Niva 2131 tuning: how to improve the performance of the installed engine?

Exhaust system upgrade

Oddly enough, even upgrading the exhaust system can increase engine power. At the same time, we note one important point - the load value does not increase. Among the features of such work, we note the following points:

• In most cases, tuning the exhaust system involves installing modern exhaust and intake manifolds.
• Due to their special design, the collectors make the flow of air and exhaust gases freer. Therefore, resistance is reduced and efficiency is significantly increased.
• In some cases, a resonator from the muffler is installed. Due to it, the process of removing gases is simplified, and the sound of the car is improved.

In addition, the muffler can be moved further to the rear axle. This also reduces resistance in the exhaust system and increases efficiency.

External transformations

It is the appearance of the car that first catches your eye, so it is its updating that we will do. Rarely does car tuning complete without painting the body. Simply refreshing the paint is not an option, especially with modern options. If you don’t want to get sophisticated and create works of art on the body, then you can limit yourself to coating with liquid rubber or sizing a carbon film. But still, the five-door Niva looks more impressive with 3D airbrushing.

Niva 5 looks very impressive with airbrushing

Small but important elements

In order for the Niva Urban to be transformed, it is necessary to select trims and sills, buy deflectors and spoilers, and replace the radiator grille. If the bumper is in good condition, then it does not need to be changed, but only transformed. Fiberglass is ideal for this, as it is durable and looks very stylish. It is easy to work with this material; it allows you to obtain various parts, which are subsequently glued to the base and painted.

Purchasing and installing new thresholds and a radiator grille for the Niva is not a difficult task. But if you initially decided to use airbrushing when painting the body, then you will have to take the purchased parts to specialists. A person without experience will not be able to create an even drawing without defects.

New thresholds and radiator grille are necessary when tuning the Niva

Protection for the engine compartment

Installing a snorkel on the Niva is a necessary step only if you plan to cross ponds or other areas with high water levels. In such situations, low air intake becomes a real problem. The snorkel can be permanent or removable. The last option will have to be made independently. The decision depends on how often the vehicle will be wading through deep water. With this tuning, the engine will be protected from water, which can damage it, and will not overheat as much as with the original design. In addition, with this method of air intake, the Niva filter becomes much less dirty.

Installing a snorkel is necessary if you plan to drive on water

The engine compartment needs protection from dirt and moisture, which causes rust to form. To do this, it is necessary to perform the following set of measures:

1. Install the air intake on the hood of the car.
2. Take care of an additional seal for the hood.
3. Extend the drainage tube.
4. Protect the side members from aggressive environments using plastic or rubber plugs.

Trunk

A common problem with all Niva modifications is the trunk is not large enough, which is not at all suitable for long trips. Especially if there is no way to fold the back seat. Although the Niva with five doors has larger dimensions than its luggage compartment, I would still like more for off-road use. We won’t even consider the option with a trailer, but a roof rack is an excellent option. You can choose a luggage box, but it looks laconic, while a brutal option is more suitable for the Niva. To install a roof rack you will need reliable roof rails, which will add strength to the structure. For ease of use of the trunk, you can equip the car with a ladder. The appearance will only benefit from this.

Roof rack for Niva 5 is an excellent solution

We carry out work on the oil pump

In order to increase the service life of the installed engine, work is often carried out to modernize the oil pump. There are several recommendations on how to carry out such an upgrade. In this case, you will need another pump, from which you will have to cut off a part of the housing with a parting plane. When carrying out this work, it should be taken into account that the thickness of the resulting pancake should be about 11 cm. After this, the milling process removes the excess so that the thickness is about 10 cm.

The next step in modifying the pump is to remove the chamfers on the edges of the teeth. To do this, the following work is carried out:

• The drive gear is being dismantled.
• One of the gears is trimmed by 0.75 mm on each side.
• The second gear, after trimming, is cut to 11.5 mm.

All the above operations should be repeated with other gears.

Further work involves changing the body. For this:

1. It is necessary to free the driven gear axis.
2. A drive roller is used to form a longer axis.
3. The formed axis is inserted into the resulting housing.
4. The previously obtained narrow gear is pressed onto the second drive shaft.
5. The next step is to install the wide gear.
6. A narrow gear is installed in the housing.

By upgrading the design, it is possible to eliminate the possibility of gears turning relative to each other, thereby increasing the efficiency of the design.

Sidebar: Important: A more efficient pump will move oil faster. It is oil starvation that often becomes the reason why the engine quickly becomes unusable.

Niva 2131 tuning. Installing a pressure sensor

An oil pressure indicator is an extremely necessary device. It is very easy to install on your own. In your hands you should have the “tee” of the oil pressure sensor from the “six”, the pressure sensor itself and the indicator from the kit from the same car.

To connect the indicator, no additional devices, systems or circuits are needed.

One contact is “ground”, we connect “+”, one wire should go to the Niva sensor, two more should go to the lamps. If you start connecting the emergency oil pressure lamp in parallel to the one you already have in the instrument panel, you need to make diode isolation. We put the indicator on the panel and connect it. The indicator can be placed anywhere on the dashboard.

The interior of the VAZ 2131 is uncomfortable and uncomfortable. Start tuning the interior of 2131 , remodeling its interior space with noise, heat and waterproofing. If you get this, it means you will not die from frostbite or pneumonia.

You can make the interior of the Niva more fashionable by re-drawing the doors and side panels. The front panel must be re-drawn, additional toggle switches and buttons must be introduced, and some devices must be duplicated. There is an option to change the entire panel and instead of the old one, install, for example, a similar part from the Opel Vestra. It would be nice to change the seats to more comfortable ones, change the stereo system and change the heating system. After that, as a cool hyper-experiment, install an on-board computer in the car. Then, reupholster the seats with leather and introduce a heating system, change the front panel by introducing plastic and wooden linings into it.

Do-it-yourself turbine installation in Niva

Engineers have long been of the opinion that it is the turbine that provides a surge of greater power due to the active enrichment of the mixture. It is worth considering that installing a turbine is not a complicated modification, but the high cost of the compressor may become an obstacle to such tuning.

The design of the installed turbine is usually quite simple:

• The central part is a shaft that receives rotational motion.
• The impeller of the supercharger and turbine is installed on the shaft.
• The exhaust gases become a kind of drive, which also makes it possible to significantly increase the efficiency value.

The fact that the shaft does not receive rotational motion from the crankshaft itself or related mechanisms can significantly increase the efficiency of the installation and its power. It is possible to install the turbine yourself, but due to its relatively high cost, about 40,000 rubles for the simplest model, it is better to entrust the work to professionals.

Paying attention to the engine

Previously, the Niva’s native engine was considered powerful, but now its characteristics are at an average level and therefore it is not suitable for off-road use. For an 8-valve engine with a fuel injection system, 80 horses is not the limit. As a result of simple tuning, you can get a more powerful unit that will delight you with proper operation and the ability to pull the car out of almost any trouble. There are several options for increasing the power of the power unit, for example, for a motor by 4 mm you can increase the piston stroke, make the piston and connecting rod groups lighter. With such modifications, the engine will become more responsive and even elastic. The test results clearly prove that the Niva engine is capable of producing 92 horses with a torque of 150 Hm.

Replacing the standard crankshaft with a modernized one

Another common tuning method is installing a lightweight crankshaft instead of a standard one. This kind of modification requires partial disassembly of the internal combustion engine design.

The features of this type of tuning include the following points:

• By reducing the shaft mass, the design efficiency is significantly increased. This is because the motor requires less energy to rotate it. Lightweight versions of the crankshaft still have high strength and reliability, which are achieved by using special alloys at the time of their manufacture.
• The power of the power plant is also increased by increasing the stroke of the rods. This is due to the fact that due to this, the volume of the combustion chamber increases slightly, and the force released during fuel combustion is greater.
• Many experts recommend replacing the piston rings at the same time.

Such modifications allow:

1. Increase power.
2. Increase smoothness.

However, it is worth considering that as the rod stroke increases, the fuel consumption rate also increases. In addition, an increase in the amount of released energy causes increased wear of the structure.

Specifications

A car tank with a volume of 65 liters is necessary to provide fuel for a 1.7 liter engine (sometimes 1.8 liters). This contributes to the fact that the car increasingly resembles an SUV. The installation of rigid springs results in a greater load capacity of the VAZ 2131. The trunk volume of the car is 300 kg. This has a slight effect on driving.

Recently, tuning the VAZ 2131 (photo above) is a fairly common occurrence. More and more often, car enthusiasts are experimenting with this car, but to bring the car to perfection, you need to have good technical training, a set of tools and the desire to spend a lot of effort.

Often in the VAZ 2131, an electric power steering is installed on the steering wheel, driveshafts that disable the gearbox and front axle shift mechanism.

Tuning Niva 2131 includes the installation of gas-oil shock absorbers. This all optimizes the performance of the suspension, strengthens it, and also makes your ride safer. After all, installing good shock absorbers keeps the car's wheels in contact with the road.

You may also be interested in: Movil for cars: how to use

Boring the cylinder block of an installed engine

Rarely, but still, cylinder boring is carried out. Today, not many people carry out such tuning, which is associated with a fairly large number of various disadvantages:

1. The complexity of the work determines not only its high cost, but also the likelihood of a defect, due to which the work period is reduced. Of course, modern equipment allows you to check the correctness of the geometry, but this indicates that it is impossible to do without the intervention of specialists.
2. Due to boring, the volume of the cylinder block increases, which means that much more fuel is burned over a certain period of time. In other words, the tuning in question causes an increase in fuel consumption.
3. When boring, other structural elements of the internal combustion engine are also replaced. This also causes a significant increase in the cost of work performed.
4. When metal is removed, the walls become thinner and the load increases. This leads to the fact that the engine lasts much less, and the heat transfer process worsens. Therefore, with such tuning, problems may arise with the operation of the motor under load.

With so many different problems that arise when boring an engine, power increases insignificantly. Many other tuning methods can also increase this figure without reducing the service life of the structure or increasing fuel consumption.

Salon tuning

As already noted, many people do not like the operation of the stove in the car; it does not heat the interior well enough. One option is to replace the interior trim using modern thermal insulation materials. Another option is to install a centrifugal fan, which is used on the VAZ-2108.

To improve the operation of the stove using the second option, you will need:

1. Buy a “snail” from a VAZ-2108.
2. Remove the interior grille.
3. Cut off the protrusions from the acquired “snail”.
4. Lower the part with the exhaust pointing downwards.
5. Pass the tube from the “snail” to the air inlet. Air will then circulate through this tube.
6. Warm up the device.

You can connect the heating system using a separate relay connected through the battery. Thus, it is possible to achieve a comfortable temperature in the cabin during the cold season.

Improved sound insulation

Another type of interior tuning is reducing the noise level emanating from operating systems and devices under the hood of the Niva-2131. Sound insulation is achieved by replacing seats, dashboard and using anti-vibration materials.

Lighting

Another problem encountered when operating a five-door Niva is poor lighting in the interior and trunk. The problem can be solved using LED circuits, additional lamps and other lighting fixtures built into the car interior or trunk.

Carburetor modernization is a common Niva tuning option

The carburetors installed by VAZ are, to put it mildly, low in efficiency. That is why many people start tuning by changing this element. The features of the work carried out include the following points:

• The pump accelerator nozzle is being updated. It often causes air turbulence, which reduces the efficiency of mixture enrichment.
• In almost all cases, a jet with an indicator of 1 cam is replaced with 2 cam. This also allows you to significantly increase the efficiency of the carburetor.
• It is recommended to clean all unevenness and roughness, as this leads to increased air resistance during operation. For this, files and sandpaper are used.
• The structure should also be cleaned of various soot or other combustion products. This may require a special cleaning agent. Some craftsmen use special baths to remove dirt.

In the case where an injector is installed, it is almost impossible to carry out modifications yourself. Only a professional who knows the features of such a design will be able to change the basic indicators to increase power or reduce consumption. Self-tuning in this case can lead to serious malfunctions.

Remodeling the stove and airflow

To increase the operating comfort of the vehicle in winter, many Niva owners resort to modifications to the interior heater, trying to increase the performance of the stove and improve airflow.

There are several options for improving the heating system:

1. Modernization of air ducts. The idea is to increase the tightness of the connections. It is necessary to coat problem areas well with silicone glue.
2. Replacing the old fan with a new, more powerful one.
3. Installation of a larger diameter tap. This will speed up the spread of liquid in the radiator.

Watch the video that shows the modernization of the stove.

Expert opinion

Anton. When I bought the Niva for fishing trips, I was initially pleased; it couldn’t be compared to my sedan in terms of cross-country ability. But after some time I realized that due to insufficient power, I still needed to look for easy ways. Friends advised us to modernize the engine or install a new one. There was no money for a new one, but I was able to modify the already installed one.

Victor. VAZ is not famous for its engines, and Niva is proof of this. Almost all installed models have very low efficiency, reliability, and wear resistance. Many people talk about high maintainability, why would it be if the design did not fail so often. Therefore, I installed a different engine on my Niva and did not regret the choice.

Alexei. Niva is Niva: noisy, does not stand well on the highway, there is no comfort, but off-road you feel comfortable. I began to modernize mine gradually, and it came down to the engine. What can we say: there is a lot of work, almost everything requires improvement, it is not a fact that the tuning performed will lead to the desired result.

Maksim. I did the tuning myself. I started with the simplest thing - replacing consumables with better ones, then it came to more complex work. Of course an increase of 30 hp. cannot be called significant, but it also allowed me to feel more confident on the road surface.

VAZ 2131 gear ratio tuning

The difficulties of a great redesign and excellent tuning of your favorite “four-wheeled horse” essentially never end. What else absolutely needs to be checked? The answer is simple - change the main pairs in the gearboxes. Keep in mind that the gear ratio for 29″ is 4.3 (some people advise immediately setting it to 4.7). Do you like big sizes? And accordingly, do you want huge wheels? Whereas the unforgettable grandfather Lenin taught “study, study and study again.” This is not the place for you and this is no joke for you. Don't miss the point. It is fraught with serious negative consequences. Go to the store or go online to buy or download special literature. The first thing you will learn from the pages of these respected books and training manuals will be that the axle shafts and drives will begin to experience a noticeably greater load, and from this irrefutable fact a logical conclusion suggests itself - they urgently need to be replaced with reinforced ones. True, provided that you are not an extreme sports enthusiast and will not climb into gullies - rivers - crayfish, such a need may not arise, but then another question arises - why do you need such a super car if you are not a car crazy???

Think with your head! Use your imagination! All attention to the discs! They should not be ordinary and from the best of the best manufacturers. Characteristics: high quality, durability, stylishness, attractiveness and branding! If you don’t find and install exactly as written on the road, WHAT awaits you? Well, you probably guessed it yourself!

conclusions

Engine improvement work is the most costly and problematic. However, even with a modern suspension and a comfortable interior, it will be quite difficult to enjoy driving the car. This is due to the fact that the lack of proper traction has a bad effect on cross-country ability; the car begins to stall when overcoming difficult terrain. Do not forget that some modifications can significantly increase wear resistance and other qualities.

Many experts recommend upgrading the motor in stages: from simple to complex, if possible. Of course, during significant dismantling, all available work should be carried out so as not to repeat disassembly and assembly work again. If you do not have the necessary skills or equipment to carry out the work, then it is best to entrust it to professionals. This is due to the fact that even if the operation of such a complex mechanism as an internal combustion engine is incorrectly adjusted, operation for several minutes can lead to critical damage to the main elements.

Tuning features

Today there are no true car enthusiasts who are indifferent to the Niva, since this car is considered one of the best SUVs in world history. Additionally, it is worth noting that the car occupies one of the leading positions in the ranking of off-road vehicles.

Despite such indicators, the Niva 2131 does not bring any satisfaction to many. Among the disadvantages of this model are the insufficient operation of the heater, the presence of noise in the cabin, as well as other problems associated with the engine and other devices. Tuning will help solve this.

Rework/replacement of dashboard

Not so often, but still among Niv owners there are those who do not ignore such “noticeable parts of the interior” - such as the instrument panel, dashboard and the instruments themselves. Which, in turn, can either be slightly modified (for example, changing the color of the scales or the backlight of standard sensors), or completely replaced with others, both from domestic cars and parts from foreign cars.

How to make a dashboard with your own hands?

The process of making a homemade dashboard from plywood is literally “on the knee”.

This instrument panel can be purchased from sellers of tuning parts and accessories. It seems that the choice of alternative plastic dashboards for the VAZ-21214 in online and online stores is relatively large. And if you search, you can find some pretty decent panels.

Often, fans of tuning a domestic SUV decide to completely replace the dashboard or instrument panel with appropriately sized panels from foreign cars . And more often than not, such a replacement is completely justified. Since, in addition to a clear improvement in the visual perception of the interior, comfort and ergonomics are significantly improved.

Additional devices

Usually, when it comes to tuning the dashboard and dashboard , quite often the installation of additional auxiliary sensors and instruments takes place. Moreover, these can be not only purchased tuning devices, but also instrument indicators from other car models. And not necessarily foreign cars. Spare parts from domestic cars are often used.

You can read about what to choose and how to install it yourself correctly in articles on the topic Additional equipment.

Tuning of suspension, wheels and body coating

The latter variety includes non-standard painting, painting with special compounds (for example, Raptor), airbrushing, and film covering.

Suspension tuning is necessary to increase ground clearance, cross-country ability and give the car an aggressive look. Thanks to such an invention as the suspension lift kit, it became possible to install wheels of almost any diameter. You can put special mud tires on the wheels: Mud tires.

A homemade lift kit is not the most reliable option. For installation, it is better to contact a specialized workshop.

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Installing and connecting music in the cabin

To one degree or another, it is difficult to do without this with any approach to improving the interior (starting from ascetic options and even more so in the case of serious alterations). Car audio and multimedia in Niva are real, although in some cases it is extremely irrelevant, taking into account the peculiarities of off-road operation. Therefore, during internal tuning, in any case, you will have to deal with the installation of music. Moreover, not only the head unit of the system itself, but also all the accompanying car audio components - amplifiers, acoustics, subwoofers and other “bells and whistles”. Usually a simple Niva gets by with a minimum of such equipment, but there are exceptions that amaze with the originality and power of the equipment.

Amateur and professional approach to car audio installation.

Various aspects of this type of modification can be found in the Car Audio section of our article catalog.

Other improvements and changes

• Sliding or lifting sunroof;
• Opening side windows;
• Electric windows;
• Air conditioner;
• Neon lights;

You can read about all these areas in the following materials. .

Interior tuning video

Video selection on internal tuning in NIV showrooms. Work of varying degrees of complexity and material costs (cost of materials, spare parts and additional accessories) - how best to remodel the interior .

Fresh photos with descriptions can be viewed in the corresponding category of the VAZ - photo tuning section, and even more in the Niva thematic category after tuning our photo album. Enjoy watching!

Work on the salon

The interior must be comfortable and convenient.
An off-road vehicle must be as comfortable and convenient for passengers as possible, so that long trips are not tiresome and exhausting. Transformation of the Niva interior may consist of the following stages:

1. Replacement of trim in the interior and on the doors using soundproofing materials that will retain heat well.
2. Replacement or reconstruction of seats. They should be deeper, softer and more ergonomic. You can, in general, install sports seats.
3. The Niva's steering wheel also needs changes. If the condition of the old steering wheel can be called satisfactory, then you can limit yourself to replacing its casing.
4. To travel by car to remote corners of our country, you need high-quality navigation that will work flawlessly.

Tuning is a very exciting business. Once you start, it will be difficult to stop. You will constantly want something more, you will want to implement bold ideas, make the car even more original and unusual. The tuning possibilities are limited only by your imagination and financial capabilities.