Hi all. Had an interesting conversation with one of our client's who's an Alfa Romeo/Fiat specialist the other day & I asked him if it was possible to fit a turbo charger, exhaust manifold & intercooler from a coupe to a Stilo abarth & he said theoretically it should be possible because the 2.4 engine is based on the coupe's 2.0 unit. Anyone done it yet? or think it's possible? the bloke said the major trouble is the plumbing.

Yes it is possible. I drive round in a 460BHP and 431lbs/ft Fiat Coupe 2.4 20V turbo. (with no turbo lag!) Mine is converted from a 2.0 20VT block but it is a lot easier to do ti from a 2.4 block. THere's only myself and a couple of others that have this conversion so it's not widely known about

Aint as easy as your friend makes out, but Torque Italia (www.torqueitalia.com) currently have a set of pistons on the shelf in stock to lower the compression ratio to 8.5:1 which is what you need to do to run decent boost. You also need special exhaust valves (which they can also supply) to stop them melting on the exhaust stroke (the coupe has sodium filled valves but you cannot use them as your ex valves are a different size) or else a 20V Turbo head (which has benefits as well as drawbacks).

One of the main problems is the condition of your block more than anything else. If there is any ovalation in the bores (likely) you will need to take out the engine and re-sleeve it. The 2.4 block was developed at the same time as the coupe block but is 1mm overbored and cannot be safely overbored further

If you are really interested then I suggest you phone Torque Italia or I can probably answer most of the questions about it.

The piping isn't the issue though - you can more or less nick it all from a coupe. The other issue is the fuelling - you would have to probably use a bespoke ECU (I use a Motec)

Cheers Johns thats certainly answered a few questions. I think I'll stick to the original plan of exhaust, airbox, remap & ported skimmed & gasflowed head & inlet manifold for the time being see what that does as what you've described sounds very extensive & will need further investigation. Thanks again.

There's not that much to be gained from gas flowing a Stilo head because the ports are already quite large (larger than the ones on the Coupe 20VT which is obviously a more powerful engine). Trust me, I have a Stilo head that is ported! I made 460BHP on a 20VT head with ports more or less the same size as the Stilo Abarth head has as standard to give you an idea.

I would have a look at the Colombo & Bariani cams as they are very aggressive for the Stilo Abarth and probably would make quite a performance difference - they will make it a little more peaky but the top end power would be substantially better I would've thought.

Also if you remap with cams you might find that raising the rev limiter to 7400rpm will give you more power too.

Thanks mate but I don't really fancy high lift cams on a road car as they only really work above 4000/4500rpm. I thought doing the head & inlet manifold it should make it rev a lot faster while at the same time improving torque. I think that de-catting the exhaust is definately the way to go for more bhp only thing is the supersprint full system is over £1000.