I needed another car to bounce around in while I start my 20 valve turbo conversion on my Marea saloon.
Saw a Brava on eBay that looked reasonable and for the money I offered for it I didn't think it was worth bothering to go see it first.
Did the deal and paid 150 quid for the little X reg fiat. It's a 1.2 with a few problems.

It has test till October so how bad could it be I thought.
Well ...

It stinks like an old dog, it used five litres of coolant on the 130 mile trip home, it's absolutely filthy inside.
I don't think it's ever been washed its got green stuff growing on it all over.
The injector light comes on
Wiper blades are no good
Suspect engine mount gone
Wishbone bushes knocking

It's a shed.
But hey. It's a project now.

That's the only pic I have of it at the min.
After I'd spent the remaining daylight hours washing it.

Good luck with it, hope it's all straightforward and you can keep another one on the road for a few more years...

I've done a "rolling rebuild" on my 2001 Brava Formula 1.2 over the past few years, changed so much stuff which is probably what your previous owner avoided doing and now will be down to you...

What engine is it... the earlier simpler 1.2 or the later one (like mine) with the Manicat exhaust and double lambda setup?

If it ran OK then the coolant loss may not be a head gasket... the heater matrix can go (stinks up /steams up the cabin) and the radiator can fill with rusty gunk.

Engine management issue... most likely the lambda or something (unless the HG has gone), can take a lot of tracking down or can be straightforward (I had an exhaust leak / crack on the manifold downpipe that messed up a lambda reading.

Yes the whole front end will probably need replacing as a matter of course, and have a really good poke / scrape underneath especially in the corner behind the front wheels and right along the sills, the underseal fails and rust gets underneath.

Anyway see how you get on...

The exhaust is steamy and it pressurized in no time so I'm thinking the worst. As my Marea saloon is running great and only just done 50k miles I'm now thinking that as I've got heaps to replace on the Brava and with it looking like a head gasket gone I may do the 20 valve turbo conversion on the Brava instead of the Marea.

I really like the Brava shape, I think it's the nicest looking of the bunch. And a Google search reveals no 20 valve turbo conversions that I can see.

So you'll keep the Marea standard, and put your effort into making a special Brava? Sounds like the way to go...

Looking forward to seeing a seriously hot Brava, especially if you keep it stock looking (plus boot spoiler, genuine Fiat alloys...)

Yeah a bit of a sleeper Brava. Seen Some nice ones on the Brazilian sites.

Some pics lifted from the ebay ad









It will look quite different soon. It's gonna get worse before it gets better. Stripping shall commence in March.
I'm expecting 300+ BHP
A bit of smoothing here and there, very subtle body mods and a change of colour.

Cos I'm getting on a bit the insurance is only 187 quid a year, and through the same people my coupe was with, it will be £390 fully comp with the 2.0 20 valve turbo engine, box, suspension and brakes etc with all mods.

Re: The worst Brava in Britain?

My coupe is now mostly in pieces and is a separate project in itself. It won't be having a little five cylinder engine back in, and that's all I'm saying about that

Brava looks I'm to me

I'll take some pics of the not so nice bits lol

Does anyone know the colour of this brava? It says cream on the log book, my mrs said its a sh!$$y gold colour, looks more green to me

It will end up either,
Speed red
Sprint blue
White
Lambo Orange

Open to suggestions.
I'm favouring pearl white at the min.

i like brilliant white, i think these cars looks great in white, but only if you keep the black trim. either that or matt gunmetal grey.

Interesting project, looking forward to updates.

Thanks for the insurance info nice to hear some solid facts on the prices.

EDIT: here is a paint code list
https://www.fiatforum.com/bodyshop/180981-bravo-brava-paint-codes.html

Is the paint code on a silver sticker in the boot? I think its one of the many silvers

I think the Bravo/a Marea really suit a good white. Sprint Blue would be ace aswell ive seen Bravo's done in sprint blue.

steve20vt said:

Cos I'm getting on a bit the insurance is only 187 quid a year, and through the same people my coupe was with, it will be £390 fully comp with the 2.0 20 valve turbo engine, box, suspension and brakes etc with all mods.

Click to expand...

Adrian Bravo said:

Interesting project, looking forward to updates.

Thanks for the insurance info nice to hear some solid facts on the prices.

EDIT: here is a paint code list
https://www.fiatforum.com/bodyshop/180981-bravo-brava-paint-codes.html

Is the paint code on a silver sticker in the boot? I think its one of the many silvers

I think the Bravo/a Marea really suit a good white. Sprint Blue would be ace aswell ive seen Bravo's done in sprint blue.

Click to expand...

Paint code 712 metallic juvarra ivory. :nutter:

Spent a bit of time stripping out the interior today , I needed to check if the floor was okay /salvageable. It's had some dodgy welding done for its last mot.






A bit scabby round the seams but nowhere as bad as the coupe can get. By contrast my Marea is mint here.










The floor seams in behind the front seats are the worst bits. I'll soon have that sorted.
It made sense to pull as much of the interior out as possible and still keep the car drive able this week.
It goes into the workshop next weekend for the total strip out.

One of the patches it had for its last mot, I'll be cutting them out and doing g them properly






What's a car been through to end up with a door pocket like that?






Don't know what happened here

Nice quick progress and good pictures

Well I would say 100% DO NOT change the colour... complete waste of time / effort / money IMO.

I really like silver on Fiats of that era, and also the Alfas like 156, 166 etc. The contrast of the black trim and maybe anthracite alloys would look great - especially if you put the cute boot spoiler on.

Far better to keep it looking like a nice ordinary example of a car that's becoming increasingly rare, and have all the impressive goodies under the skin.

There was a thread on the Tipo forum a while back from a mechanic guy who did this conversion into a red 1.4 5 door Tipo, that looked standard but just tougher, and the whole project was superb.

J

Regarding your current colour, I have a Brava Mk2 brochure with the colours in it, but it may be for the earlier models and not the later ones on an X / Y / 51 plate.

There were 2 greys.. 647 Steel Grey and 823 Sassi Grey.

I like your interior colours, I think this was called "358 Red/Blue Cloth" and this came with Steel Grey - there was also a "357 Blue/Green Cloth" available with Sassi Grey.

There was also a solid white - "249 White".

There were some Brochures published on the Fiat BOO website, I don't know if they were copied to FiatForum..