Punto (Mk1) Mk1 Punto GT 2l 16VT

[tom_snelling]

In the next few weeks I managed to collect a fair few parts for the build, some necessary and some luxury.

These included:-

-alloy rad

-Apexi AVCR

-Barnacle Widget

-New Clutch

-New clutch slave cylinder

-New Belts

-Rocker Cover Powder Coated

-Stainless Manifold & Gasket

-New silicone boost piping

-Dink chip and cooler plugs

Anyway, here are a few pics,,,

This led onto last Saturday, where we built up the engine ready to go in bar the belts which will be done this coming Saturday. The day involved fitting the new fanimould, rocker cover, clutch and clutch slave cylinder. We also got my GT out of the garage and back onto the drive. I forgot to mention my engine had been sold for some time and my GT had been sitting dead for ages gather dirt and dust.

Here are some pics from the day. iPhone camera Im afraid!

My plan is to sand out and polish the high spots in the rocker cover.

Bastard nuts! A cunning tool is needed for the removal!

At the fit of the manifold stage, I snapped one of the old studs in the head which we welded a couple of nuts onto to get out, it was a right ****er though. It was no real problem as, as with the POTR manifolds on the GT lump, we used a combination of odd bolts to refit it.

And thats where I am now. This coming Saturday we are aiming to get the lump in the bay and "hopefully" get some serious work done on the mount design. Maybe even get it temporarily mounted.

 

[tom_snelling]

14th May 2009

Small report, a bigger one will come on Sunday.

The engine is in! Well sort of.

Hoping to make the mounts up on Sunday and get the gear linkage sorted. I have all boost piping ready to go (hopefully), and there shouldnt be too many mods for the coolant piping.

Anyway,

 

[tom_snelling]

14th July 2009

Right, back from almost all of my holidays now so Ive been able to crack on a bit with this.

On Sunday, we had a good day as the weather was nice and meant the whole day was quite productive. I dont have pics of everything but I have a few.

The engine is now in and mounted!! The rear mount needs a slight modification but apart from that they are done. The engine is now holding itself in completely for the first time.

LOW! Coilovers are a must.

Shifter finished and working perfectly.

Throttle in and working.

Custom rear mount(!)

We have also test fitted the shafts and found that the drivers side shaft sits perfectly (Punto GT passengers side shaft), but the passenger side shaft was over tight. It is too far to move the engine over as you would end up really pushing the tolerances of the sideways pressure of the suspension. Basically, two Punto passenger shafts 'would' fit, but how long they would last I dont know, not very long I would imagine.

So, throttle working, gearbox connected and working, clutch just needs to be connected (5 min job), shaft shortened then fitted, coilovers and ARBs to be fitted, rad and FMIC to be fitted and plumbed in, rad fan to be worked out still (probably a couple of thin 10" fan), then just wiring really which we think should be pretty simple.

I should have some more updates on Sunday.

Over and out.

 

[tom_snelling]

2nd August 2009

Reet then.

Spent ALL weekend working on the old ****box, and got a hell of a lot done.

First off, we set about removing the old -45mm PI springs and shocks and fitting the new Spax RSX on.

Whilst Dean was fitting one of the shocks, I fabricated a top quality oil cooler bracket....

I also fitted the new carbon centre console piece with some new buttons in for boost scramble, fan switch and temperature switch.

We started removing the ****ty ARBs to fit the new Eibach ARBs, but hit a small problem meaning that 4 (IIRC) bolts needed drilling out and retapping from the rear ARB mounts alone. This took most of the afternoon.


We also worked on starting on the loom yesterday, but rain halted the finishing!



SO... today.

Started by finishing removing the snapped bolts in the rear ARB mount holes, and then fitted the new rear ARB.

Then we did the same for the front, only one bolt snapped so it was a lot quicker procedure.

Old vs. New

I fitted some new GT1 mirrors without the plain plastic band, look a lot better I think.

Then we fitted the lower crossmember back on, bt found out that it fouled on the oil cooler pipes, so used a bolt with two extra nuts on to extend it down a little, just enough so that it cleared the cooler pipes.

We mocked up the rad and cooler and found it is pretty tight. We decided that we are going to raise the rad as high as we can, to get better airflow to it and to "unusually" run the pre FMIC pipe under the rad. This should mean we dont have the stupid amount of piping that most conversions do.


Some conversion pics.....

Drivers shaft..

Passenger shaft, one is being machined as we speak 15mm shorter. If you used two Punto passenger shafts, they would 'fit' but it would push the hubs outwards, its not the right way to do it, and anyone that hasnt modified one of their shafts has not done it well. Engine position would be compromised for an easy fit.

Passenger side mount, very small, a lot smaller than we first thought, and Dans previous measurements but I am confident that this is the best position for the engine.

Then.... WIRING. This afternoon we got the main bulk of the loom sorted. This involved using most of the Coupe engine loom tied into the Punto ignition loom. Almost everything fitted perfectly, with only the speed connector (female to female) and the alternator + needing to be changed. Three or four wires needed to be extended. We also retaped the loom so that it would sit in a good position around the engine bay.

Looks a mess, but its just a case of finding homes for various sensors etc.

Need to raise the coilies a bit!

That was the day complete, back to bed!

Mean!

 

[tom_snelling]

9th August 2009

Another good day today, but no pics Im afraid, I kind of forgot to take any!

The first thing I did today was to finish the wiring loom. This involved basically todying up our "rough" loom and then taping the bastard up. I used a whole large roll of electricians tape but its a lot stronger now, bearing in mind the whole loom is custom made to suit the engine bay, being made out of both Punto and Coupe engine looms. We also connected various other wires, including the gearbox earth and the alternator to starter live.

Then we thought, lets see what our loom handywork is like. So I hooked up the battery and she turned over! Obviously she wasnt going to start due to lack of other bits and pieces, but there was no issue with the code light, and everything on the dash is working so far. This means our home made loom is so far fingers crossed a success.

It was so nice hearing some noise coming from the bay, its been so long!

We also hooked up the fuel pump to an ignition live, its not connected to the engine yet, but its a very simple job, using only two jubilee clips. The ignition live was the easiest way to connect the fuel pump feed instead of going through the relay, and it will work just fine.

Dean then worked on modifying the standard Coupe downpipe, a right hench piece of kit, I think its 2.25" standard which mates perfectly with my existing custom Powerflow exhaust. Just need a small section of 2.25" pipe to finish that off. The way we have made it, it will accept a PGT Cat come MOT time.

We then relocated the front crossmember loom, that connects to the headlights, indicators, fogs, bonnet switch and fan loom. This was moved forwards towards the front of the car, and it is actually outside of the engine bay. Its located underneath the plate that sits on top of the main front crossmember, underneath the panel that the bumper bolts to. This is so that the loom is far enought away from the manifold so it doesnt get burnt! Its a perfect position for it and you can see it at all now.

We cut off the rad fan bracket as this is going to get in the way of the rad. I am going to raise the rad up over an inch, to be able to get as much airflow to it as possible. This also allows me to be able to run the pre FMIC hose underneath the rad, which hopefully will remove a right load of pipework ****ing about.

Then the engine came out for the final time! This was so we could remove the mounts to be sent away for final welding by a pro mate of Deans. We also had to fit the new belts and tensioner so they were all done this afternoon. We cut the balance shafts belt off, adds 10bhp some say and is not necessary on this engine. We removed the balance belt tensioner and runner stud, to do a proper job so to speak.

We then worked on getting our heads around the routing of the coolant/vac/oil pipework. This turned out to be simpler than first thought as quite a lot of the pipework that was originally on the Coupe can be done away with/blocked up. All of the charcoal cannister related pipework was removed, as was the original pipework to the Coupe coolant header tank. This runs on the opposite side to the GT, so we are going to run it from the other side, as it is in the GT. I replaced all of the vac hosing, simpliying the vac circuit as I went. The oil feed back into the inlet manifold was blocked as well. The piping side of the conversion looks very simple so far, I dont think I will need to buy many hoses.

Finally, I painted the front end of the car, basically all of the hidden and slightly rusty places with Hammerite smooth. May as well do the job while the engine bay was empty!


Phew, that was todays work. All the main bits of the conversion are done, this week we should have the mounts pro welded and the shortened drive shaft back fingers crossed!


Not long now until.....

 

[pk090]

fantastic! i been looking into doing this as a project at uni! how much chopping of the chassi was there as i been told it needed quite abit?

 

[Dunc Uno Turbo]

awesome conversion mate. really impressed!

i love stuff like this, great work! lovely looking GT too

Dunc

 

[tom_snelling]

fantastic! i been looking into doing this as a project at uni! how much chopping of the chassi was there as i been told it needed quite abit?

No chassis chopping at all.

 

[karbineftw]

I read this on psc. was good read

 

[grande bolt]

good read mate. love it

 

[Chas Uno]

Impressive work

 

[pk090]

No chassis chopping at all.

think i might have a go then in last year of uni

i think chopping may have been needed for the 20v engine as thats a 5 cyl isnt it?

 

[tom_snelling]

think i might have a go then in last year of uni

i think chopping may have been needed for the 20v engine as thats a 5 cyl isnt it?

Thats right yes.

 

[tom_snelling]

Right, another good day down in sunny Sheppey.

The first thing you may notice in the pictures is that I repainted quite a bit of the front end to tidy up the surface rust areas. This was done last time I was there, just didnt take any pictures of it.

So, this is how Dean and I started the day....

The engine was completely removed waiting for the mounts to come back from being properly welded.

Here you can see where we decided to move the front section of the loom (for the headlights & rad fan) to, so that it is further away from the manifold, it is also shielded by the front crossmember, which will help...

We then fitted the rewelded and painted mounts. With a small amount of faffing they were in, and hopefully not coming out again!!

Here is the rear gearbox mount...

Once these were fitted to the car, the engine was moved into place. With a small amount of faffing again, the engine was bolted up to the mounts.

Once the engine was in, it was a case of refitting everything we had taken away a couple of weeks ago.
These included -

Lower front crossmember
Power steering fluid bottle
Loom
Heater matrix pipes (shortened and fitted)
Pipe to master cylinder
Gear linkage
Slave sylinder connected
Some boost piping
Idle control valve

A few of these required mounts, adapted from the original Coupe brackets in a couple of cases.

A lot of the rad piping was also worked out and fitted, along with the oil breather system.

Whats left to do:-

Wait for drive shaft to be finished and fit.
Fit rad & fans and finish rad piping.
Fit FMIC and boost piping.
Finish fitting Apexi AVCR.
Finish mounting remaining "engine bay" items.
Finish oil cooler mounting and pipes.
Fit new oil filter.
Finish making exhaust adapter and fit.
Seal gear linkage at gearstick end.


Not a lot really. Hopefully not too long until we can fire the old girl up!!

 

[ChrisUK]

:slayer:

Epic.. .

 

[maddogmorg]

:yeahthat:

nice to see you chose probably the best fiat engine. don't envy you though if you have any problems with it once it's all set up. there's barely enough space to work on the tipo, and that's without the turbo etc!!

 

[rmiguelcar]

I would like to know how the balance is now with that engine

 

[Steve gt]

Yeah me too , is it still on the road ?

 

[flisko]

probably scrapped or crashed like most of them