Which Elantra to Buy?
Photo courtesy Hyundai.
No question it’s the N. For a little more than $5000, it’s a lot more car than the next highest trim of Elantra, the N Line.
“When you look under the car and start seeing the engineering, you see there was an engineer who did this to go race,” Josh says. “It wasn’t to create an appliance. Boxed control arms, the axle and hub combined into one unit, boxed front subframe, revamped rear suspension assembly–they made this track capable.”
Plus, the N has the more powerful turbocharged engine (75 additional horses). It has a choice between an eight-speed DCT or six-speed manual rather than just a seven-speed DCT. The N also comes with bigger brakes. And, perhaps the most-often overlooked part, you can only get the eLSD with the N.
“The differential–it’s what makes this thing really fast,” Will says. “Normally to have this type of grip with a front-wheel drive car you need to spend a lot of money and have some setup knowledge.”
The eLSD requires some different driving tactics, though, than you’d typically take with a front-wheel-drive car.
“To drive these fast, you want to drive them loose,” Will adds. “With a lot of front-wheel-drive people who have always been in front-wheel drives, generally, if it starts to get sideways, they lift. But, in this thing, you want to stay in it because the diff is so good it’ll pull you out of it.”
Josh says the only weak spots to the Elantra N is with fueling, in particular the fuel pump and injectors (more on that later). Other than that, the Elantra N is a robust platform, with little mechanical changes since its debut in 2021 and a facelift starting with the 2024 models.
“These cars hold up really well and are not that old, so there isn’t any downside to buying a used one,” Josh says. “You can’t really lose with these cars. Hyundai nailed it with these.”
There’s also the warranty. Bumper to bumper for 5 years or 60,000 miles. The powertrain is guaranteed for 10 years or 100,000 miles. Five years of roadside assistance comes included. As long as you don’t do any major mods to void that warranty, Hyundai backs up their vehicles.
First-Round Mods
Photo by J.A. Ackley.
Michael, Josh and Will all insist that you should just take your Hyundai Elantra N to the track and drive it. They say you’ll have fun and it’s track-ready as is. After that, then consider some mods. Compared to many of today’s cars, the Elantra N isn’t grossly heavy, but it could stand to lose some weight. The manual version weighs 3186 pounds while the DCT pushes the scales at 3296.
“What I’d do, especially to keep your car’s warranty, is to take a little bit of weight off the car where it makes sense,” Michael advises. “That will be wheels and tires.”
The Elantra comes with 19x8-inch wheels. Michael initially dropped down 18x8.5-inch wheels all around. It’s a significant weight savings, from 27.5 (facelift) to 30 (original) pounds apiece to as low as 16 pounds per each aftermarket wheel. Times that by four, and that’s 46 to 56 pounds. The other key benefit is the 18-inch wheels have more tire fitments available, and those tires are less expensive.
As far as tires, you can up the size to 265s without resorting to fender rolling or a body kit. Michael adds that since it’s a front-wheel drive car, he uses 255s in the rear to help with turn-in.
As you get faster, upgrade to a performance-oriented brake fluid and front brake pads, with Josh recommending Ferodo Racing DS3.12 or Porterfield R4-S pads.
“The braking coefficient on the stock pads is actually very good,” Michael says. “The only issue is if you’re out doing a session for too long, you’ll get some brake fade.”
Notice how they did not mention the rear pads.
“You don’t really use the rear pads because it’s front-wheel drive,” Michael adds. “You want to keep the brake bias toward the front. So, in other words, you want less stick in the back.”
Furthermore, stronger front pads help with avoiding inopportune ABS intervention.
“There’s a phenomenon with these cars called Ice Mode,” Josh says. “If you have too much pad in the back, the back slows down faster than the front and it triggers ABS and you have a brick for a pedal.”
An upgrade to stainless steel braided brake lines is worth it, too. “The brake lines will help with brake fade and a mushy pedal when brake fluid temps increase,” Josh says. “OEM lines tend to swell.”
Second-Round Mods
Photo by Kim Bailey/Spark Creative Media.
Let’s now start playing with suspension–and, most importantly, introduce the ability to adjust settings. Josh says off-the-shelf coil-over options from companies such as Korea-based Neotech get you in the ballpark of where you need to be to extract maximum performance. Coil-overs also open up the ability to adjust camber, where Josh adds that the front likes about 3.3 to 3.5 degrees of camber, 2 to 4 degrees of toe-in. Coil-overs also permit changes to ride height and preload, and they are needed to corner balance the car.
“You will spend most of your time working on the suspension,” Josh notes. “It’s important not to skimp on this. Get good quality that has great support if you are serious about track life.”
He strongly warns against cheap, poor-quality coil-overs.
“On these N cars, the OEM struts are not bad,” Josh says. “In fact, they outperform many other manufacturers’ OEM suspensions, such as the Civic Type R. The N cars also come with magnetic dampening activated with a push of the N Mode button, which instantly stiffens the suspension. Cheap coil-overs have components that fail, improper valving, incorrect spring rates and might not be serviceable, making them worse than the stock struts.”
Coil-overs do create another issue, though: space for your wider tires. The team now runs a staggered setup, with 18x9.5 inches up front and 18x8.5 inches back in the rear. “The reason why we’re not squared is because as soon as you put coil-overs in the back, there’s not enough room to put a wider tire without us going wide body,” Michael explains.
On the rear, install camber arms and toe arms, with parts available from SPL. Josh says the Elantra likes close to 3 degrees of rear camber and little to none toe-in.
“The rear camber and toe bolts on these cars can fail if you drive to the level of Will,” Josh says. “Changing these will eliminate fail points and allow you to fine-tune rear settings.”
Lastly, swap out all those OEM rubber bushings for something more trackable, such as polyurethane or spherical bearings. They will liven up a car on track, especially an Elantra N that has 17 suspension bushings total.
“OEM bushings tend to fail and allow unwanted movement in suspension geometry during aggressive driving,” Josh says. “OEMs use rubber to add comfort for daily driving, but robs valuable lap time. Upgraded bushings also give a more positive feel. Your butt potentiometer will instantly notice the go-kart-like handling of this upgrade.”
One thing you shouldn’t change, according to Josh, are the anti-roll bars, aka sway bars. Leave them stock. “This is where most will fail on setup with front-wheel-drive cars and is important on these Ns,” Josh explains. “Upgrading front sway bars will increase understeer, which you do not want on a front-wheel drive. In most front-wheel drives, you want OEM front sway bars or completely remove them, and increase the stiffness on a rear sway bar.
“With the N, it’s perfect from the factory,” Josh continues. “Adding a stiffer rear sway bar increases oversteer a tad too much for the average Joe. There is a lot of preference on this topic based on driver. The OEM setup is perfect for 80% of drivers.”
Josh does recommend adding adjustable end links. “You want zero preload on the sway bars, and you cannot achieve this without end links,” Josh says. “End links will allow you to fine tune the preload on the bars, which affects oversteer or understeer.”
Third-Round Mods Part I–Engine
Photo by J.A. Ackley.
You got handling nailed, now let’s find some power. The usual add-ons apply here: intake, exhaust, downpipe and a tune. With all that, you can get up to 450 horsepower–at the wheels–Josh says.
Many companies offer intakes for the Theta II engines in these cars, and Josh recommends going with a trusted brand, such as aFe, Injen or K&N. As far as the downpipe, Josh offers some advice. “There is a misconception that you must have a cat-less,” he says. “These days, high-flow downpipes with 200-cell, and even 100-cell, cats perform the same as cat-less, keep you street-legal and keep the CEL light off your dash.”
In regards to exhaust, “Normally, I’d say stick with the 2.5-inch exhaust,” Josh says. “However, these cars love a 3-inch. You don’t need to spend top dollar on a fancy titanium setup. Even a home-brewed muffler shop using 3-inch piping and a 14x4x4 muffler will net similar results.”
While you’re at it, Josh recommends switching to a front-mount intercooler, to “help flow up front and allow better cooling,” he says. “This prevents heat soak and allows you to maintain the power you have.”
Certainly, other platforms offer more tuning options, such as Hondas, but a few companies do offer off-the-shelf ECU tunes, such as Xclusive Tuning out of Canada and Lozic (who’s well known in Korea) out of California.
With all the aforementioned engine mods, Michael’s Hyundai Elantra N puts out 361 horsepower at the wheels, without ever touching the turbo. More gains can be made with an aftermarket turbo, but Michael says that’s plenty of power for what they have right now.
As far as durability mods, Josh recommends spark plugs, a fuel pump and injectors; Michael suggests coil parks. Josh says the GDI engine puts a beating on the plugs and he only uses HKS M45XL spark plugs. “With all the added mods, you will need colder plugs,” he says. “HKS has been tested hard in these cars.”
As we alluded to, the one Achilles’ heel for the Elantra N is fueling, in particular its OEM fuel pump. Josh says there are some new kits out there using the BMW B58 fuel pump as a fix for $750, but he has another OEM solution for just $450. “The fuel pump doesn’t fail, but rather runs out of fuel,” Josh says. “The best option, with minimal issues, is a high-pressure fuel pump out of a Hyundai Sonata. The piston diameter in the pump is a tad larger, helping it produce more volume.”
Josh still uses the OEM injectors, but aftermarket versions exist, which he has started to test. He feels an upgrade is forthcoming as it helps with fueling the GDI engine.
Michael upgrades his OEM coil packs to those from MSD. OEM coil packs do fail on occasion, but Josh feels they perform about the same as aftermarket ones.
Third-Round Mods–Weight, Brakes and More
Will Drees holds a carbon-fiber trunk lid he created that weighs just 4 pounds. Photo by J.A. Ackley.
Wheels and tires reduced a good chunk of weight, but there’s more you can do. That exhaust you just upgraded could save you up to 50 pounds.
Each stock front seat weighs 45 pounds, and aftermarket racing seats are much lighter and safer when combined with racing harnesses.
Going with a lighter weight battery can cut up to 25 pounds.
Removing the rear seats can net you 35 pounds.
Then you can go with carbon-fiber parts, such as the hood and trunk.
You can extract speakers, too, if you don’t need them.
“Our Elantra N shed 290 pounds by removing rear seats, brackets, seat belts, passenger seat and a carbon-fiber trunk lid,” Josh says.
When you do remove this many pounds, Josh offers a warning: “You will need to adjust suspension for the new weight. The spring rates will not be ideal for the car, especially as hard as we drive the car. We also had to dial in the rest of the suspension settings, such as camber, toe and ride height.”
One more quick body tweak. Remove the weather stripping between the top of the engine bay and the windshield for better cooling. “My engine and oil temps went down 8 degrees by doing that,” Michael says, although he adds he never seen temps go above 270.
With more power and less weight, you’ll be going faster and will need more brakes. Many good options exist, but Josh prefers the Neotech Evo six-piston calipers with the company’s two-piece rotors, in either a 355mm or 380mm size. The Neotech calipers also use a GT Mustang brake pad, opening up a large world of offerings from various pad manufacturers. Furthermore, Josh stands by Neotech so much that his KDM Tuners offers a lifetime warranty on the calipers. “Big brake kits are an investment,” Josh admits, “but they will be one of the biggest improvements in lap times and overall driving experience.”
Final Word
Driver Will Drees, KDM Tuners' Josh Sadler and car owner Michael Dube. Photo by J.A. Ackley.
Perhaps, the biggest thing you gain with a Hyundai Elantra N is not necessarily a huge community, but a dedicated group of Elantra N fans.
“The car can be very polarizing,” Michael says. “The general public either loves it or hates it, and there’s a lot of hate out there for the car. The N community, though, is amazing.”
Want proof? When Gridlife ruled the team’s rear seat delete as illegal, they needed replacement seats–and fast. The team had the announcer ask the crowd for some rear seats. Someone offered theirs from their street car in the parking lot so Will, Michael and Josh could go race. That’s the kind of support you get with the Hyundai Elantra N.
“Just bring your Elantra N and go to the track,” Josh advocates. “You don’t need a bunch of stuff. A lot of people get caught up in, ‘I got to buy this part first.’ Just come to the track. We want to see more Hyundai guys out there.”
