I enjoyed running a Tipo for several years and taking over my Daughter and Son-in-law's 1997 Brava SX 1.6 petrol 5 door on their departure for Oz seemed a great idea! First day running after several minutes running the engine cutout and gave all symptons of flat battery and wouldn't restart until cool. Subsequently same scenario. The car had had overheating problems and two lots of major surgery took place including cylinder head repair. Local garage diagnosed new starter and battery but problem still exists. Car is now into second garage who tried other suggestions of ignition coils, faulty earth connection problems, alternator and have now come to conclusion compression too high (can anyone tell me what it should be?). Garage also spoke to a Fiat "expert" who reckons he has never heard of problem before but seems to think some of the early Bravas had a "cranking" problem which required a different starter motor but no seems to know what the alternative was.
Suffice to say it is as well I have little hair but any suggestions ref the Brava will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in anticipation.
PS Airbag warning light stays on and son-in-law paid a Fiat dealer £50 to be told the board needed replaced at £250 - he's Australian so you can guess the reply!

Hmmmm. Difficult -as a lot of your description is difficult to fathom without seeing the car

"First day running after several minutes running the engine cutout and gave all symptons of flat battery and wouldn't restart until cool. Subsequently same scenario"

So it just died and then only turned over very slowly yes? When it did start did it turn over fine then and did it start on all cylinders? Or did it really struggle, misfiring and eventuallly clearing itself out only for it to happen again?
Does the car start well normally or is it a struggle?

Compression ought to be around 100psi but depends on how fast you can crank it. More important is are the figures for each cylinder about the same?
What are they? If the compression is "too high" the it means there's something else in the cylinder-like fluid- causing the volume to decrease

Total guess work at the moment but sounds like head gasket might be gone. Car warms up and fluid leaks into one or more cylnders causing engine to stop and resistance to cranking. You wait and fluid evaporates and it restarts
Total guess though so give us more info please

Air bag light can only be switched off by dealer I'm afraid. The airbag light "locks on" on your car so even when you've cured th efault the light can only be switched off by someone with the software to do it
Which "board" are they on about the Airbag ECU? Could get one from a scrapped Brava