Tuning 1.6 active sport performance upgrades

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Tuning 1.6 active sport performance upgrades

Rmackey

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Mar 19, 2015
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Hello everyone, owned my stilo for a while Now and added a universal air filter to it, I was wondering if there's anything else I could do to make it more powerful/faster I've been told by friends to have it remapped, is it worth it? Any better ideas
Thank you
 
Best thing you can do is sell it and buy the 2.4 Abarth... sorry.


A universal filter will probably improve throttle response slightly but in all likelihood will be losing power on a dyno as they just tend to hoover up warm air and ruin MAF meters with the oil they're coated in.


A replacement element (K&N, BMC and alike) tends to be the best compromise although you still run the risk of damaging MAF meter with the oil on them.


Performance wise a remap won't gain you a lot, 2 or 3 bhp maybe. Remaps get very, very little gains on naturally aspirated petrol engines. You might gain a bit more drivability from her though - but would it be worth the £500 ish spend for a proper job. I'd recommend avoiding the people that'll do it for a couple of hundred quid because they've bought a laptop and downloaded some files to give it a go.


You could try a stainless steel exhaust, but it'd have to be a full block back equal length manifold, high flow cat and properly tuned to the car - which frankly would cost more than the cars worth. That might be good for 5bhp maybe. Again with naturally aspirated engines the exhaust is more of a science than on a turbo car. A turbo car just needs to dump the gases ASAP to help the turbo spool where N/As need some back pressure or you'll lose power. That's why places like powerflow - who build something shiny that fits with 0 sciences behind it - will work on an impreza turbo but not on a 998cc Corsa with a 3 inch big bore.


The only way you're going to see any real performance is to go all out, performance cam, high compression head, remap, air filter, exhaust and manifold and probably get the crank balanced so you can raise the rev limiter but that's big, big bucks and not worth it.


Honestly the best bang you'll get for your buck is changing out all the suspension components (arms, springs, bushes, shocks) for new OEM parts, it'll feel 100 times better for rolling on new quality parts, a lot more solid handling. Spend some money on some good quality tyres, TOYO or something should be fine on a 1.6, consider Bridgestone POTENZA on an Abarth on some nice factory 17s. Then give it a good service with some good top notch oil and some good plugs and proper petrol station fuel or even high octane stuff (avoid supermarket petrols they have less fun additives in them).


You could always flip to the dark side and go find one of the late 16v JTDs with 140 / 150bhp. They will benefit from a remap, anything up to around 190bhp has been achieved and that would show up an abarth any day of the week and twice on sunday!
 
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