Hi Everyone,

Just arrived yesterday is my little baby fiat already named Rocky by my wife

It is really just a rolling shell so should be fun.

Will a F engine fit this little chap or will I have to stick with the D originally prescribed.

Will upload a couple of photos later

Cheers

Adam

You have a Giardiniera which is a good base for 'performance enhancing' For a start you have 600 brakes on it with a 98pcd wheel bolt pattern. If you can find one, fiat 850 coupe front disc-brake assemblies (and up-rights)will fit straight on. It is a lot easier to find fancy wheels with the 98pcd wheel-bolt pattern--Giardys look good on Miniltes.
Engine-wise you are a bit more limited as not a lot of people make tuning bits for the flat-twin, but they are available--Torsten Hangenkamp at www.ilmotore.de springs to mind immediately--Nanni Ricambi also do tuning bits (if you can get him to deal with you or you have a relative or good fiend living in Italy). The Giardy crank-case can only be bored out to take 652cc barrels--any more and you will lose the sealing 'lip' on the crank-case. With a good cam, 652cc, ported head (34mm inlet valves) and a decent exhaust, you will have a 'little ripper' as they say down-under. When I worked for Radbourne Racing our parts van/runabout was a tuned Giardy van--went like stink--70mph over the Chiswick flyover, 2-up and with a spare engine laying in the back! When I was a teenager the family car was a Giardy--and there were 3 large sons in the family! All the best with the project, welcome to the Forum. lastly, where are you based?

I am a noob on here (but not to working on cars), at the moment I'm working on my girlfriend's 1967 Giardinera. Very interested in the hobbler's comment about boring out the Giardinera crankcase to take 652cc barrels -would these be Fiat 126 items? or a special? 126 pistons or something else?

TBH this kind of work would be something for later on with Sue's car, and I would like to keep the current motor complete under a bench somewhere and do those kind of mods to another Giardinera motor. Presume that the gearing would need looking at too with a capacity increase,. as Sue's Giardinera does seem to have lower overall gearing than I remember from the saloon version (although it's a long time since I've driven a 500 saloon.)

Hi Hobbler,

I am in Devon. I have been on here a couple of months as I also have a 850t Camper which has recently been involved in a smash taking her off the road

Your comments sound interesting but sound way beyond me

Here are a couple of photos

stueeee said:

I am a noob on here (but not to working on cars), at the moment I'm working on my girlfriend's 1967 Giardinera. Very interested in the hobbler's comment about boring out the Giardinera crankcase to take 652cc barrels -would these be Fiat 126 items? or a special? 126 pistons or something else?

TBH this kind of work would be something for later on with Sue's car, and I would like to keep the current motor complete under a bench somewhere and do those kind of mods to another Giardinera motor. Presume that the gearing would need looking at too with a capacity increase,. as Sue's Giardinera does seem to have lower overall gearing than I remember from the saloon version (although it's a long time since I've driven a 500 saloon.)

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Hi,
Yes you can make a 650cc Giardiniera- Yes you use 126 pistons and barrels and I have built one, it is a lot more involved than simply bolting a 126 engine into a 500. You are very lucky that you have a 'F;' series wagon which has stronger clutch, axles and driveshaft couplings which is ideal for converting to 650.
From memory gearing is unchanged from the sedan- I have a Fiat 126 transaxle in mine which has a taller final drive and also a 5 speed conversion which is useful if you are planning to do motorway driving.


Almost everything is different in the Giardiniera engine except Pistons, Valves, Crank and bearings so you will need a complete donor Giardiniera engine if you want to retain the original.


Personally I wouldn't bother as once you have driven a 650 you would never go back to the 500 and there are no visible external modifications once it is assembled- I have two original 500 engines out of my sedans, one has been out of the car for 23 years, the other 10 and at no point have I been tempted to reinstall them!


As has been advised Torsten at il motore in Hamburg is the best person to talk to- best to call him as he isn't great on responding to emails and his English is good (he even understands Australian!)


Good luck!

Damon500 said:

Hi,
Yes you can make a 650cc Giardiniera- Yes you use 126 pistons and barrels and I have built one, it is a lot more involved than simply bolting a 126 engine into a 500. You are very lucky that you have a 'F;' series wagon which has stronger clutch, axles and driveshaft couplings which is ideal for converting to 650.
From memory gearing is unchanged from the sedan- I have a Fiat 126 transaxle in mine which has a taller final drive and also a 5 speed conversion which is useful if you are planning to do motorway driving.


Almost everything is different in the Giardiniera engine except Pistons, Valves, Crank and bearings so you will need a complete donor Giardiniera engine if you want to retain the original.


Personally I wouldn't bother as once you have driven a 650 you would never go back to the 500 and there are no visible external modifications once it is assembled- I have two original 500 engines out of my sedans, one has been out of the car for 23 years, the other 10 and at no point have I been tempted to reinstall them!


As has been advised Torsten at il motore in Hamburg is the best person to talk to- best to call him as he isn't great on responding to emails and his English is good (he even understands Australian!)


Good luck!

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Thanks for that really useful information. We're just putting together a shopping list of bits required at present. It does seem that finding a fairly complete Giard motor in the UK is going to be a difficult/impossible mission. Sue has some contacts who live in Italy, so it may be possible to come across one there. If not I will bore out the existing crankcase to take the 126 barrels as you suggested, I'm always a bit nervous about going down any engineering road of no return with major 'original to the car' components like engines/gearboxes/transaxles, which is probably why my workshop storage is filling up with large chunks removed from various cars that I have modded.over the years

I had real problems finding a machinist who could / wanted to bore out my crankcase for my 700cc unit
No one is setup for one off jobs any more - they all want multiples of repeat work.

My crankcase went round many places before getting it sorted. It did more miles than I have done in the car!!!!
Balancing is also much more tricky than more conventional engine units
I have had mine carried out and hope to of raised the red line from 4700 to 6500 rpm...........we will see soon enough when its rolling road set up next month

AndrewHarvey said:

I had real problems finding a machinist who could / wanted to bore out my crankcase for my 700cc unit
No one is setup for one off jobs any more - they all want multiples of repeat work.

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There used to be a couple of really good jobbing engineering shops near where I live, they've both long since shut down and their sites re-developed for bijou housing. As you've experienced, most work is done on CNC machines now, so one offs can be a major disruption in a production environment. I bought this old workhorse a long time ago when the owners replaced it with a CNC mill.




It's a useful tool for all kinds of car related stuff, I'll certainly be using it for boring out the crankcase when the time comes.

Hi There sounds like you need an original Giardiniera engine only. Is that correct?

Cheers Adam

Adam, if I am understanding right the situation is that you have an engineless Giardiniera and you just want to know what will fit?
Just in case that is what you're asking, the bad news is that the Giard has its own engine which is one where the barrels lie horizontally so the whole thing fits under the boot floor.
You will be lucky to find one coming up cheap and your best bet would be to get one already reconditioned.
I have seen them on Ebay from time to time
How's things with the camper?

Treaclehunter said:

Hi There sounds like you need an original Giardiniera engine only. Is that correct?

Cheers Adam

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That would be the ideal for us , yes. Do you have a spare?

Evening Adam;
Of course you could be really creative and stick a '126 BIS' engine in the back of your Giardy. I have seen it done in a normal 500, so I reckon it could be made to fit in the back of the Giardy, and like the Giardy, it is a FLAT twin of 704cc. The only(!) thing that you would really have to get your head round is that the 'BIS' engine is water-cooled whilst the normal Giardy engine is of course air-cooled--but I don't think that it would be an insurmountable problem--and 'BIS' engines seem to come up on E-bay quite often. Just a thought!

RicambiFiat supply Giardiniera engines...
http://www.ricambifiat.com/index.php

cheers, Steve

stueeee said:

That would be the ideal for us , yes. Do you have a spare?

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Sorry cross purposes I think Stu. I asked a question originally to see if I could use another Fiat 500 engine in a Giardiniera and was sort of answering my own question by saying you need an actual Giardiniera engine rather than any other one from a standard 500 if that makes sense

Cheers Adam

Treaclehunter said:

Sorry cross purposes I think Stu. I asked a question originally to see if I could use another Fiat 500 engine in a Giardiniera and was sort of answering my own question by saying you need an actual Giardiniera engine rather than any other one from a standard 500 if that makes sense

Cheers Adam

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Correct- you will need to start with at least a Giardiniera crankcase and work from there. Pretty much everything is different except for internal components (Crankshaft, rods, Pistons, Rings and Valves)
The 126 Bis engine is an interesting suggestion although might be offer a significant reduction in reliability compared to a well modified Giardiniera engine...!

Damon500 said:

The 126 Bis engine is an interesting suggestion although might be offer a significant reduction in reliability compared to a well modified Giardiniera engine...!

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I wouldn't recommmend it for loads of reasons, but mainly because the BIS engine (labellelled "Lancia" ! on the crankcase, is appalling in terms of reliability. I had one (in a BIS ) and just lived each day hoping the head gasket wouldn't fail.
They don't call them BIZ for nothing.

Can't argue there Peter--my wife had a BIS, which when it went, was good but it took the local Citroen (!) dealer to sort the overheating, and yes, it was the head-gasket. I will concede though the BIS engine in a normal 500 was the work of Jimmy DiCarlo, and when I talked to him about it he was adamant that he had 'sussed' the cause of the head gaskets blowing, but he wouldn't say what the cure was! I do have his phone number and e-mail address if anybody wants to contact him and try to weedle the answer out of him--he has his Alfa Romeo engine 500 up for sale.