Technical My Panda 4x4 Abarth Project

[The Pretender]

Rotrex was installed without removing engine, but the offside engine mount was undone and the engine jacked slightly to give the clearance required to get the pulley fitted. Machining of the crank pulley to fit the billet s/c pulley is critical - it needs to be a perfectly machined fit with minimal tolerance as that assembly need to be absolutely rigid and this is an area that has failed on other folks conversions. I bought a spare complete engine to have the bracketry and machining completed without the car and this has paid dividends for sure.

So Rotrex sits proud of the Alternator belt run - it's an 8v serpentine belt with its own tensioner and it runs outside the alternator run. I need to do cambelt next spring, so there'll be a bit of undoing to be done. I also need to find a set of Snap-On short neck Allen Keys, as those are the only ones that can fit in the gap between the new blowing hardware and the side of the engine bay!

Any progress on the cambelt. ?
Maybe you could make pictures of the rotrex bracket when it is off.
That way i get a idea how it's mounted to what points, and see if it will fit on the 69 hp engine.
Still not able to get a bracket from TTS.

 

[The Pretender]

Is the TTS Rotrex bracket bold on to the 3 points on the engine used for the airco pump. ???

 

[R1NGA]

It is, Mr Pretender. I still haven't done the cambelt (yes, I know!), so no chance to do the picture thing yet. It is on the To Do list though, but the risk is only being dumped somewhere unexpectedly, not facing a wrecked engine, which I know is no excuse, but life is very busy right now!

 

[The Pretender]

I wonder how much power the intercooler is adding to the total.
Or would it only be producing cooler air.

btw, do you know what size pulley is on the Rotrex. ?

 

[R1NGA]

I/C doesn't add power as such, but it does stop it falling away under high loads or high ambients. On warm days with enthusiastic driving the temp difference between the IN and OUT pipes from the I/C is quite remarkable. Inlet temps are maintained between 28-35C or thereabouts, regardless of the outside temp, within reason. If left to its own devices, I expect nearer 50C when working hard. This is bad and would cause a lot of drop off in power, caused both by the lessened density as well as the ECU backing things off for safety.

I need to try to find the pully size, but we definitely went down a size when we fitted the smaller unit (to reduce mid-range boost, but them pick it up at higher revs). 27mm comes to mind, but I need to check.

 

[The Pretender]

I wonder how the alternator is fixed on yours with the Rotrex in place.
My alternator is fixed with a twin bracket using the 3 airco pump fixing points with one bracket and then the second bracket with alternator is fixed to that.

btw, any chance of a picture from under-need with alternator/Rotrex fixings. ?

 

[R1NGA]

I will try to tke a snap this weekend (due to collect from the chap removing the UNI-Q piggyback) and post a picture.

 

[The Pretender]

I will try to tke a snap this weekend (due to collect from the chap removing the UNI-Q piggyback) and post a picture.

Much appreciated in advance.

 

[R1NGA]

Update: Will have to be next weekend now, as collection delayed due to Mr Mapper being stuck on another vehicle. However, pictures will come!

 

[The Pretender]

I'm looking forward to it.

 

[R1NGA]

The final piece of the jigsaw has now been put into place with my 4x4 Rotrex project and that is to get the OEM ECU flashed with the correct mapping and to remove the piggy-back UNI-Q. The Dastek unit had done sterling work keeping the car running well, with one exception - slow speed idle and small throttle opening control. The revs would see-saw a lot and the car could not run with lambda's, as it refused to come out of Closed Loop.

Anyway, suffice to say that Paul and Leighton at Sabre Tuning (look them up on Facebook) have now remapped the Marelli unit to suit the Rotrex and everything is back to factory behaviour (if not factory performance....!). Lambdas are back in, no engine light, not fault codes, solid idle and the car runs as it if was straight from Fiat - but with a 2 litre engine.....

The car now has some 17,000+ miles on the conversion, continues to average 36mpg and will still rev out to 6,000rpm in top with surprising ease. Happy

I cannot recommend the Sabre Tuning chaps highly enough and they should also be able to do the 100HP Bosch unit as well, so if anyone needs a 100HP remapped anytime soon....

I promised Mr Pretender some more pictures of the Rotrex mounting, so here they are. If you need some from underneath, I can have a go at that too.

 

[The Pretender]

Thx.

 

[KRANP]

Amazing car, well done! :worship:

Can you tell me more about the front grille please? I keep looking for a decent minor-modified grille but can't find one. How easy is it to make one myself?

Thanks.

 

[R1NGA]

Grill was actually very easy to make, but I chanced upon the parts that happened to work. I'd bought a spare stock Panda grill, as I wanted to clear out the restrictions and prepare it for the new air intake for the Rotrex - but I also had a spare, (new) Audi allroad centre-lower grill kicking around the garage which had a way nicer look to the mesh. I offered them up and realised that the curve and length were pretty much the same...

... So I carefully dremel'd out the central guts of the Panda grill, removed the lugs and fixings from the allroad grill and then 'made them fit', through gentle filing and some less gentle force. Glued the thing together, filled the nasty bits, rubbed down, primed and sprayed it up. I was pleased with the results.

Both grills were only about £25 and the allroad item was for a 2005 C5 model and they are all the same, regardless of diesel or petrol engines. If you need a chassis no. for Audi (they will!), try WAUZZZ4B35N023244, which was for a green 4.2 V8 model.

Good luck and if you manage to perfect it, there could be a production opportunity here I reckon

 

[KRANP]

Grill was actually very easy to make, but I chanced upon the parts that happened to work. I'd bought a spare stock Panda grill, as I wanted to clear out the restrictions and prepare it for the new air intake for the Rotrex - but I also had a spare, (new) Audi allroad centre-lower grill kicking around the garage which had a way nicer look to the mesh. I offered them up and realised that the curve and length were pretty much the same...

... So I carefully dremel'd out the central guts of the Panda grill, removed the lugs and fixings from the allroad grill and then 'made them fit', through gentle filing and some less gentle force. Glued the thing together, filled the nasty bits, rubbed down, primed and sprayed it up. I was pleased with the results.

Both grills were only about £25 and the allroad item was for a 2005 C5 model and they are all the same, regardless of diesel or petrol engines. If you need a chassis no. for Audi (they will!), try WAUZZZ4B35N023244, which was for a green 4.2 V8 model.

Good luck and if you manage to perfect it, there could be a production opportunity here I reckon

This may well be my first project for the Panda, as I can't see it costing the earth.

Watch this space! Thanks for the tips!

 

[The Pretender]

Still would like to install a Rotrex on my 1.2 ltr 169.
I had plans moving to a new Panda 85 TwinAir, but a two cylinder is just not my thing.
A Supercharged 1.2 ltr would be much more fun to drive IMHO.
In my case i would choose the Rotrex C15-20.

 

[woj]

Two questions for you mate:

1. How strong you think this transmission of Panda 4x4 is. I understand it still holds for you. Would you think it would hold a turbo-ed engine too (with the drastic torque jumps and all)?

2. Which exact ECU that Magnetti Marelli is?

Otherwise - I browsed the forum a bit with poor results - any more forced induction projects on a 4x4 around here?

 

[R1NGA]

I think the transmission on the 4x4 is fine for the power/torque curve of the Rotrex, as it loads mainly at the top end, which of course is much better for the gearbox. General understanding is that perhaps 105-110 ft/lbs might be the logical limit and in theory the MJ Diesel makes that at little more than 2000rpm, suggesting that a turbo petrol conversion _might_ be safe at that level too, but I'd not be over confident of that.

ECU on my 2006 car is a Marelli IAW59F and is perfectly map'able via the OBD port.

Hope this helps!

 

[woj]

Thanks for the answer. Were not Panda's 4x4 coming also with 5AF ECUs? This one I find much more workable with

 

[R1NGA]

Thanks for the answer. Were not Panda's 4x4 coming also with 5AF ECUs? This one I find much more workable with

Maybe, but mine's not! My car is a July 2006 model, although in typical Fiat fashion, they seem to fit whatever bits are to hand on the day I think....