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Styling What the Americans are doing to modding the 500

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Styling What the Americans are doing to modding the 500

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multispoke

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Came across a facebook entry on mods to the new MA 500 Sport - not just wheels (17s) but brakes, CAI etc. They can be found on Facebook by searching for Fiat Tuning. Their CAI involved removing the DRL (!) on our passenger side to get a 5bhp increase. Some good graphs of RR bhp figs and youtube clips. You cannot purchase from them - too many complications with importing from the states.

What's surprising on the MA in the states is that the output is only 101bhp - I would have thought it would have been 105bhp with the new technology - not too sure if it has been downtuned. Their Sport model IF it is released here will probably create a new market for guys seating between an Abarth and a 500 - cannot afford an Abarth but thinks the 500 isn't manly enough for him or her (!).
 
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yanks bless them, how long till air ride time, oddly nothing fiat related ever crops up in eurotuner
 
wigit said:
yanks bless them, how long till air ride time, oddly nothing fiat related ever crops up in eurotuner
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You have to hand it to them. They're having a good go at the 500 in relation to mods. The gap between the engine of the MA to the battery means that they were unable to fit the CAI from BMC CDA setup and a GSR equivalent so they designed their own CAI to drop directly down and then under the battery area.
They has also tinkered with the ECU (I know remapping a ECU on a NA gives very little) and they have discovered that the Bosch unit on the European model has been changed to a Magneti Marelli. They have ordered the software for it so they can play with it.
In a years time we will be going to our US forum members looking for their advice on how to tweak the MA engines.
Also their costs for CAI and re-mapping are twice and in some cases trible our costs. In not having an Abarth model for the more spirited drivers they appear to be pushing the boundaries and are looking at making the Sport button into a 'real' button with the sport mode having a more aggressive map.
http://www.csporttuning.com
http://www.facebook.com/FiatTuning
 
The Yanks tend to be a little optimistic with their dyno graphs (in the Jap tuning scene especially). I notice they've 'left out' the calibration data box on the graph for the CAI (which will show up any manipulation of the figures).
 
D4nny8oy said:
The Yanks tend to be a little optimistic with their dyno graphs (in the Jap tuning scene especially). I notice they've 'left out' the calibration data box on the graph for the CAI (which will show up any manipulation of the figures).
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Do you notice that on the RR the 'standard' 500 gave 98.4bhp and after the CAI installation it was 102.6bhp. But on the 'main' graph it was 103bhp. The engine must have 'lossened' up. I suppose the extra brake looks good :).

Also the breather connection will be lower than the connection to the 'trottle housing' (I may not have named this correctly). I would have thought it should be level so any oil / vapour from the crankcase could 'blow' into the engine to 'get re-cycled' as opposed to jamming up air pipe of the CAI and working its way done to the open cone filter. Maybe they could have but a version of a crankcase breather for this oversight. This might have legitimately given the extra 0.4bhp.

The exhaust does sound good.
I wonder is the suspension any different / better than the Euro model to take the 17s ?
 
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multispoke said:
Do you notice that on the RR the 'standard' 500 gave 98.4bhp and after the CAI installation it was 102.6bhp. But on the 'main' graph it was 103bhp. The engine must have 'lossened' up. I suppose the extra brake looks good :).
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Maybe that figure was from when they ran it on the dyno with the CAI about 3ft above the engine (see the vid!). :cry:

There's numerous ways to achieve optimistic figures, but at least the calibration box will show these up on the graph.
 
D4nny8oy said:
Maybe that figure was from when they ran it on the dyno with the CAI about 3ft above the
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Put some crap together, run it on a dyno, put vids on youtube and call yourself something Italian.

Fancy getting together and cobbling together some induction kits from toilet roll cardboard and calling ourselves Ravioli Racing or something? :)
 
i tolerate the yank tuning scene as in reality they do make some good hardware all be it over priced, trouble is in vw world they actively slag each other products off in the forum world, its like blah blah blah

the good old dyno lottery does make me laugh as well, best tuners tune on the road and not the dyno, dyno is a necessary evil

my cars just featured in a us mag and my god how much could they get wrong in an article, bless them, nice pics though lol
 
D4nny8oy said:
The Yanks tend to be a little optimistic with their dyno graphs (in the Jap tuning scene especially). I notice they've 'left out' the calibration data box on the graph for the CAI (which will show up any manipulation of the figures).
Click to expand...

Do they not have smaller horses than us so they need more of them for the same output?

Cheers

D
 
rallycinq said:
Do they not have smaller horses than us so they need more of them for the same output?

Cheers

D
Click to expand...

There was a little bit of confusion about the benefits of the MA in relation to efficiency / economy / power. In europe it was 10% more efficient (understood this to be more economical) and 10% more power. But in the US they 'lost' the 10% power. This also seems to 'happen' to their bhp outputs. Maybe it's to do with emissions - overrestrictive 'cats'.
Re the efficiency 'thing' the Turbo charged MA is supposedly 20% more efficient than the standard engine - so this one seems to be the way to go but it will only fit into an Abarth or a Mito...
 
Maybe it's because their fuel is the equivalent of tar compared to what we use! Well, think it's around RON 88 whereas the minimum we get here is 95 i think. Can make a huge difference to power outputs, some performance cars will not even run on American fuel.
 
DraigFlag87 said:
Maybe it's because their fuel is the equivalent of tar compared to what we use! Well, think it's around RON 88 whereas the minimum we get here is 95 i think. Can make a huge difference to power outputs, some performance cars will not even run on American fuel.
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Not quite sure what tar has to do with it!

You can get 91 RON fuel in the US no problems. You can make a performance car run on 91 RON fuel, it just won't develop quite as much power of course as you've pointed out. :)
 
DraigFlag87 said:
Maybe it's because their fuel is the equivalent of tar compared to what we use! Well, think it's around RON 88 whereas the minimum we get here is 95 i think. Can make a huge difference to power outputs, some performance cars will not even run on American fuel.
Click to expand...

No chance they'll be able to run an esseesse'd Abarth ! That said - the most I can get in 'normal' garages in Ireland is 95 octane.

When I had the MX5 - this was designed to run on US fuel. So I was able to advance the timing to 14 degree to take advantage of the 'higher' octane fuel here => more power - or I should say 'normal' power.

But there is some issue in the states about turbo charged engines. Their emisson regs are tighter - or it may vary from state to state.
 
There's a lot of mixed opinions about emission regs in the US v's Europe. Basically (as you know) we care about C02 (carbon dioxide) and if you compare the average car from Europe to the US, you will see our emissions are much lower. The US cars about N0X (nitrous oxide) which I've never compared as it's hard to find N0X emissions for European cars and visa versa. Although the N0X emissions might be on your cars V5 under the C02 emissions.

But i get stupid Americans posting comments on my YouTube video (the one where i get 82 MPG) and they say things like "Yea but that thing will never pass emissions regs here"

My argument is that when i go to the US and see 6.1 Litre V10 diesels that do 6 to 8 MPG, it makes me wonder if they've ever considered that a small 1.3 litre that does 82 MPG somehow emits more pollution that such vehicles?!
 
DraigFlag87 said:
it makes me wonder if they've ever considered that a small 1.3 litre that does 82 MPG somehow emits more pollution that such vehicles?!
Click to expand...

Why do you persist with this story that your Panda got 82 mpg when that was obviously just over a very short distance.
 
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