Hi Everyone,

Long time lurker and general "taker" from the Fiat Forum so I thought I could give something back in the form of a project.
The project will be a reasonably slow one, due to me being in the process of buying my first house & having an uphill struggle with my better half, convincing her we don't need to sell the car to fund the conveyancing!

The car is a 2002, 3 door Stilo JTD. The aim of the game is to initially refurbish and service the whole thing, then move onto upgrading the head unit to the Connect Nav+, the Abarth clocks and the climate thing, throw in some leather for good measure and then when all is said and done, give the thing a respray and hope to have the best OEM Stilo for miles around (that's the plan)

Jobs list looks like this:
1. Cam belt kit
2. Gearbox mount
3. Make the air con work
4. New disks and pads + full fluid change
5. General service with high end consumables (especially now I'm feeding him Shell V-Power Nitro Diesel, as opposed to Tesco finest)
6. Eliminate as many squeaks, rattles and vibrations as possible
7. Find & Exterminate as many electrical gremlins as is humanly possible
8. Fit Abarth interior + cruise control. Then throw a Subwoofer in
9. Source and fit leather seats
10. Refurbish wheels and fit premium tyres
10. Panel by panel replace if necessary and respray (probably 1 per month based on budget)

Pictures to follow

First of many questions!

The car rides lovely - on perfect tarmac. Add potholes to the equation and the ride becomes a lot less pleasurable.

When the car hits a pot hole, there is a large thud that translates to lots of vibration through out the car. As far as i know it's on the original springs/dampers.

Are the original springs/dampers the only set up available that keep the same ride height and rebound rate? The car is by no means a track car, and spends its time wafting up and down the M5 & around town, so I want to make this as comfortable as enjoyable as possible.

What else translates to vibration reduction and a softer ride?
I will be doing the gearbox mount. I've heard powerflex bushes are not the best for comfort, so is there a brand that does comfort, or am i better off with new Fiat bushes?

For the rough ride/bang/thud

Drop links-Wish bones, there is also somthing that wears on the top mount/cap that holds the spring cant remember what its called for the life of me! i found new wishbones/arms made a real difference.

let me know how you get on changing the engine mounts please.

Paul

Your plans are the exact same as mine I've done the leather interior, connect nav, cruise control and digital climate control conversion on my 1.2 stilo, well worth the effort man!

I've replaced both gearbox mounts and new wishbones, drop links and track rod ends and my car is so quite now it's unbelievable! Idling you can't hear a thing and there are absolutely no vibrations

I've also replaced a couple of wings and fitted two new headlights along with blade alloys and Abarth side skirts. The next stage for me is the full Schumi kit, yellow headlight tints and respray and an engine swap/ tuning but I don't know what to do first

I'd like to add coilovers, bronze bushes and fully brace the chassis but I'm erring on the side of comfort over performance at the moment

Will be watching your progress with interest, check out my members motors thread to see how I've done the work on my Stilo as some of it will apply to what you want to do

Mark

And I'm the man to talk to about leather seats........ I'm on my 4th interior now

paullawton2007 said:

For the rough ride/bang/thud

Drop links-Wish bones, there is also something that wears on the top mount/cap that holds the spring cant remember what its called for the life of me! i found new wishbones/arms made a real difference.

let me know how you get on changing the engine mounts please.

Paul

Click to expand...

Brilliant, ok - Shall get those changed then.
Are there any other replaceable bushes that can be changed?

MarkThompson4 said:

Your plans are the exact same as mine I've done the leather interior, connect nav, cruise control and digital climate control conversion on my 1.2 stilo, well worth the effort man!

I've replaced both gearbox mounts and new wishbones, drop links and track rod ends and my car is so quite now it's unbelievable! Idling you can't hear a thing and there are absolutely no vibrations

I've also replaced a couple of wings and fitted two new headlights along with blade alloys and Abarth side skirts. The next stage for me is the full Schumi kit, yellow headlight tints and respray and an engine swap/ tuning but I don't know what to do first

I'd like to add coilovers, bronze bushes and fully brace the chassis but I'm erring on the side of comfort over performance at the moment

Will be watching your progress with interest, check out my members motors thread to see how I've done the work on my Stilo as some of it will apply to what you want to do

Mark

Click to expand...

Great minds think alike! I've had a quick flick through your Facebook photo's as the Garage is playing up for me at the moment! Looks good, I'd prefer to go for the black leather myself, but the Connect Nav & the climate control look good. Are you going to do the clocks at some point?

Can i make the assumption you have fitted a quick shift & shortened the gear lever? How did that work out for you? Just wondering about changing my gearknob. Quite fancy the premium leather ones found in the higher end Nissan's (Juke's, Quashquai's, Z's & GTR's) Is that the Selespeed collar you have fitted too?

The body on the car I'm happy with, but I may get a Schumacher front bumper. I'm running the Schumacher Oz wheels - love them! Just need to get ding free versions of the wings etc.

gadge said:

And I'm the man to talk to about leather seats........ I'm on my 4th interior now

Click to expand...

4?! Are you mad son? Haha - So does that mean you've worn them all out to the point of bon-fire worthy, or are some for sale?!



On a different note - What is the beefiest, biggest battery that can be fitted to the Stilo? The car has a habit of draining its remaining electricity juice over night, and for starters I know i've got the wrong size battery in there, would quite like to max it out and find what ever is draining it!

No it means choose poorly! Lol the original drivers seat was about paggerd so I bought a set of good cloth ones but just like you I fancied a piece of the leather so not long after i bought some off eBay....... Unfortunately it was only after I parted with my cash that I realised that the rear seat bracket was bent and wouldn't line up to the bolt holes ...... It was bought from a man with an accent so I only have myself to blame. So another set was sourced and paid for only these were electric ones so I hade to strip the old frames down and fit the cushions from the new ones because they were better so after a right gaff I ended up with a full leather set and a smile on my face.......the old ones were disposed of quickly and a serious lesson was learnt in paying for goods before checking them out first! Lol

Black leather will look smart

Yeah I've shortened the gear stick but its not a short shift as such, the throw is a bit shorter but its still the oem shift mechanism. I just find the original length a bit intrusive, especially with the digital climate and CN+ in there but I'm quite a tall lad I can still reach it I replaced my gear knob last year for the oem one, 50 quid it was wish I went and got something more worthy of the price tag. It's improved the feel of the gear change a little bit I guess, still needs a little modification as mines is a 6 speed but for 5 speeds the selespeed collar should be fine as is

I have indeed fitted the selespeed collar, also replaced the handbrake and gear stick gaiters for black leather/ red stitch, all combined has smartened it up nicely I'm going to carbon wrap the collar, climate control facia and CN+ facia at some point

I've fitted the Abarth clocks already need a proxy alignment though to get rid of the flashing lights/ ghost warnings that appear on the display

Update 13/05/2013:

After many nights of hoping and praying, I have not succeeded in making my Stilo predisposed with Cruise control.

Having brought a Alfa stalk I was hoping it would be plain sailing, however it seems not.
Had a quick look under the batter cover, couldn't see the brown cable... try again when its not hanking down with hail.
Crossed fingers for being at least semi predisposed. :worship:

Even if you have no predisposition for cruise control it can still be done. You'll need to hard wire it straight to the correct pins on your ecus connector block. You can chop a spare ecu connector off a stilo in a scrappy to get the necessary pins out of it, not that they'd be happy but **** it lol you'd also need a length of 4 core wire. A bit more work but it's worth it

I take it you checked behind the steering column cover for the white connector? I'm sure the jtd's had the connector installed?

gadge said:

I take it you checked behind the steering column cover for the white connector? I'm sure the jtd's had the connector installed?

Click to expand...

Not all of them I'm afraid - mine being one; but it's not difficult to wire to the D connector.

I thought the JTD's all had it from what I had skimmed through, however it appears not!

How the steering cowl off, no cigar. Definitely on the left hand side yes? (Opposite the ignition) Sure i checked both though!!

The Brown connector, where exactly should it be? Under the grey fuse board?

Update 27/05/2013:

Cruise control fitted

Really happy with it, wasn't believing everyone when they said "It'll surprise you when you first switch it on" but blimey it is a strange sensation!

Mine was probably one of the more awkward ones, it was a semi, all wired up to the brown D4 connector but still had to put a 12v to the black D4!

Need to decide on job number 2 now...

Glad to see you got it working! bit of a nightmare for you though.

I said it will feel mad when the car just goes on its own, even strange when going round a corner!.

Thats another job ticked of your long list of things to do