Technical Fiat Seicento 1.2 16v

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Technical Fiat Seicento 1.2 16v

shanere51

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Hi

Just wondering if someone could help me. Looking at putting a 1.2 16 valve engine from a punto into a seicento for summer project.
Does anyone know what the difference is between the mk1 punto 86bhp engine and the 80bhp engine in the mk2. Would prefer the 86bhp engine for the build but its getting harder to find a mk1 punto with this engine in it.
Shane
 
Hi

Just wondering if someone could help me. Looking at putting a 1.2 16 valve engine from a punto into a seicento for summer project.
Does anyone know what the difference is between the mk1 punto 86bhp engine and the 80bhp engine in the mk2. Would prefer the 86bhp engine for the build but its getting harder to find a mk1 punto with this engine in it.
Shane

you can easy fit a punto engine into a seicento, but not sure what the difference is between the engine, best ask a punto tech
 
From what i've seen yeah it doesn't seem too bad fitting a punto engine in. From what i could find i think ill try go with a Mk1 punto 86 bhp 1.2 engine.
 
cams, the main difference is the cams and where the extra power comes from on the mk1 punto 16v.

The other difference is the ecu.. Mk2 punto use fly-by-wire throttle, which can be made to fit a cento but its much much much MUCH easier to start with a mk1 because they have cable clutch so you can pretty much drop it in, use the punto ecu and inlet and throttle body etc and it just works.

The other thing you need to consider is what seicento you have... I'm guessing you have a mpi from your sig - this actually makes things a bit trickier as both the mk1 punto and earlier spi seicento sportings have seperate engine looms that connect to the body looms through the same style connector. So it really is just a tiny bit of wiring, I've done it and it was easy peasy.

Sadly I have not done it into an mpi sei before but i know form the off the wiring side of things is gonna be a bit harder. As such most of the 16v sei's started life as a early spi sporting. Its not that its doable, far from it, I'm sure as far as engine swaps go its still an easy one but I couldn't advise on the wiring side of things.

mk2 have a different inlet design as well which you can't fit a cable throttle body (well a stock fiat one anyway) - you'd need to use an adaptor plate on the inlet so you could use a mk1 one or bravo/brava one.
 
it seems the mk1 is the way to go alright. just finding them is difficult part but i'm sure i'll manage something.

I did have an mpi, sorry should change my sig. I have been after an spi second time around anyway if I can get one at the right price in clean condition. much prefer the styling! Am I right in saying that on the spi the wire loom going into the interior will plug straight into the punto ecu without any major re wiring or any at all? not too worried about wiring though, have no problem getting out the solder iron and re-tracing circuits etc..

Lastly do you know of any common modifications carried out on the 1.2 16v to get the little bit more power out of it?

Thanks for your information cleared up a lot of things already!
 
Also blu73

Just noticed you had a sei turbo in your sig. out of curiosity was it a major job? getting parts ecu map etc? and expensive?
 
yep mk1 engine loom and ecu will connect up to sei spi engine loom really pretty easily.

The D4 connector needs a few wires swapping around, when I did it I used a couple of posts on the forum, Dans info in the guides and i think the other post was by ycming. But basically one of the posts has wire colours and the other had pin numbers so i could compare the 2 posts, which were same in the end.
And then there is just a few other wires to sort out, engine loom earth which is several black wires attached together on the engine loom that i just bolted to a spare bolt hole on the back of the engine - power to the loom which doesn't actually require any changes but easy to miss, can't remember exactly as its been several years since i did my 16v swap. But yeah, its super easy if you start with a mk1 punto and a spi sei - mine was a cinq but its the same as an spi sei to do. They are hard to find but if you can find a rotten mot failure sporting or cabrio punto with the 16v engine try buy that, you'll have everything you need then and you will be able to sell a few bits off it to claw some money back and just scrap whatevers left when you finished.

turbos... Yeah I have had 2 turbos, a cinq and a sei. Both of them had Van Aaken turbo kits on them which no longer exists. Utterly bonkers little things but yes, expensive to build, expensive to run and really pushing the little 1.1 engine. That seicento now makes about 150bhp and is just plain crazy. I loved them both and would love another but tbh, now tjet engines exist I would not really advise anyone to boost a 1108 or 1242 8v fire engine - its not that it can't be done properly and end up with a reliable working car, more that in the end you will spend just as much as a tjet and with a tjet you end up with a car that would be probably faster without doing anything to the engine other than making it fit, on top of which it would not be a highly strung engine that uses a shedload of fuel. The only time i ever got 200 or more miles from a tank in the turbos was on a motorway run trying to keep out of boost (easier than it sounds). Could prob empty the whole tank in way under 100 miles if you thrash it.
All that said, it is highly satisfying when you beat a car in a race and they come over to ask what the hell is under the bonnet and you reply with a smirk that its just the original 1.1 8v engine :ROFLMAO:
click the link in my sig and there is quite a bit of info and many pictures of it - if you have any questions about it stick them on end of the thread and i'll do my best to answer :)
 
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Thanks a million blu73 for all your information.

On the hunt for a punto now. Think I have a seicento on the way with a bit of cash pulled together.. Should be an interesting project for the summer.

Shane
 
After a long search i have managed to find a pretty clean mk1 punto ELX. In the process of dropping the engine out. As a bonus the car also came with 14 inch sporting alloys.

After some thinking I was wondering if it would be possible to use the front wheel hubs including the wheel hub housing and use the breaks off the punto and fit them to a seicento. If I used the front wheel hubs I could use the 14 inch wheels without the need for spacers on the front. If not would the calipers and disks fit straight onto a standard front hub on a seicento?

Another problem I've been thinking about is the exhaust. Just wondering what anyone else has done on their 16 v conversion. Can you mix and match a punto and seicento exhaust and just cut to length or what has anyone else done regarding this?

Last question I have (for now anyway) is cooling system. The punto radiator seems a bit larger and better for the job but might be a tight fit into a seicento. pipe work and the reservoir are also different. Any other build that I've read about on this forum seems to use the standard seicento radiator, just wondering would the seicento radiator be up to the job for say a track day?

Thanks Shane.
 
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Hi, the conversation is very close to being finished. At the moment I am using the standard seicento sporting gearbox. When I got the donor engine it came with a MK1 Punto elx gearbox but I'm having a hard time trying to find any official specs on the gearbox ratios. The other option I had considered was the stilo 6 speed gearbox.

Basically looking for a gearbox with a lower final drive ratio and shorter gear ratios for better acceleration as I may be changing to Punto GT alloys for bigger and breaks and tyre choices are limited.

Just wondering has anyone else had any experience with these after searching all the forums and struggling to find any information about the Punto elx gearbox and there is mixed information about the ratios of the 6 speed gearbox.

Forgot to mention the Punto gearbox is a C514 but the code at the end is different to the seicentos. Will get the exact code later.

Shane
 
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Could you post some photos about your car and about that conversion? Could you describe what you did, and problems that you had, how did you solved them etc.?

Thanks.
 
i used to have a website that had all this info on it, should have downloaded it as its no longer there :(

But i can tell you the 1.2 16v is totally fine with the factory sporting 5 speed, i never felt the need to change mine when i had my valver cento.

If you go 6 speed you will find the wheel fouls the box at full lock without some steering rack limiters. Plenty of people have done this but really the car is so light that i dont think you really need it. A cinq with a factory 5 speed will out accelerate a panda 100hp which has the 1.4 and 6 speed box - i've tried and tested that. The 6 speed also has a lower top speed due to the ratios.

The C514 is the number for the gearbox casing, the numbers after that tell you what actual box it is and thus what car it came from and what the ratios are. I know if you take the final drive housing off the crown wheel has 2 numbers stamped in it so you can workout the final drive (cinq/sei sporting has final drive of 3.867 iirc but don't recall the others - the sei abarth has a shorter final drive so it wasnt slower with the bigger wheels it came on).
 
So my 16v Build. From the date this thread was created you can tell it's been a long time since I started this build. I don't have many pictures i'm afraid of the build.

IMG_20171022_153909.jpg

There is my SPI Seicento Sporting. Its far from a clean example few marks and dents as you'd expect from an almost 20 year old car. Supposed to be only 60,000 odd thousand miles on it. Chose this car simply because the SPI is easier for the 16v conversion. I then manage to pick up a Mk1 Punto ELX with the 1.2 16v engine. this also just had about 60,000 miles and was a completely original car and the price i got it for felt like a steal. haven't came across anymore for sale since.

Like all the other 16v conversions mine wasn't really any different to others out there. Wasted no time in stripping the engine out of the Punto and gave the engine a full service, timing belt, all oil seals, plugs leads etc. This wasn't a complicated job, no different to removing an engine from any other car. Next i pulled the original 1.1 from the Seicento. Again nothing out of the ordinary. Once the engine was out it was time to start swapping parts. One of the well known parts that needed to be swapped was the auxiliary driver belt pulley. Swapped the 1.1 pulley to the 1.2. the next issue is the crankshaft position sensor. To overcome this the some of the original sensor mount was cut away to fit in the sensor. ( I did think of changing the whole pump assembly but felt it was just easier to cut away the metal work).

Engine mounts then had to swapped from the 1.1 to the 1.2. The 1.1 alternator also had to be used. One problem I had here was when mounted the two pulleys didn't seem to match up and after a short time the belt shredded to bits. I solved this by just placing a few washers behind the alternator to space it out a little bit further haven't had issues since.

Engine was more or less ready to drop into the Seicento by now (I ahve probably forgotten something). Engine went in smooth enough just a lot of back and forward and double checking. The inlet manifold is tight up against the heater blower covering but it does fit in. Next issue was the timing belt cover rubbing up against the slam panel. Again this is a common well documented problem. I just filed down the cover and bent the metal work ever so slightly forward by the headlight and it all fits nice and snug. Plumbing for coolant then had to be sorted. I used most of the Seicentos piping and just had to extend the piping that goes to the heater matrix. Most of the pipe connectors on the engine match up in around the area the 1.1's would have been anyway. Fuel lines were next. I cut back some of the metal fuel pipes back a small bit and then used some standard fuel pipe to connect up the inlet manifold on the 1.2. I did make use of the pipes that came off the Punto due to the 1.1 and 1.2 having different fuel connectors.

IMG_20171114_225458.jpg

The biggest issue I then had was wiring and getting the car to run. I used the 1.2 engine wiring loom and extended all the wires in this which took a while (around 40 solder joints!). This was done so I could mount the new 1.2 ecu in the original mounting spot in the Seicento. The most difficult part was the D4 connector. While there is lots of wiring diagrams on here they were almost all for Cinquecentos. As a result all the color coding was different and I was running into issues trying to figure out what wire went where. I did trace out basic ones like fuel pump and the fuel pump relay. Eventually after lots of searching on here I found one post with a correct diagram that worked for me. Next problem I had was immobilizer issues. I was using the Punto code box, ecu and I had the key placed in the key reader but the car was still showing the immobilizer light. Talking to a local mechanic friend he told me he could remove the immobilizer from the ecu. Week later and I had the ecu back. Plugged it all in. No light anymore! Checked to make sure I had spark, which I did. Turned the key and it went straight away. Huge relief getting the engine going, But revving it slightly caused it to misfire and splutter almost like it was being over fulled. At this stage I had not wired the carbon canister in. Most people seemed to be leaving it off so I didn't think much of it till I had ran out of options and decided to connect it up. This sorted all the running issues and it is now running very well.

Anything after this was more or less just putting everything back together. I Have the original Seicento gearbox and clutch in the car right now. Car still needs an exhaust which is next on the list. I have a set of coilovers to go into the car now and I do have the Punto brakes to go on the car which is something I'm debating hence the hence questions about gearboxes because I have the Punto wheels to use. Other small things I have added is a temperature gauge, a kill switch and I extented the engine diagnostic port inside the car so I can plug a laptop inside the car.

received_487145411768891.jpeg

Future plans for the car are to strip the whole interior out and get a cage for it. Due to insurance in Ireland and my age I cant afford to put it on the road. I am planning on mostly doing track days in the car. This the engine bay right now on the car, and yes the car was crashed at some stage before which you can see from the painted slam panel. I'm sure I have forgotten loads as the whole process was slow taking several months due to work and college getting in the way. I'd be glad to help anyone wanting to do the conversion and I would highly recommend it.

received_2195640114038526.jpeg

Shane
 
Thanks for the replies regarding the gearbox. I am considering a 6 speed box some time in the future simply because there is so many stilos with them here and they aren't expensive. I know if I change to the Punto wheels, the 6 speed would definitely help. I'm not too worried about the steering lock as the car will mostly be on a track anyway and as I have a seicento box it's no problem changing the selector mechanism.

The Punto ELX gearbox code I have is C514.5.13.44. I have been able to find absolutely no information anywhere regarding the ratios in this box, as you say I could take it apart and check out the crown wheel as the box is just sitting there anyway. Here is a picture of it.

IMG_20181115_173936302.jpg

Shane
 
Thanks on the photos, and nice write up. My Sporting Abarth is MPI. :( So all will be harder. :/

I really like yours project, keep up good work, and keep posting.
 
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