Hi everyone

I need your advice on what to do with my poorly cinq!

I recently had the head gasket changed at 71000 due to it blowing on on of the water channels. Had the head skimmed new bolts and oem gasket fitted all fine again, also replaced the radiator. All fine again

Im now at 74000ish and the gasket has gone again on a different cylinder but this time im losing compression through the oil!

Now im coming up to 1 year since passing my test and have always looked at upgrading the engine size. Maybe 1.1 1242 or dare i say 1348!

My options at the moment are replace the gasket again and hope it will last this time as i am happy with the 899 (great engine)
Orrrr put and bigger engine in. I am very tempted to do this at the moment. I understand it will cost a bit of money as i will need additional stuff like engine mounts etc.

The only thing that would put me off that is insurance. I just did a test quote on gocompare stating larger engine replacement and the result came back cheaper than what im paying now :S :S

What do you guys think? what experiences have you had? Your advice will really help make my mind up

Thanks in advance

Chris

It all depends on whether your can do the work yourselfto keep costs down, if interested I have a 1242 8v engine that I put in my 899 seicento and probley 99% of the parts you will need for the conversion,

To change to a 1242 you will need
Engine and box (complete)
Sporting engine mounts
Sporting driveshafts
Sporting gear selector box
Some sort of induction kit
A few feet of wires, as you will need to extend the oil pressure sensor and speedo drive (unless you have cable)
To be honest with you the gains are well worth it and with well maintained brakes you won't need to worry too much about any upgrades in that department

Gimme a pm if your interested in any parts if you do decide to go for it

Other options would to have the head and block skimmed or even a replacement 899head and have that skimmed

Lee

Aren't the standard brakes the same between S/SX and Sportings anyway?

Yup that's why I didn't upgrade when I did the 1242 conversion on my sei also imo they stop really well with just a well maintained standard set up, however if it bothers you and think you may need better brakes you can always get a set of drilled/grooved disks and some uprated pads for a few quid off fleebay

Hi
Thanks for the help, i would be very interested in the parts you have!

I was thinking i would have to get a donor car so getting the bits is so much easier!

I could easily do all the work myself as i have experience with engine changes

Chris

You have pm

The swap is easy IMO I had a few teething problems mainly down to the ecu chip I had used, if you have done a few engine swaps you'll become with this one,