Squeezing more out the 1l

Paddy

Paddy

The runaround
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It's been years since my last micra but my Mrs recently passed her test so naturally I got her a cheap runabout. So we picked up our 03 k12 1l on Friday but after a bit of motorway driving found it lacked power when fully laden with us and the kids. I know that naturally the k12 is heavier than the k11 but would like a little more acceleration for overtaking on the motorways/duel carriageways.

Any recommendations would be much appreciated.
 
Paddy said:
It's been years since my last micra but my Mrs recently passed her test so naturally I got her a cheap runabout. So we picked up our 03 k12 1l on Friday but after a bit of motorway driving found it lacked power when fully laden with us and the kids. I know that naturally the k12 is heavier than the k11 but would like a little more acceleration for overtaking on the motorways/duel carriageways.

Any recommendations would be much appreciated.
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Having a look around it could be doing with a good service so I'll start there, thinking oil flush, fuel treatment, new pannel filter and irridium plugs and correct tyre pressure may help a little.
 
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Some form of pipercross air induction kit and a bigger exhaust will take a second or two off your 0-60 time, but a 68bhp engine pulling a 1 tonne car at 70mph on a highway is going to have no real power and certainly no low-to-mid-range torque. I'd be very surprised if you could overtake anything on the highway without downshifting to 4th and then keeping the power on till the redline .... plus the fuel economy mustn't be brilliant either.
 
raptoranderson said:
Some form of pipercross air induction kit and a bigger exhaust will take a second or two off your 0-60 time, but a 68bhp engine pulling a 1 tonne car at 70mph on a highway is going to have no real power and certainly no low-to-mid-range torque. I'd be very surprised if you could overtake anything on the highway without downshifting to 4th and then keeping the power on till the redline .... plus the fuel economy mustn't be brilliant either.
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Yeah I understand the limitations with the power to weight ratio and its ideal for town driving but if I could just get a little more outta 4th gear on the big bad roads I'd be happy. That being said I don't want to throw money at it as I'd rather upgrade to a larger engined k12 after she has a years no claims.
 
Paddy said:
Yeah I understand the limitations with the power to weight ratio and its ideal for town driving but if I could just get a little more outta 4th gear on the big bad roads I'd be happy. That being said I don't want to throw money at it as I'd rather upgrade to a larger engined k12 after she has a years no claims.
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Out of curiosity does the k12 use the exact same exhaust manifold as the k11 as I remember buying a modded one off Frank 4 years ago and there was gains to be had and it sounded nice too.
 
Yeah the K12s use a diameter of exhaust pipe just over an inch if i'm not mistaken, plus the section between the backbox and middle muffler has a 'kink' in it that raises the exhaust up over the rear cross member and then down to the backbox. Just cut the backbox off whilst keeping as much of the midpipe as possible and attach any muffler/backbox you like :) but I can generally do pretty well in 4th gear if I keep it at least above 3000rpm which is where the power band is
 

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