My DIY modded Maruti Suzuki Esteem with PIX

[fitsandy]

I have done some DIY mods on my car and am getting superb performance out of the stock car without spending much money over aftermarket parts.

1. Cars MPG has improved from a meagre 10 kmpl to 14 kmpl.
2. Stabilised idling RPM due to side gapped stock plugs
3. Improved power & torque due to CAI & freer flowing exhaust.
4. No more dirty IAC valve due to OIL CATCH CAN.
5. Improved low RPM power and torque - lass gear shifts in city running.
6. Improved top speed from 130 km/hr earlier to over 150 km/hr.
7. Improved breaking over stock due to drilled front disc brakes.
8. Very bright 130/100 Watts headlights with direct battary connections.

I have not used any fancy parts available on E Bay or else where.

The next mod I am planning is fitting the Opel Astra's bonnet vent over the air filter side after making sure no water enters air filter during rains.

My mods are no flashy but have been very effective.

Thanks

[fitsandy]

More Pix Attached

Thanks

[Brit101]

Thank you for sharing, congrats on the mileage gains.

[mxz-man]

nice mods, ive got a few questions. what are side gapped plugs? how hard was the home made cold air intake to do and how long did it take? and could you give step by step instructions on how to do it. and are the mileage gains from the cold air intake. What do you have on the end of the air intake to keep dust and water out, and lastly where are you from? I ask becuase I have an esteem and live in canada and mine looks nothing like yours

[jim_naisium]

Nice mods, will probably try a few of them when I have time later this summer.

I have to ask the same question as well, where are you from? I am from the western side of the United States and my Esteem looks nothing like yours either, I'm assuming you are in Europe or Australia due to your pedals and steering being on the right hand side of the car.

Where and how does the oil catch can drain to? I'm assuming that eventually over time it will get full and cause problems with the engine sucking oil straight into the intake manifold.

What did you do to improve the lower end torque?

Could you please post a picture of what pattern you used to cross drill the break rotors, the first time I looked at mine I wondered why they were not cross drilled from the factory, something else that would help is a water spray system that cooled them down while stopping (some race cars use this).

[fitsandy]

Hi Friends !

I am from India.

Cultus Sedan RHD=Esteem in India

&

Esteem RHD=Baleno in India

Hope that clears the doubt.

@jim Catch can has a drain plug below it and its drained manually by me every month. I get about 20-25 ml black thick oil.

@mxz-man - side gapped plugs are nothing but ordinary copper plugs with ground electrode cut to the pattern shown in attached picture. I read it gives fuller & cleaner combustion hence torque impovement, specially low end ( but am getting random misfire as i set the gap more than factory recommended, will reduce back to 0.5 - 0.6 mm from a present 0.8 mm - 0.9 mm)

reg. cold air intake i have cut open the air filter box from front and have shilded the entire right hand side engine bay from behind the head lamp upto the break fuid reservoir tank from the rest of the engine by designing a pattern 1st in cardboard, redoing 2-3 times to pefecly seal it from the rest of engine bay and finally making the same pattern in galvanised sheet metal and pasting PU sheets using rubber glue, used in heat shielding.

some part of the bonnet has also been pasted with PUcutouts to fully thermally seal the air box area behind the head lamp.

the only source of air now is the hole in the firewall, which pre exists in all esteem/baleno, however i have removed the resonator bottle and other metal plates supporting it below the fender and thus am getting pure true-cold-air in the filter.

it took me a the couple of days to perfect the sealing but the effect is astounding, power delivery is very smooth and i plan to use a bigger paper element filter from Toyota which is open from all sides to further reduce air flow restriction.

Disc cross drilling is to be done carefully. Please dont attempt at home, you need a good drill press, nice hard bits and an experienced drill operator to achieve this without damaging the discs.

Discs are not that hard you know.

Ist take the disc out

Put disc on chart paper and cut a round drawing chart paper of size of the disc, draw pattern on chart paper with help of compass and other stuff from the geometry box of a kid, that you want cut on to the disc.

The pattern should not consist of more holes than 16 (I was scared to have ruined the disc with more holes - stess buildup during hard breaking and increased probability of cracking as some people pointed out at the workshop. I kept the dia of holes 4 mm as too big is not very comfortable in terms of weakening the structure of the discs.

I made pattern in only 2 concentric circles with 8 holes in each one in a way that distance between the holes of two circles were at the farthest from each other but still in the range of the disc pad contact area.

Put the paper-die on the disc and make marks with a permanent marker pen.

Let the holes be drilled slowly with just enough pressure to not to vibrate the disc.

The disc should be held in the place tightly to prevent damage due to possible vibrations.

Last but not the least, my discs were old and breaking efficiency was below average and some mechanics asked me change the discs and pads, but I took it as an opportunity to experiment with the old discs and did this mod.

Now I am so happy with great breaking power of these discs that whenever I change my discs to new I will use pre drilled discs only.

They keep the pad powder out, keep the pads clean, get cooled down faster and somehow the combined effect on breaking efficiency.

Thanks

Fitsandy

[mxz-man]

how did the car sound with the cold air intake

[fitsandy]

Originally Posted by mxz-man

how did the car sound with the cold air intake

Intake is throaty and louder than before.

[mxz-man]

I see that you want to put on a toyota air filter, and im not sure if you've ever herd of these but you could buy a K&N high preformace air filter. It would probably give much better preformance and should fit with no mods becuase it screws right on. Just google K&N and you will see what they look like.

[fitsandy]

Thanks man but I have already researched too much on the net and of the opinion that paper element type filters are the best for stopping even smallest dust particles entering the engine.

I live in a dusty area and my stock filter gets clogged every 2 months, effecting vehicle performance.

In order to avoid frequent cleaning of filter and to ensure I am getting a bigger surface area (sq inches of paper used in the filter), I decided on the cylindrical Toyota Qualis filter.

It will take longer time to get clogged, easy to replace when I want and cheap (costs me US $ 4.00 only).

Above all that I didnt want the hassle of cleaning K&N with oil and stuff.

If you google you will find lots of reports of K&N filter messing up with Air Flow Meter and Dirtying the Idle Air Control Valve and throttle body.

Not only that due its very nature of free flow construction it allows small dust particles to enter the engine reducing engine life.

I was scared and hence didn't go in for that and also its not cheap (costs US $ 100 here) and want to keep on experimenting with 1/25 the price paper element type filters hence.

Anyays thanks for the suggestion man.

Attaching pix.

1. stock filter with housing cut.
2. Toyota Qualis filter in place of stock filter with an adapter made of pvc pipes of different dia joined with epoxy glue.
3. filter with adapter.