(G) 106MPH in my Fiat Uno 999c Fire!!

I was driving my 1990 fiat uno 999cc fire south on the M25. Between A3 and M23 at 3am this morning and I got her upto 106MPH. As soon as she go that high she started loosing power and i had to drop to 70 for the rest of the journey. lol

Speedo's are notoriously inacurate at high speeds. I doubt it was actually 106mph. I hope you havn't seriously damaged the engine with the stress and heat.

Ah come on, Hellcat - don't rain on acid_burn702's parade

You're right of course, but it is still fast. The fastest I've been in an Uno 45 was with the speedo showing 143km/h (only about 89mph...)

As for the engine being damaged by the 'stress and heat' - yeah right! Were there sparks flying out the exhaust? I bet there's been some carbon cleaned out...

Seriously, has anyone here (or, does anyone know someone who has) blown up their FIAT engine at high revs? Assuming here no loss of coolant/oil...

-Alex

My coment about the heat damage was only as he suggested that he could only achieve 70 afterwards. Although being a FIRE as you say it's probably done it good

was that down a hill? thats the only place i managed those speeds, oh yeah and bollucks will it blow lol, mines takes over a year of abuse...

110mph (downhill...) probably not that accurate.

but i do think if i was a sane driver that i most of the parts in my car would not have to be replaced, hence my uno does not cope with abuse.
clutch, brakes, clutch m/c, brake m/c, and front shocks.
im guessing if i didnt drive like an idiot none of these things would have gone wrong

distortionrockets: I disagree, I'd say that on a 12-year-old car, any of those items could be giving up the ghost regardless of how you drive it. True, if it was a low-mileage minter, the clutch might be OK, but the other parts (brakes, hydraulics, shocks) deteriorate as much with age as with usage, in my experience... so don't be afraid to get the value out of them now you've fitted them!

Hellcat: actually, I re-read the original post just after I made my reply, and you do have a good point... I'm worried about what caused the loss of performance... you do have to watch for overheating, loss of oil etc.

There are not many instruments in base-model Unos, but the UK models apparently have a temperature gauge (ours don't) so that's a start. I like the oil temperature and oil pressure gauges in my Turbo, because it gives me an idea of when it's working hard (or not).

So, acid_burn702 - any more info? D'ya think it was overheating, or maybe the opposite (carb icing?) What do the spark plugs look like (maybe they are a slightly 'hot' plug chosen for round-town use, maybe they were overheating and pre-igniting)... Fill us in on the details?

It's nice that you guys have the roads for these sorts of speeds... there's nowhere I can drive at 160km/h insconspicuously without risk of car confiscation/license loss

-Alex

140 is easy, I hit 140 every day,
170~ is hard and i can hit it (down hill)

yes but you are talking in KPH not MPH

105MPH slightly downhill, but heat was well in the red had to slow down no loos of power tho!

That was in my L reg 999cc FIRE!

Second the motion on the inaccurate speedo mine was bouncing between 103 and about 107 but its stupidly hard to read anyway!

Puntos must be lower geared as i can't get that high in my 1.1 fire!

It was nothing major, the enging flooded with petrol. It done that before when i first got the car and i pulled over and turned the enging off for about 30secs and she was fine. I was a flat road I think but a did have loads of head wind. I could have continued above 70mph but if i had she would have powered down. Seijunkie was my speedo checker, as its not very sturdy with 13" wheels on her.

Of course, KPH...
else then we're talking about lamporgini not Uno

I saw 110mph in my '86 Uno FIRE only a couple of months back! Northbound on the M40, near the Prices Risburough turn off. HUGE and very long down hill stretch, and without realising it I was touching the mid 90's a third of the way down, so I thought what the hell, foot to the floor and see what it would do.

Touched 110mph before I hit the bottom, at which point it went up hill a bit and the speed dropped back to just below 100mph.

Weirdest thing I find with the FIRE Uno's, is that they will struggle to go much over 80mph on the flat, but if you can get them to 90 or even 100 down hill, they seem to be able to hold that speed once on the flat again

I must also add that it suffered no ill effects or overheating, in fact the temperature gauge was sitting at a very normal 80 degrees.

Of course, who knows how accurate the speedo reading actually was (it was quite steady with no wavering though), and also getting up to speed on the flat is the 'real' top speed. Any vehicle can read much higher on a down hill stretch.

I also suspect as well that the FIRE engines can go a lot faster down hill, as certainly in the case of the Uno, 5th gear is very high. Even at over 100mph the engine is revving around 5000rpm - not anywhere near the redline.

There's a picture I have somewhere of a slightly modified FIRE mk1 Uno showing 200kph on the clocks (124mph!) It was running twin two barrel carburetors though

Oh, and Acid_Burn, were you talking about a similar long down hill stretch on the M25 just before the M23 turn off? I know it well! Going the opposite way on that stretch of the M25, my Uno will struggle to hold 65mph before getting to the top. It's a very steep hill...

Your right 5th gear gearing is not designed for speed, but fuel economy. Now i have a rev counter on mine, there is no real power below 4K, and i have to work hard when rallying to keep the engine always above 4K, and it all tails off just before the rev limiter at 6.5K.
The gearing is quite high for all the gears, so i am thinking about getting a different diff (lower ratio) to improve things.
Does anyone know if the 900cc engine fitted to the Cinq/Sei is based on the FIRE engine ie will a gearbox from a Cinq/Sei fit to a 999cc FIRE engine ?