Walkers Garage Performance Specialists
What do Walkers Garage know about performance?
Walkers can provide you with the very best in engine tuning for your Lancia Delta. We believe in safe honest horsepower and never profess to be able to supply a wonder chip that will give you an instant, safe no risk 300Hp.
What can we provide for you……… well first of all we don’t just chase after high horsepower; any true engine enthusiast will know that the real feeling of speed and acceleration comes from the combination of torque and horsepower! Once you have both of these things working in harmony then the Delta truly comes alive and you realize the true potential of this truly magnificent beast!
Not everyone wants to achieve the same goals with their engine tunes; some are looking for ultimate power whilst others are looking for a little extra but not to lose that originality. We can go off in all sorts of tangents and so we believe in speaking with each customer personally to go through the options available based on what they want to achieve and above all their budget for the job.
Below is a breakdown of the typical items we look to replace in the various levels of tuning; these are meant as guides to advise you to the work we would be carrying out for each level. The power figures are approximate as each engine can provide a different figure even with the same tuning package fitted.
3 Stage Performance
We start by checking the cylinder compressions and for cylinder leakage – this gives us confidence that your engine is capable of withstanding substantially more power.
We examine the camshafts for profile wear and we enquire as to the last time the cam belt was changed. Once we are happy as to the engine’s basic health, we remove the old standard Stretch Type cylinder head bolts and replace them with High Tensile Steel Bolts which will ensure reliability and maintain cylinder head gasket integrity.
Next we need to control the boost. We can replace the electronic boost controller with a standard manual T section adjuster so that we can manually set the boost or if money is not an issue fit an electronic boost controller. Walkers only ever set the boost to a Maximum of 1.2 Bar for this stage. Once this is done and set we remove & replace the original Eprom chip for our very own Walkers Eprom. Specifically designed to our own map this is the true centre piece for all the work.
Next we need to control the boost. We can replace the electronic boost controller with a standard manual T section adjuster so that we can manually set the boost or if money is not an issue fit an electronic boost controller. Walkers only ever set the boost to a Maximum of 1.2 Bar for this stage. Once this is done and set we remove & replace the original Eprom chip for our very own Walkers Eprom. Specifically designed to our own map this is the true centre piece for all the work.
We then don’t leave it there; we never have a Delta leave us without a full rolling road check and fine tune. To achieve this, we put the car on a four-wheel drive rolling road where we can replicate every road condition whilst monitoring all the engine functions and the exhaust emission. In this way we can attain optimum performance in conjunction with the best possible fuel economy, checking continually for signs of detonation, pinking or pre-ignition.
Once we are happy with the setup the boost valve is sealed to prevent tampering and the car is ready to be handed back to the customer. Accurate printouts can be provided for your records showing power and torque curves, we generally see an increase from the standard 210/215 Bhp up to a solid and safe 250Bhp. Put together with an approximately increase of 20% of torque you certainly will notice that punch in the back acceleration when you first drive the car after the work is complete.
Please contact us for any further information or to confirm pricing for your requirements.
There are many options available to us in this section and this is where things become about how much you are looking to spend to tune your Delta engine. We have a ceiling of approximately 300Bhp on this section as the standard management system cannot process anything more; the older specification of technology does not lend itself to be remapped easily in the way required for a higher power figure. To go further requires the ECU system to be replaced (covered in the next section).
We can remove the cylinder head and carry out porting to the inlet and exhaust ports; providing a smoother airflow into and exiting the cylinders, this allows the engine to breath more efficiently and in turn increasing the ability for higher horse power. We may also advise at this point that Bronze valve guides are fitted to replace the old and worn guides fitted.
We can leave the head in standard condition and just replace the camshafts in place.
Whichever option you choose the standard camshafts are removed and replaced with Colombo & Bariani fast road shafts, we then re-shim the head accordingly.
We do advise at this point the that the standard timing pullies are replaced for Vernier spec units to allow for better fine tuning and set up to be made. It is not mandatory but comes down to the price you want to pay at the end of the process.
Dependant on the model of your Lancia Delta 16v Integrale, Evolution 1 or Evolution 2 the turbocharger is the next component that may need some attention; The 16v Integrale and Evo1 Garret T34 turbo unit can be left standard although we do advise a full strip down, inspection and service is carried out. We would always then replace the oil feed pipe; as no matter how careful you are, there is always some carbonised oil build up inside the pipe which can be disturbed and work its way into the turbo unit causing catastrophic damage to the turbo unit.
The Evolution 2 (T3) turbo unit however requires a little more attention; due to the smaller size of turbo unit it can become a victim of over-speeding when asking for increased boost levels. This can cause the turbo unit to fail and destroy itself causing a lot of damage in the process. We strip, inspect, clean and service the unit along with fitting a +10-impeller unit to increase the performance of this unit. Again, as previous we replace the oil turbo feed pipe.
We remove the standard exhaust manifold and exhaust system and replace them with our own designed tubular manifold and 75mm stainless steel exhaust system. This enables the exhaust system to extract the gas easier, quicker and more effectively than the standard system and allows all the internal changes to work in harmony together. This can also be done on its own without the above modification being carried out, in this instance we estimate an increase of performance between 10-20 Bhp when carried out on its own.
Of course, all this extra work and adjustments to timing etc requires a different management setting and so we replace the Eprom chip for a different map profile to suit the improvement on the camshafts and boost properties.
Now we come to the top end of the spectrum where you can go to figures of up to 450Bhp + if you really would like. There are many internal changes to be made to the engine along with management system changes and with so many options available for the various power outputs that you may want to achieve we could talk on this section for pages and pages.
To give you an idea of costs If you started with a standard engine and wanted to achieve an engine tune to approximately 450Bhp then you could be looking at a figure in the region of GB£20,000 + Vat*. This is to produce a safe, fully drive-able engine. I am sure there are companies or people out there that can say they can provide this for a lot less, but we believe that above anything else the engine needs to run safely and reliably. We don’t have to run crazy boost pressures to achieve this figure so you won’t be over-stressing the turbo unit or relying on boost to give you the horsepower figures. Our engines are built with a combination of components that work together to produce a highly efficient and powerful engine.
We have seen it time and time again that a customer will go to an outlet that promises high power figures; spend a lot of money only to have the engine not produce the figures promised or very shortly after completion problems arise. They come to us and we basically must start again and re-do the work but to our profile and provide them with the engine they initially wanted but did not receive.
A motto for engine builds that we use – “do it once & do it right”!
The best thing if you are looking at step 3 for your Delta engine is to give us a call and have a chat or best of all call in and see us. We can chat over a tea or coffee about what you ultimately want to achieve, what budget you have in mind and then we can get some of the components out so you can see and physically feel the quality of components that we are using. We don’t believe in cutting corners when it comes to tuning engines; you can’t cheat to achieve accurate power figures.
We would obviously advise you to compliment your increased engine performance with improved suspension and brakes. Take a look in our on-line shop to see what is available for front & rear brake kits as well as suspension kits at various prices to suit your pocket.
* All services provided in the UK are subject to UK VAT charged at 20%.
** All power figures quoted are approximate; each engine performs differently with any given tuning package installed and so variances are expected.