(S) why modify a panda?

well that was just to get your attention.

hi i'm grahamo and it's fantastic to be back again on the fiat forum, about a year ago owned and ran a fantastic fiat seciento sporting in yellow you might have seen it.

anyway a recently got my greasy hands on a 2006 fiat panda 1.2 dynamic in that light blue not exactly sure what the name is though, anyway i've had it mearly a week now and probably drivin it less than a hand full of times since i got it, and it's already proving itself to be so much more than i expected, it has character which it something i never expected. and i'm already loving it to bits.

i picked her up for £3300 but she's only done 20000 miles, haven't got a picture yet but she looks a bit like this

i'll upload some more personal pictures shortly

anyway got into a discussion the other day whilst in a cafe with a friend we were discussing whether or not i should turn her into a project car. he was saying that if i wanted a project car i should have gone for a punto as their easier to style and have a better scene and look better to start with etc etc, my argument was i wanted to have something a bit different, anyway i've been looking around and i've only seen about 10 tuned panda's ever, and to be honest none of them look bad at all, which is great and shows that you guys actually put alot of thought into your designs and don't half arse the finish.

anyway this weekend i started tinkering, i gave her a full service to start with so i get back any of those horses she's lost over the past 3 years. then i started checking out the standard (boxy) exhaust, having a fair bit of prior knowledge when it comes to fiat it didn't take me long to start. i found an old big bore exhaust tip which a quickly stuck to the small tip of the exhaust. which instantly changed the panda purr into a panda roar. the engine sound means a great deal to me and a good sounding engine is something the italians do better than anyone else even at a 4 cylinder scale. at tickover i don't think i've ever personally heard a better sounding 1.2 4 cyclinder engine.

now i'm no chav by any means of the imagination all i want is something a bit different. so i think it might be time to begin operation 'no standard panda'
in which i aim to continue to improve the sound and the looks of this already fantasic italian super mini.

my aim over the coming 2 or so years are:
a nice set of alloys
k&n filter system
set of lower springs
possibly a 100hp spoiler.
sportier break set

these are the main ones i'm looking to do for now, however i'm just looking around at the moment to see what else i can do (parts permitting) maybe a camshaft swap is on the cards.

i'm just wondering is the 1242 engine the same one the same one they use in punto?

anyway enough of me for now

i look forward to becoming a part of this community.

regards

Grahamo

Obviously it's your car to do with as you wish. Do you not think though that there is a limit to what you can achieve with a tiny 1.2 litre engine?

It's not worth tuning surely? Why not look at getting a 100hp if you want that kind of thing. Okay it still won't be fast but it'll already have the bits on that you want.

Also worth remembering is that you will never get back what you spend on modifying. Given it's not a sporty car in anyway you may well find it hard to re-sell as who's going to take a punt on a modified panda?

I've modded cars before, but only those that can at least achieve some benefit from mods. It's a mug's game no doubt about it, though it can be enjoyable. My only advice is pick something worthwhile to start with.

Looks like a younger sister of Squirrile

The colour is Surf Azure.


Trev

And whatever you do to mod your motor, don't forget to tell your insurer or you may well invalidate your insurance!

So, a simple calculation.....

Mods + Insurance = ££££s

The panda is designed as a good, small economic car to get you from A to B as a reasonably reliable, cheap means of transport.

Better still, use the pennies you save on cheap tax and insurance, great fuel economy, low servicing and running costs, and buy a Caterham Seven or an Atom.

Agree - my most fun modification was to put a tweaked BMW 700 flat twin - about 40 hp - in the back of a 500D - 18 hp - years ago - eat Mini Coopers for breakfast and was a hoot all round - but the economics were crazy.

Obviously costs loads of money, but I think the Panda rally cars in whatever series it is are based on the 1.2 and around 130BHP.

Well yes no doubt such results are achievable at a great deal of expense, massive insurance premiums and in all honesty though a 1.2 putting out 130bhp is not going to be the most tractable engine to use on the road and there will likely be reliability issues.

The trouble is once you upgrade one component you need to upgrade others, like brakes and suspension, driveshafts, gearboxes, cooling etc ad infinitum.

I spent 7 grand (back in 2001) modifying a mk1 MR2. I put a supercharged engine in it, upgraded the pulley for more boost, did the suspension, did everything pretty much. Had 182bhp in the end and similar torque. It started with 122bhp!

There are plenty of cars with 130bhp+ as standard, surely a better bet to buy a car that suits the purpose in the first place.

I have to admit to being disappointed to find the "mod" was merely a bean tin to make a louder exhaust. Times have changed (sigh), when I were a lad, modding was opening the bores out, shoving in a high lift cam and high pressure oil pump etc while customising was pimping up the looks of the thing. A full on big bore or even straight through exhaust could be worth a few extra horses, while making it just sound louder was, well, not really worth the effort. And no, I'm not decrying what's done, just saying how different it is now.

Times have changed lots of insurance companies won't even touch a car with performance mods thats driven by an under 25 and those that do think nothing of asking you to bend over and think of England...

I don't see the point either. For a thousand pounds or so you could but something stupidly fast and probably quite reliable and spend the rest of the money on making it genuinely fast

Don't totally agree. Modding has changed a lot , but there was always something nice about taking a Ford Anglia, MK1 Cortina, Imp, Simca 1000 etc and making them go far quicker than ever intended. No ECUs or emissions to worry about.

Oh I agree with that there is something cool about old cars which have been modified to make them a lot faster than they were meant to be, but taking a modern car and spending lots on it and getting not much back just seems a bit strange to me. Each to his/her own though of course

I agree - not much point with a modern one. Far too many obstacles and second hand performance is cheap now with high fuel, tax, & insurance having knocked prices down.

Plus no one ever wants to buy a modified car second hand because they either don't like the mods or want the satisfaction of doing it themselves.