 6A13 tuning and show the optimum modifications for your car. Mitsubishi 6A13 make a good tuning project and with the right sports mods like a remap, turbo upgrades and camshafts you will positively maximise your driving opportunities.

When talking about the best parts for your 6A13 engine, we are going to concentrate on the upgrades that give the best value for money.

6A13 induction kits

Improving air intake on the 6A13

You need air matched to fuel for an engine to work. If there is insufficient fuel then it will run lean, if there is insufficient air it runs rich losing 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 Pulling air and fuel into each cylinder is the whole point to any tuning job.

It is not unusual that there's a limitation in the air flow sensor (AFM/MAF/MAP) on the 6A13 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 limited bhp and torque at a much lower level.

Intake manifolds take the air from the intake filter and allow it to be drawn into the engine and mixed with fuel.

Structure and flow rate of the Intake can make a large difference to to fuel atomisation on the 6A13.

I usually find plenum chambers are needing an upgrade, although some car makers provide fairly well optimized plenum chambers.

Fitting big valve kits, carrying out port work and head flowing will also improve bhp and torque, and more importantly will make space for a greater bhp and torque increase on other tuning mods.

6A13 performance cam tips.

Different 6A13 engines respond better to different camshaft durations check your engine on a rolling road.

The engine timing and injectors and fuel pump also have a large bearing on the torque gains you'll make.

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 & exhaust durations will alter depending on the chosen camshaft profile, so large engines power gains are on offer for camshaft upgrades.

NB: Fast road cams tend to push up the power over the rpm band, you could sacrifice a little low down torque but higher rpm power will be lifted.

Race cams, push up the higher rpm power band but as a result the car will not idle smoothly and low end power nearly always suffers.

A Competition camshaft won't do well if driving around busy urban areas.

You should ideally match your torque band to your cars usage so for a car used daily stick with a shorter duration 6A13 camshaft

Stage 1, 2 and 3 mods for the 6A13

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 6A13 parts:

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

Stage 2 6A13 parts:

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

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

Stage 3 6A13 parts:

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

Review your options and then buy your tuning parts and set yourself a power target to avoid costly mistakes.

Remapping allows a tuner to fully realize the full potential of all the mods you've done to your 6A13.

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 will vary depending on the mods you've carried out and the condition of your engine.

Turbo modifications on the 6A13

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 6A13.

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 a car is fitted with a turbocharger modifications are more reliable and most turbocharged engines are built using many forged and stronger components.

There are common areas of failure for every engine, with some being extremely strong and some just sufficiently able to handle stock power

We recommend you find these restrictions and upgrade to higher quality components to survive the power.

It's not unheard of drivers spending a lots of money on turbo upgrades on the 6A13 only to suffer the indignity of watching the motor throw a rod just after it's been enthusiastically driven.

Big upgraded turbos tend to experience a bottom end lag, and smaller turbos spool up really quickly but do not have the top end power band gains.

Thanks to new tech the choice of turbo units is always developing and we commonly find variable vane turbo units, where the vane angle is altered according to speed to lower lag and increase top end bhp.

Twin scroll turbo units divert the exhaust flow into 2 channels and direct these at differently profiled 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 torque gains, although more difficult to get working. We have this article covering twinchargers if you want to read more.

Tips about fuel supply on the 6A13

You will need to ensure that the engine is not starved of fuel so will have to uprate the fuelling when you start going beyond 20% of a bhp hike. We would recommend you to be generous with your flow rate on the injectors.

As a rule of thumb add 20% capacity when buying an injector, which takes into account injector deterioration and allows 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 6A13 performance exhaust upgrades

The only time you should look to improve your exhaust system with an upgraded one is if your current exhaust is actually causing a restriction.

On most factory exhausts you'll see the flow rate is ok 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 equal out the flow of air through the engine.

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

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

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

Faults issues and things to look out for on the 6A13

Like most engines an 6A13, 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 6A13, failure to do this will exacerbate engine wear, on a tuned 6A13 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 6A13 why not pop over to the forums at TorqueCars where you can chat about 6A13 tuning options and read about others projects who may be planning to do similar modifications on their 6A13.

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