OK, for those who don't know, I have bought some of the parts from Dave the Trike's supercharger kit that he had running on his 1.2 16v Punto. I have read his threads and will be pinching some of his ideas (eternal thanks to Dave, he put blood, sweat and tears into that thing so I totally appreciate how easy I have it to be able to follow on from his work :worship to get this up and running on my Brava, which has the same engine. I'm putting the thread here because it seems to involve parts from varying Fiats and some generic ones too. I have a friend, Ste, helping me this end, Jordan has also offered his occasional services (fitting in around his own project work, which he has enough of already, poor lad ) and I am aiming to really learn and have a good go.

So having done some initial research..........

Things that will have to change:
ECU - I am really interested in tinkering with this myself and have done a lot of reading about it. I can't afford and would be bored with the expensive, ready-set-up route so am considering Megasquirt (harder, longer, more interesting) or Greddy piggyback (still self-tune but less wiring-up required, less probability of making a mess but is it less flexible?).
Injectors - think Dave used the ones from the 1.8 and they swapped in OK.
Head gasket - something Dave had a problem with, need to look for a strengthened one, not yet researched
Add in an oil cooler of some kind - not yet reserached
Better air intake - think Dave used one from an old Escort to this could be an option.

Things that will stay the same to start but will change as we go along because the original parts most likely won't be good enough:
Fuel pump? Not yet researched
Cool running thermostat?
Brakes - open to ideas but I think a rear disk conversion is coming
Clutch assembly - something robust for the added but not too heavy - open to ideas
Gearbox - open to ideas, no idea yet what will fit
Will the driveshaft stand up to the incresed torque?

Other stuff to consider:
Mounting the thing
Tubing

That's where we are, still at the bottom of a steep learning curve! And once again, massive respect goes to those who have pioneered in this field, I have been reading through the threads in the Cinq and Punto sections and :worship:

supercharging is a far superior option to a turbo, and much easier to install, so imo you've chosen the best option. realistically it wont be as fast as a 1.6, but it will be an interesting project.

megasquirt is a real pain to work with. it would be far easier to use something like the dasteq unichip. you may get away with the stock injectors on a unichip, you'd be surprised how much you cna increase the fueling, especially if you modify the fuel rail pressure regulator to increase the pressure slightly.

my main concern would be the gearbox, the 1.2 has a weak box and it cant take much abuse, i would upgrade to the 6 speed from a mk2 punto sporting, the cable linkages would make it an easy upgrade, and the short ratios would reduce the strain on it, plus it will make the car faster.

dont be tempted to extend the rev limit too much higher, the 1242cc revs highly as it is, and it isnt a very well balanced engine thanks to large tolerances at the factory. the higher it revs the sooner this misbalance will kill the crank bearings. its better to play it safe.

how do you plan to lower the compression ratio? a decomp plate would work, and its cheap.

i know this probably doesnt matter to you, but all this work will not create a very fast car. for the same kind of money you could go for the 20vT conversion, and then you really would have a quick brava, plus it would be more reliable.

Thanks Jug, I really value your input as you know these cars

I am back to my original plan of what can be done with the 1.2 engine so you're right there. Options were 2.4 derv conversion (I already have a fast derv) and 20vT (too complicated with the whole ECU and clocks thing and squeezing it all in) but I went on a long drive a few weeks ago and realised how much the engine is a part of my car so am sticking with what I have and this came up at the right time. I'll be happy with 130-140ish bhp to be honest, don't want to push it too far and break it

I will seriously consider that gearbox, I know Dan used it on his 1.2 and so we know it fits/ works, will it be strong enough though? I am guessing there won't be much space for anything big anyway?

Haven't thought about compression ratio (though I think it is in Ste's list, I haven't a clue as to what it is or what to do about it ), I will go read

Won't be playing with rev limit, from Dave's experience I should get sufficient power at current range *phew*.

No rush on anything, got the first installment of money for this coming next month (enough to buy most bits and an ECU), then another installment towards the end of summer (to do whatever else needs done and get it resprayed).

EDIT - re. ECU, I have considered the Dastek but I belive it has to be professionally installed and tuned? I want something I can fiddle with myself and change as I choose to add in bits, swap sensors etc, I don't want to have to take it to be tuned every time I don't mind the work and studying and quite look forward to it, if anything. However if it's just recommended that something like Dastek has to be professionally installed/ tuned but in fact you can do it yourself and tune on your laptop at home, then it becomes a much more interesting prospect

Helz said:

I will seriously consider that gearbox, I know Dan used it on his 1.2 and so we know it fits/ works, will it be strong enough though?

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it is the same strength but the shorter ratios mean the gearbox internals will be under less strain. imagine when you're riding a mountain bike and you select one of those long gears that is hard to turn, you have to really push hard on the pedals, but if you select a shorter gear you can pedal more easily. its the same with car gearboxes, the 6 speed has shorter gears so the engine can turn them more easily, and that means less strain on the engine and the gearbox, and most importantly in this situation the differential (the weak point in both 5 speed and 6 speed).

Helz said:

EDIT - re. ECU, I have considered the Dastek but I belive it has to be professionally installed and tuned? I want something I can fiddle with myself and change as I choose to add in bits, swap sensors etc, I don't want to have to take it to be tuned every time

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a unichip is tuned on a rolling road to create the perfect map for your car. the idea would be you complete all the mods first, then you take it somewhere to be mapped to perfectly suit the mods. the unichip works with your standard ecu, so installing is easy compared to a megasquirt. the megasquirt is a "stand alone" ecu, so it replaces most of your current ecu's job, which creates the nightmare of re-wiring everything, and then the risk of that wiring developing faults. i hate it when someone asks me to help diagnose a problem on a car with a megasquirt, its a real headache, but a unichip is much easier. plus the unichip route would be cheaper. the only real advantage of the megasquirt in this situation is the ability to DIY tune your fueling and ignition maps, but that isnt always a good thing, in the wrong hands it can easily spell engine death, and once you havew it set up right you should never need to make any adjustments so you wont use its best feature. this is all my opinion of course, plenty of people prefer stand alone ecu's to piggy back ecu's, there is no best option, it depends what you want and need.

ECU - I am really interested in tinkering with this myself and have done a lot of reading about it. I can't afford and would be bored with the expensive, ready-set-up route so am considering Megasquirt (harder, longer, more interesting) or Greddy piggyback (still self-tune but less wiring-up required, less probability of making a mess but is it less flexible?).

I'm a massive MS convert now! I built my own from scratch, installed, setup, tuned etc. Now it runs sweet as a nut, goes great, and you learn so much, fiddle so much , and really get to grips with everything. If you want something to fiddle and learn, MS is def the way to go :slayer: I did have a bit of a MS thread of my own, see sig, but it fizzled out a bit. There is also a good megasquirt thread in cento section. Those who say its hard to work with, i don't understand. I just think they are not used to it. I have played with the Emerald software, though not on an actual engine, and it seems confusing to me lol...guess its what your used to.

I'm off on wednesday to help gazzman2k set up his MS turbo


Injectors - think Dave used the ones from the 1.8 and they swapped in OK.
Head gasket - something Dave had a problem with, need to look for a strengthened one, not yet researched

If you chose high impedance injectors, just choose nice large ones, with the right ecu (inc MS) you can control them very well at low output, ie. idle, and still have plenty of headroom for boost situations.

Add in an oil cooler of some kind - not yet reserached / Cool running thermostat?

Both issues to keep your eye on. Once its runnig, see if/what it needs. I'm sure you will need additional cooling, but if you do, maybe a better solution is a combined oil/water cooler with thermostatic control. LAst thing you want is to cool it too much! with those stresses and poweroutput, if its TOO cool, it will be just as much damage as too hot.

Better air intake - think Dave used one from an old Escort to this could be an option.

Intake or intercooler? Intake, whatever will do for mow, custom pipe and filte. with forced injection any high flow intake will do, its far less important than a na setup.


Brakes - open to ideas but I think a rear disk conversion is coming
What size wheels you have and whats the curent setup? 240 or 257mm fronts? ventd? rear drums i pressume.

Clutch assembly - something robust for the added but not too heavy - open to ideas
As its 16v it has a larger clutch friction surface than standard cento's (180mm) at 190mm. A better option as its a larger car though, is a stilo flywheel at 200mm and a sports clutch.

Gearbox - open to ideas, no idea yet what will fit
Will the driveshaft stand up to the incresed torque?
There is a french cento runnig 1.2 16v tub at 150bhp with standard shafts. Im sure tey will be up for the job.
Gearbox. I'd chose a low mileage, modern 6 speed, ie stilo, panda yada yada. Punto 6 speed will have a too higer final drive i think.

Hope thats of some use

Kristian

Massive use, thank you I have been following your own work with some interest (on the sly). I will digest what you have both said and update my plans over the next few days.

In answer to your questions, I was referring to airbox and filter when I said air intake, should have been more specific It currently bears off to the right and then back to the middle again, no need for that so will look at re-routing it and a bigger filter box.

I currently have 15ins alloys and standard brakes, which are 257mm diameter on the front and drums on the back - think the Marea 1.8 front disks are same diameter but thicker and obviously the rears will need some work. I will go away and read up some more but this seems to be the route to go and is something that can be done sooner rather than later as I reckon it could be done relatively cheap and cheerfully (crosses fingers).

Nice project to get you going.

If you want to know more about piggy back units, in particular the recommended Greddy E-manage and HKS F-con S then buy the back issues of Japanese Performance mags from Nov and Dec last year, Novembers covers the buying and what they do, the Decembers setting them up & on rolling roads.

The Japanese have the biggest after market tuning scene in the world, yet standalone ECUs are only really used on very high power cars, and even then they turn to MoTeC or other well know brands. Most tuners actually design plug and play ECUs that have all the difficult stuff like cold start mapping and idle control taken care of by emulating the original mapping, so up to you to do the rest to suit your cars requirements. Apexi do one off the shelf for the GT4 for example.

The Dastec Unichip is also a good option, I know that the Rotrex Supercharger kit that you can buy off the shelf for the Suzuki Ignis uses this set up with Unichip controlling boost and fuelling, standard ECU does everything else. I know your car is a little older, but on modern cars this is becoming a much more viable option to going full standalone ECU because everything is integrated into the ECU now, airbag deployment, ABS, even headlamps, so many are keen to not disrupt these systems, therefore the piggy back stuff is gaining ground and becoming very clever at what they do.

I also know the Rotrex Supercharged Saxo/106 GTi kits also use the Dastec Uni-Chip, I used to work with a guy who had a 200bhp Supercharged Saxo, it was very very fast, but a show car as his everyday car was a 225bhp TT.

one thing that may sway you either way is how close any resellers/experts there are on hand. I know Dastec are up near Edinburgh, and as such have close links to Peugeot Ecosse, so they are massive on French scene. For instance these guys are probably close to you http://www.remapping.co.uk/

I think everything else is covered,

oil coolers from these guys http://www.thinkauto.com/
http://www.earls.co.uk/
there are others.

I think your car has solid 257 discs, so go for the bigger calliper and 257mm vented discs which are commonly know as the Punto GT set up, but yes 1.8 Bravo is the same. You need the callipers as well because discs are about 10m thicker, so with new pads etc will not fit in between your own callipers.

Rears, well I'm sure if we Cento folk can fit 240mm solid rear callipers conversions, then its possible on your car, maybe even easier as there are cars from that family that have rear discs set up, just rob the lot and fit hopefully. the rear calliper set up on Emma's Sei is from a Marea 2L 20V. They will not offer any more stopping power, but will offer it over a longer period and be more consistent as they do no fade like drums do. Plus they look so much better.

Clutch, again I'd go for the 200m flywheel and clutch from a Fiat Stilo, the reason for this is the Stilo is some 1150kgs, the clutch then has some work to do when it moves the car forward, therefore the clutch assembly is very robust unit made by AP, the flywheel and clutch can be had from Fiat for less than £200 new, I would say its good for about 130lb ft, clutches are rated in torque not bhp, so if someone trys to sell a sport clutch quoting bhp, run away!

Helz I hadn't realised that it was you that picked up DTT's bits, it sounds like a fun project good luck! it may not end up as powerful as a HGT but it will sound a good sight better.

DTT did a lot of reasearch into gearbags so he might be a good persons brains to pick

ECU wise i too have steered clear of MS as you know as it has the extra complexity of having to run the engine as well as the mods, where at least with the piggyback you have a bit less complxity as it just accomadates. There are lots other options as well though the SMT6 for example

As you know I've just ordered a greddy emanage to fit with my profec e-01 boost controler. The end goal is for the greddy to manage the 2nd injector and ignition in the end as it has more info available than the VAD setup of stock ECU + MF2, in that it considers AFR and knock plus can control the boost too. But as far far as i know i'm not aware of anyone else running this solution in the UK on a FIAT engine but i have seen BM's VW's and Jap stuff, in all my reading can't see any reason why it wouldn't work

The greddy blue is more flexible than the ultimate as these tend to be a bit more packaged for various engines plus you are stuck with laptop tuning where the blue can do both laptop and tuning/tweaking via either a e-01 or profec e-01, watch my cinq turbo thread and i'll update with issues (and of course will give advice if i can) there is quite a wide support network but as this is Jap focused you just have to ask the right questions

Hey helz, good to see thoughts accumulating in one place, and you've been given some great advice above

Read somewhere that you're finding it hard to find a bodyshop? I know the man to go to if you are struggling - drop me a pm for his details, or i'll organise it for you, I only use him now he's that good.

As far as mounting the charger etc goes, just give me a shout sometime if you want plates made/ pulleys made etc, or you might already have gotten the pulley i made him for the charger, which should bolt straight on.

Maybe I missed it, but are you planning on using your exisiting engine or buying a spare to work on?

Hope to see frequent updates here

Jordan

I haven't actually done anything much yet as the extra money that should have come in my last paypacket didn't Hopefully this month I can start getting some bits

I have decided to go for the Greddy Emanage Ultimate, which it seems you can get with harness (not for Brava so will want some work) and software for £400ish. I have decided to start the work with the standard gearbox and clutch - I know they will need replaced but I think we'll do so towards the end, depends how the money flows (Stilo 1.4 probably). I'll try and get Marea brakes and injectors from the same 1.8/2.0 car, make life easier - should I pull a fuel pump off one as well? Need to choose an intercooler and piping shortly as well. Still haven't decided on air intake yet, think we'll get it into place and see where the space is and bodge it a bit as this is one thing we can do a bodge job on. Also I think I will be wanting a bigger battery at some point, will see how it runs with what it's got :chin: Other thing I need is a stronger headgasket - anyone know of specialist companies that make them?

Jordan I will be needing a new extended pulley wheel as Dave's broke in transit I will give you a shout shortly about that and if you can do the decompression plate also and give advice on that, would be brilliant

Helz,

I don't know if you shopped around but the cheapest place i have found is http://www.mohdparts.com/emanage/ the great US dollar exchange rate helps the ultimate is $499 inc software and the blue is $289 or £250/£145

Also you may possibly get away without paying customs duties if you are lucky (not that i would ever condone defrauding HM Customs of course)
I bought my blue from him and a couple of harness kits and got very good service and a good deal

Also get on and join the emanage yahoo user group if you haven't done so already you can download a free copy of the emanage support tool software so you can have a play before you get it (or PM me and i can email it to you)

Thank you, I shall take a look but I think after postage and the possibility of import duties, it's not going to be far off what I'm looking at paying from a UK company

I have found a company that makes HGs for the Bravo/a/Punto 1.2 16v called Spesso, anyone have anything good, bad or otherwise to say about them?

get a price from him you might be surprised cost me £240 for a blue with all the harnesses i needed inc postage if you ask him nicely the import doc will be presented in the right way if you know what i mean

Also do you really need an ulimate? I guess you just need on boost fuelling and maybe ignition retartdation which is all available on the blue for much less cost you can also plumb in knock and AFR too and include map voltage clamping. You also use the same software which you can get for free so i can't really see what extra you will get for your money

Spesso are well known and good quality BTW

Agreed Spesso is a good make of HG.

not a problem re. the pulley, we can either change the sizes on the new one or stay the same, all i'll need is the old one to measure spacing from

I can most likely make you a decompression plate also, so chuck a pm at me when the time arrives

Jordan

Spesso head gaskets have a well know name and normally there quality is not called into question, but the guys who used to run the company and looked after quality control left a while back and set up Nava Linea which are sold exclusively by guy Croft and therefore I think you can take it as granted they are top quality.

http://www.guy-croft.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=677

Thanks for the suggestions gents I think I'll have a chat with Jordan to see what he can do and do some more research into thickness and materials required (the suggestion of copper has been bandied about). As I've looked further, a thicker one is going to have to be custom made, one way or another.

interesting project helz, i enjoyed reading about Daves punto so look forward to this one!

Ry

EDIT: as for the brakes i 'think' the marea/bravo 20v 284mm calipers will bolt onto your hubs, however might be best to let someone confirm, also they will fit under your 15's and make them look fuller

Copper head gaskets information and products can be found here

http://www.ferriday.co.uk/

J333EVO said:

guy Croft

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i love that guy