newbie

[pitbull1971]

hi everyone i'm steve and have just got a 1997 406 sri-t - it was just a stop gap until my subaru impreza was fixed but i'm glad to say i love the car so it's not going anywhere lol

[Ares]

hi pitbull,welcome to the forum.
You got yourself a great car,sell impreza and invest that money in tuning

[pitbull1971]

the impreza is a track car only now - just so i don't use my mk2 ford escort on track lol

[highlander]

Welcome!

hi everyone i'm steve and have just got a 1997 406 sri-t

Oh god, does that mean you've been lumbered with "THAT" interior? "Arterial Spray"?

[jonsowman]

Welcome!

hi everyone i'm steve and have just got a 1997 406 sri-t

Oh god, does that mean you've been lumbered with "THAT" interior? "Arterial Spray"?

Haha I think it does - get some leathers in there ASAP!

Welcome to the forum

[Doggy]

Hi & welcome to the forum.

sell impreza and invest that money in tuning

invest that money in beer - 'tuning' a petrol turbo 406 normally has only one outcome, which is worth avoiding!

[highlander]

Two definite outcomes:

1) an engine that very rapidly rearranges its internal components all over the engine bay and the road
2) bankruptcy

The turbo petrol lumps found in the older 406s were designed for lazy motorway cruising. They're not particularly fuel-efficient, they're not particularly powerful, and the internals are not particularly strong, so they're not really well-suited to tuning.

The old 2.0 petrol turbo was replaced with the naturally-aspirated 2.2 petrol (EW12J4), which is a cleaner-running engine (featuring 16 valves (vs. the 8v in the old petrol turbo lump) and variable valve timing), but is again less suited to high-horsepower high-torque tuning than your average Impreza because it doesn't have a turbo.

Peugeot never saw the 406 as being a performance car - it's their equivalent of a Mondeo or a Vectra - a sales rep's or middle manager's car - so it's designed for comfortable cruising. They picked their engines with that in mind, so remember that when you think about how to get it to perform better.

If you want better performance from your car, the first things to look at are the suspension setup - a soft ride by default can mean the car wallows around while cornering - easily sorted using stiffer springs/shocks and a front strut brace (the strut brace is highly recommended as a cheap mod that really does help, and can be fitted at home with basic tools in less than 20 minutes) and the car's weight (reduce the weight, thereby increasing the power-to-weight ratio). This will transform the feel of the car without busting your bank too badly.

If you want more power from the engine, you'd be best off looking at improving the engine's internals before trying to increase your boost pressure or fit a larger turbo in case the poor little bugger just disintegrates.