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Seicento "Grey Matter" - finally back in a Sei!

Introduction

Hi! My name's Jesper and I live in Odense, Denmark. 33 years old and I've been hanging around in here since 2006, mainly lurking in the shadows.

Back in 2005 I bought a money pit of a Sei and now I've gone and bought myself one, again. Same colour, different everything apart from the money pit detail.
I couldn't resist when I got this offer from a acquaintance of mine whom I got to know when I had my first Seicento. He's a good man - I think he just lost his patience and reprioritised to focus on his family and business rather than pouring funds into something which will only depreciate further.

More photos will come at a later point, so this is merely an introduction. CBA to was and polish it, yet - too much mechanical stuff needs to be done.

The engine and gearbox have done 99.600km at this point and nothing apart from brakes, cooler and a few cables has been done, mechanically since 1999 and it has only been driven occasionally three Winters.
Underseal was done years ago and will be done again before I store it for the coming Winter.

The following changes has been made by the previous owner:

Rear arches rolled (proper job)
Yellow Koni shocks
60/40 lowering kit (KAW and Ventura)
6.5x15 ET32 Barchetta steelies @ 15mm spacers with Nankang 165/45 :yuck:
Debadged front and rear + poor job of covering the boot lock :rolleyes:
J&R pod filter (n)
280 degree C&B cam :devil:
Head ported and skimmed
Different inlet manifold
Custom 2" exhaust (loud li'l' bugger)
Gas bonnet struts
Supersprint exhaust manifold
Bosch chip

It also had quite massive custom skirts and bumpers with Smoor wheels, all of which was sold at some point. I'm not allowed to copy photos from the site, so you'll have to live with a link to the profile at "bilgalleri.dk"

http://www.bilgalleri.dk/galleri/1450-fiat_seicento

Interior:

Custom leather/green alcantara with yellow stichings
6.5" speakers in the parcel shelf (but why? :confused: Can't hear'em anyway!)

In the deal I managed to score his NOS 14" Abarth wheels which will be fitted at some point. I will likely go for 165/55-14 as they are road legal (+4,73% circumference of 165/55-13) and a lot cheaper than 175/50-14. Possibly a bit more comfortable as well and they should fill out the arches nicely.


What needs work:

Likely the clutch and cable, beforelong
Paint falling off on the left, front wing
Fronts discs and pads
Stock air filter case with some mods
Different exhaust (CSC or whatever I find with a good price/quality ratio)
40mm TB
New headlights (on their way)
-35mm H&R springs (maybe - prev. owner lost the papers on the existing springs)
New strut mounts (so might as well change the springs)
Likely every suspension bush on the car, lol
Fluids change
Cambelt, tensioner, waterpump and refitting a cambelt cover
Rubber side strip for the left side of the car.
Paint my set of Abarth skirts and fit them if I ever find an Abarth roof/rear spoiler.

There used to be a 40mm TB on the car, but Tricker turned up the fuel regulator and at some point it started having a heavy smell of petrol inside the car. At first, the remapped chip was replaced with the Bosch one (I still have the remapped chip). As this made no difference, a stock TB was fitted and the 40mm one was binned/sold.
I hope a 40mm TB with an untouched regulator will work out with the remapped chip as the engine was pushing past 85BHP in its time.

I want a "sleeper" car which runs faster than it looks, drawing as little attention as possible until I floor the throttle! :yum:


Idle is sort of lumpy once the engine gets up to temperature. A stop/start of a thoroughly warmed up engine has it idling on the verge of stalling.
I'm contemplating giving it an ECU reset as per: https://www.fiatforum.com/cinquecento-seicento-guides/94040-how-change-ecu-chip.html
If it's SPI, pretty sure McCritch can do a rev limit delete or re-limit.


Is he still around? Thought he was long gone from here!

It's SPI. Sticker on the ECU's gone so I need other ways of finding out which one it is.
If there's a difference on Seis, year 1998-99, that is.

Need to get it soldered, of course but there's bound to be someone somewhere that's capable of this.
I might be, but don't want to find out by killing my ECU, lol!
 
He's still about, apparently.

Alternatively, if you're not boycotting, there's the guy in Israel if you can find him.

From what I read, the kit to do it is out there, but I've no real idea what's involved.

Never mix cars and politics, lol. But thanks for reminding me of McKritch. The guy from Israel, thats Chip2Race, right?

Incidentally, most of the weird behaviour is starting to clear by itself as time passes.
Idling is more stable than ever and it no longer stumbles when starting once warmed up - it just shoots up to 850-900rpm and stays there.
Cold running is still a slight challenge between 2.000-2.500rpm, but besides that it's turning out to be quite a smooth ride.

One only has to be aware that there is absolutely NO power to pull away from 50kph in 5th - heck, even 60kph in 5th! But it just manages to keep a stable speed while cruising at such low rpm in 5th, so it's really not bad, this cam!

Winter's coming so I can wait to get the limit raised and DET3 fitted.


Set a personal record, BTW:

Last Friday the front right tire caught a screw... and the rear right caught a nail, so I had to get them sorted. :bang:

The brakes are now really bedded in and the car stops hard enough to make the seat belt lock up. Ended up needing to brake in a hurry while coming through a blind corner when a car coming against me on my side of the road, lol! Now that's a real-world test of both brakes, tires and suspension! All good! :D
 
The later sporting ECU comes with removeable chip, might be better than getting someone to solder on in.

You could get them pretty chip. I haven't heard of any chip that deletes the limiter, but he might be able to do it. But i know for sure he can delete the Immob, if you want to go down the other ECU route.

Nothing feels better than driving your car with new mods :D !
 
The later sporting ECU comes with removeable chip, might be better than getting someone to solder on in.



You could get them pretty chip. I haven't heard of any chip that deletes the limiter, but he might be able to do it. But i know for sure he can delete the Immob, if you want to go down the other ECU route.



Nothing feels better than driving your car with new mods :D !


I have to admit I've yet to open the ECU to have a look. As mentioned earlier I do have a "98 octane chip" for it, i.e. one with a custom map but it's been removed be the previous owner during a troubleshooting session.
I see no signs of solder on the chip, so maybe I should just rip out the ECU once fuel gets low?

I was of the impression that it was the later ECU's that were soldered and not the other way around?

But you're right! Though I'm not 100% satisfied with the looks of the rear springs, I can live with it simply because of the way this tiny car handles!

My GF tends to disagree but that's only due to me not letting her drive the car, lol!
 
Still here, lol.

Since last I've been fired, got re-hired, crashed completely due to plain out stress and blah-blah-blah.

In the meantime I've managed to build a new exhaust system as the old one was rotten and started blowing.
Sorry I haven't got any photos, but to sum it up, the old system was a mish-mash of 38-50mm pipe.
The new system is 42mm ID (including the cat) and I've reused the 50mm rear silencer and ditched the mid silencer.

So yes, ID 42mm cat-back, which is VERY HOOOOJ! :p

And then this happened:

Indicators, rev counter, speedo, fuel gauge and warning lights stopped working.

https://www.fiatforum.com/cinquecento-seicento/433202-sort-dead-dash-alternator.html


All done, now. Apart from the airbag light, that is.


Found another ECU on a Punto at work. As it turns out the ECOL-labeled ECUs don't have the same innards, so I'm getting nowhere with the remapped chip I have.

Still contemplating going down the DET3-route, but can't justify the funds for it, yet. Can't find an ECU with a socket, at all and I was discouraged to learn that the old ECU gave up with the remapped chip fitted. I learned this by coincidense from someone else than the previous owner. Rather silly - I told him I wanted the car. Don't get why he'd hide any valuable info.
Oh, well... Fact is I don't want to risc frying the only ECU I have. :)
 
Airbag fault's now reset and idle's been reset, as well. Opened the throttle juuust a tad before doing the idle reset, so it now matches the lumpy cam a lot better.

Seriously, the C&B "fast road" cam (280/268) really isn't bad to live with. This car is my daily driver. :)
 
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