torque is directly proportional to cylinder fill, so making it easier for air to enter the engine will increase torque, headwork, cams, throttle bodies, it all adds up. if you could completely fill a cylinder with air and fuel, i.e 100% volumetric efficiency, you would reach a pinnacle of 100lbf-ft per litre. it is possible to get slightly more than 100% on an N/a engine but its well outside the realms of a fast road tuner. as already stated, the only way to significantly increase torque is to physically make the cylidners bigger, or cheat by super or turbo charging or using some chemical agent to increase cylinder oxygen content (nitrous)
a vr6 would be a cheaper option than throttle bodies etc if you want torque then more capacity or a blower are the only ways to significantly increase it. RobTs engine with all the right gear on it throttle bodies etc makes 20lb/ft more than a stock ABF, a big difference, however a turbo will make 100lb/ft more, bigger difference
Hmmm, I'm reckoning a turbo is the way to go, how much work/cost is involved in fitting a turbo to my ABF engine?
hit the nail on the head, gotta work out what you want and see if you can afford it if not is there another car in your budjet that has the performance you are looking for, sell up and buy a mk2 vr6 should cost you about the same,
or come to terms with the fact that you can get more performance by making it rev better - rather than asking for more low end torque. a decent gas flowed head, some cams (and a remap?) should see you up near 200bhp without losing any of the toque you already have. look at the plot for Matt D's car on GVK's website here. i know his is k-jet, but you should be able to get the same (if not more) from digi. Edited by: GTI
GTI fair point but add up cost of head, cams and remap and you would have spent 1k easily. sell it and buy a vr6, or buy an ABF/vr6 engined mk2 sorry if that is a bit extreme just trying to avoid you spending loads of money and not being happy
You can see why I sing the praises of my low technology 2L 8v... 155BHP/153lbs/ft makes it feel very lively low down! & will match for a mk3 16v on the road no problem. I dont see how you are ever going to seriously improve low down torque on a 16v n/a car without a longer stroke/TBs or forced induction! The whole characteristics of the engine are that it needs big revs to work effectively. The only thing would be a Diesel 95.5mm crank... This would up the capacity to 2050ish & give more torque. Less inclined to rev at the top end though..
Ahh well, I shall just have to make do for now, just until that money tree at the end of my garden matures...
You could sell it and buy a Seat Cupra 16v, as they're quite a bit quicker than the Mk3 16v due to the lower weight (they get going A LOT more in the lower RPM range as there's less weight for the torque to have to get in motion), plus you get all the up-to-date goodies, unlike the Mk2...Or if you wanna keep your car, it's never going to be really torquey - maybe you've bought the wrong sort of car for what you want? You might be a "turbo-man"?? Go drive some turbo cars and see if they tickle your fancy.
I've passenger'ed in my friends Seat Ibiza Cupra 1.8T and was really keen on that, until he told me how much he paid for it...
Yeah, it's a bit like that, hey Go drive the 16v Ibiza - I reckon you'll be surprised; it stops, handles and goes quicker
I found my kr`s a lot more drivable with just a set of cams, power comes in earlier (3k), deffinite improvement for little money (150 off ebay!). Gained 10bhp and 5lbft.
