Diesel engines - increase performance?

Question

i have a slow car and want it to go a little faster.
will cheap modifications like air intake kits/electric superchargers have a noticable effect - as its a diesel.
any other ideas (other than get a new car)

Answer 1

Increased airflow is definitely a huge factor in improving performance. Diesels rely on hot air and compression to ignite the fuel. The best way to inprove air flow would be to add a diesel turbo charger. You can also replace your glow plugs, but that can be expensive. Brand new glow plugs will heat the air faster. At higher RPM's, that's necessary for performance. Another thing you can do is have a tranny service done. A little known fact is that older, more worn in transmisison produce a huge amount of resistance against the engine's power. This is especially true in newer(as in 1992+) hydraulic transmissions. The more parts, the more friction.

Just be sure you don't do anything to the exhaust system that's not professionally done. Diesels require an extra amount of backpressure to operate properly and healthy. If you want to remove the muffler, you'll have to replace it with a Glasspack system. At least that was the consensus a few years ago.

Answer 2

Glow plugs only heat the fuel to start the engine - they have no effect on performance, whatsoever! The best thing is to have the electronics, the ECU the Electronic Control Unit, which supervises the fuelling, remapped - this will be very very expensive and risky, if your car has not already been the subject of such a conversion by the likes of companies such as Superchips, or Detection Techniques try a yahoo search for either of those. You can have your idle speed raised, and possibly skim the head to increase compression a little, but the simple way to get a diesel running perkier is to turbocharge it - again, very expensive and risky, if the vehicle maker has not already done so, and that would mean a very involved transplant from a rear-ended donor-vehicle, changing the engine and probably much of the wiring. A lot of hassle, and expense.
Electric supercharger? That sounds gimmicky, the amount of air they would need to shift would be enormous - and the fuelling would still need riching up to give the correct fuel/air ratio. About all you can hope for is that one of your anonymous cars' make and model has already been 'chipped' by a company, and they can reprogram or replace your ECU.
Good luck!

Answer 3

To get more performance you need to get more air and fuel into the cylinder on each stroke. If just air is added without more fuel then the burn will simply become leaner and less efficient. More power could be generated by adding fuel because the Hydrogen in fuel burns in preference to the Carbon and released more energy. However the carbon remains unburnt and comes out as black smoke.

Assuming that your current filter is clean then an air intake kit or reduced resistance air filter will increase the air in the cylinder slightly but not the fuel so will make no difference.

An electronic supercharger, supercharger, turbo or inter-cooled turbo will increase the amount of air in the cylinder but not the fuel - so no more power. All of these will add load to the engine or alternator and actually reduce the power delivered to the road.

If you are going to add the supercharger kit or similar then you will need to get the fuel delivery system adjusted (or mapped if electronic) to match the extra air delivery. This is NOT a cheap exercise.

If the car is getting on a bit then you might be able to get a bit more power by cleaning the injectors with a fuel additive. Consider replacing the injector nozzles to ensure the fuel is finely sprayed into the cylinder.

If the car is just used round town and never gets a good thrashing then give it a good thrashing to get everything good and hot and blown through.

Answer 4

a few things U can do, the first is a turbo, the bigger the turbo, the more pressure it will create, but the more turbo lag it will have. this can be sorted by fitting a dump value.

U can fit a a smaller turbo with more blades, ie a twin turbo, or a quad turbo, this will make the amount of turbo lag smaller

an intercooler, is used after a turbo, to cool the air down, as compressing the air, heats it up, and cooler air is denser it is, so cooler air means there more available for combustion

U can also get the head ported, make the inlet, and exhaust ports bigger, fitting a bigger bore exhaust system will help, as long as its a full system, including a manifold

U can also fit a different chip into the ECU, to change the length of time the fuel is sprayed into the cylinder, the the time when it is pumped in, and the amount too

slightly big wheels will help the top speed too, but it will put Ur speedo out tho, lower profile tyres, with improve the cornering speed too

oh and about the glow plugs, that won't do anything, glow plugs are only used on start up, if it has problems starting, changing them will help, but they wont help performance

Answer 5

It is difficult to increase the performance of a non-turbocharged diesel engine.

Diesel engines are fuel-controlled (there is no throttle, so airflow is relatively unrestricted, and when you press the accelerator the fuel pump delivers more fuel to the engine). To get more power, you need to burn more fuel, and to burn more fuel you need more air. This is where a turbocharger or supercharger helps - it forces more air into the engine, allowing more fuel to burn (or the same amount of fuel to burn more efficiently).

If you can somehow get more air into the engine (improve the intake system efficiency, or by turbo- or supercharging) then you'll also need to upgrade the fuel pump to take advantage.

Answer 6

Change the glow plugs and give it a good service, should help, electric superchargers dont work that well and are a waste of time. You are best off saving your money by running it on vegatable oil and buying a GTi next year with all your saved money and cheaper insurance, as you cant go fast enough to crash.

Mix some meths in with the diesel about 10% should raise the octain level and increase performance if you dare.

Answer 7

air filter not worth thinking about wast of time . turbo or supercharger no good you need lower compresion pistons expensive . power chip is possible as long as car has ecu for fueling . or maybe have nos fitted but it dont last long and can wreck engine if over done . if it old car you can have the pump turned up a bit . but no real cheap fixes for this one .

Answer 8

to make a car go faster you need more fuel and hence more air . a turbo is a good idea but the parts on your car are not designed for that so be careful

Answer 9

1

Answer 10

the only way to do it is to get a turbo diesel engine fitted as you cannot fit a supercharger on a diesel and a k+n filter is a waste of time.