Technical Blown engine. Will a Brava engine fit/work?

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Technical Blown engine. Will a Brava engine fit/work?

UzY3L

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Hello,

The cambelt on my 1.6L 1998 Multipla broke. Car is stranded more than 300mi from home.
Found a replacement engine from a 2000 Fiat Brava 1.6S . Will it work on the Multipla in a plug&play scenario? As in: everything fits from one engine to the other/direct swap&start?


If no, what are some engine options?
My research shows that the Brava/Bravo/Marea use the same 1.6L engine and same ECU.



From what I've read online, seems to be the same engine. I attached pics of the blown engine and the replacement. Will be ordering oil pump and belt kit if everything works

Two differences I could find were the engine codes (186 for the Multipla and 182 for the Brava but those are correlated to the manufacturer codes, just like Marea is Typo 185 but uses the same engine as Multipla which is Typo 186) and that the intake headers are plastic on the Multipla and metal on the Brava.
 

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update: engine code is 182.A4.000
Found an engine off of a Brava that matched and came with warranty.

It's already at the shop where the car is. Next week hopefully, will be followed by a timing kit and oil and should be good to go. Fingers crossed!

Still couldn't find an exact one. While both engines have the same code, one has plastic intakes and the other one has metal ones. Hope it won't be an issue
 

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Petrol are quite rare so not much experience on here of them.
Really good you are putting down some details here.
Let us know how it ends up.
 
If that engines is on same config used in Brazil:

The full aluminium manifold was used on brasilian Palio and Brava, it was 86.4mm bore x 67.4mm stroke. It cames with Marelli IAW 1AB fuel injection. His brazilian name is "Torque16v";


The half aluminium / half plastic was used on brasilian Palio 2002< , Strada, Siena, Brava and Marea. Its was a 80.5mm bore x 78.4mm stroke. It cames with Marelli IAW 59FB fuel injection. It's know in Brazil as "Corsa Lunga";

I think you must keep the original manifold from you car because in Torque 16v, the map sensor is external, but, in the model Corsa Lunga, it was integrated in air temperature sensor. Corsa Lunga also do not use the "phase sensor" on intake cam pulley, but the injection IAW 1AB requires it, maybe its required to install the system.


In Brazil we have a third version of this engine, with 86.4mm bore x 78.4mm stroke ( mixing parts from Torque16v and Corsa Lunga ), that works with E100 Ethanol or E27 Gasoline, were is born the 1.9 16v used in Linea before the arrival of E.Tork. I dont know much about the eletronic management of this engine, but the most parts are indentical between them.
 
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Palito16V: You are right, the manifold had to be replaced with the one from the original engine. Everything else "worked" (see below) but I can feel a distinct lack of power/torque from the new engine. Which is weird, since my original engine was a Torque 16V (going by the VIN).
Even dumping the clutch at 4,000RPM it just gradually slows down and the car moves but not dramatically. Revs fine, works fine, shifts fine. Hard to describe: the engine works fine but has no power :) .The power just isn't there anymore and that's saying something for a 1.6L NA engine.


Good news: the engine works, the car moves
Bad news:
-The oil pan and dipstick are different. It is no longer possible to check the oil level now. + the new dipstick sits about half the height of the engine, below the intake manifold.
Not a big loss, since I absolutely loathed the original dipstick on the Multipla. It only told you: yeah, there's SOME oil in the engine. No reading for min or max, just there to be there I guess.
-Cam belt covers to not match. Have to order one for a Brava. Currently running without one (yes, I know the risks). Also, the original belt that destroyed the engine was a Contitech/Continental, only 2.5years old. A few days later after this, my Dad's 2nd gen Multipla had the same issue but he was lucky: belt broke when he turned the key; his engine is fine. Also a Contitech/Continetal. One week later, an in-law's car did the same. Guess the belt manufacturer :) Switched to Gates, which ironically is the cheapest and Continetal was the most expensive. Only Gates and Dayco from now on.

-Shop forgot to reconnect the speed sensor to the gearbox = no speed indicator. Mild inconvenience, will reconnect it later

Worst of all though: the new engine has a blown head gasket. Not something that showed up during testing but manifested on the 500km/300mi way home, after about 4h of driving.
It overflows the expansion tank and also if you rev the engine, it starts pumping air into the tank, causing it to overflow in under a minute. Idling is fine but I can't drive the car idling.

Ordered some K-Seal Pour & Go to maybe deal with this, even temporarily. I've used this before on minor headgasket issues and the cars ran fine for years.
I'm not banking on that though. At this point, it's either gonna fix it or pour into the engine/oil pan and destroy it but I'm willing to take that chance since I'm driving it to another shop to get fixed.
 
Maybe you feeling the engine "different" because Corsa Lunga has a better low end tork and the Torque16V focuses on power in hi-revs.

Regarding the overflowing of cooling system, the termostatic valve is good?
 
That's interesting observations about the Conti belts. They usually have a very good reputation - at least as good as Gates.

Good to hear that you've got the car running again. Surely the lack of performance is because of the knackered head gasket?

Can you swap the sump and dipstick fittings over from the old engine?
 
Palito16V: Thought that 4,000RPM would be the sweet spot. Old engine was very rev happy. The thermostat is good, everything works. The bubbles increase in speed when revving the engine and there is some water coming out of the exhaust. There is no CAT on the car, it's a straight-pipe so the water can only be from the coolant.
I did try and manually pressurize the system using the release valve located near the firewall but that also produces bubbles. 6L of coolant later, the effect is the same so we're back to the head gasket.
widemouthfrog: I would if I could. Hell, I'd even try and restart the old engine as it "sounded" fine to me, even with no belt. But the shop it was at, threw it away after taking everything off it. Without asking me. I did chew their ear off but the car was stuck hundreds of miles from home, I took it as it was. Arguing about the old engine wasn't gonna help.
Maybe it was a bad batch of Conti belts but I'm not gonna be the test case for that. Very weird that they all failed after 2.5years. It was only when I was in this situation that I learned about Gates and Dayco, so I'll count it as a win. More and more manufacturers are using reputation as their only selling point, leaving quality and durability out the window. All of my cars will have belt changes before 2.5 years from now on. Expensive, yes. But way less expensive than a replacement engine.

As for the lack in performance, unless the car is running on 3 cylinders, it shouldn't lose this much power even with the headgasket issue. As I've said, it's hard to explain. It's almost close to a Daewoo Tacuma/ Chevrolet Rezzo in terms of "power", if you can call it that when talking about the Tacuma. That car has a 1st gear and the rest are there so you can eventually reach your destination. Reverse is a bonus.

Waiting on the K-Seal now. The car is stuck until then
 
update:

K-Seal got here. Poured it into the coolant tank, waited for the engine to come up to speed.
Coolant looked like it was gonna overflow again after 30min. It was right below the cap, so I decided to go for it. Better for it to blow in the parking lot than with me driving it, leaving me stranded in the middle of nowhere.
I revved the engine gradually from idle to 5,500RPM for 2minutes.
result: it still puts bubbles in the coolant tank whenever the radiator fan kicks in or the engine is revved but temperature does not go above 103C, even after another 2 minutes of 5,500RPM + another 5 minutes of me flooring the accelerator and returning to idle, trying to simulate high engine loads as if it were driving down the road.


There's still something wrong though as there is a strong smell of oil/coolant being burned and there is smoke (white?grey? couldn't tell because of the Sun) coming from between the engine an the firewall, right where the exhaust manifold is located.
There is no a single drop of anything underneath the engine, even after 1 hour of running and even returning the next day to check on it. Wherever the smoke is coming from, it's probably linked to the air bubbles that still form inside the coolant tank.

For the moment, it's good enough that she'll survive the trip to another shop where this will be investigated further
 
update:

Issue was a bit hard to diagnose and I left this detail out: the radiator mounts were missing, so the radiator moved during the trip back home. When it fell (just down a bit, not like under the car) the hose coming from the coolant tank got pulled into the auxiliary belt pulley, cutting it. This was happening when the engine was in load and as such, it sucked in air. This caused air to get stuck in the radiator = the cooling issue described above, which after bleeding the system, is now fixed.

Keeping the good news coming, the smoke was coming from coolant leaking from the temperature sensor, somehow making its way to the exhaust manifold = the engine seems fine and it seems there is no blown head gasket. "seems" being the keyword here, as I'm used to being surprised

Power seems to be back now, have no idea what happened but I'll keep testing (stuck piston ring, from the engine not being used for a long time? don't know).

Speed sensor has been re-connected and is now working.

Knock sensor which was the only fault reported by Alfa OBD on the old engine and had to constantly be cleared, is now gone. As far as the ECU & sensors are concerned, the car is 100% ok.


LPG system is now "broken". While previously I could barely reach 190-200km / 118-125mi on the 32L tank, averaging 13-15L/100km / 15MPG, the car has used 7L/100km / 33MPG, considering over 60% of it was mountain driving and the rest was highway. Let's hope it stays broken :)

One of the spark plugs gives random spark at random intervals, which is weird considering both the coil pack and the leads are new. Will check the connections.

Car still takes 2-3 cranks to start when the engine is cold, with the last crank making the engine start instantly. If the engine is warm, it starts instantly. If I drive the car for 6 hours, leave it for 4 hours then turn the key, it starts instantly. If I leave it overnight or the engine is cold, the cold start issue re-appears.
Previously I thought this was a choke issue but I've recently found out that if I turn the key without starting the engine, wait for the fuel pump to stop, turn the key to off, repeat, then turn the key all the way the third time, it starts instantly. Worn-out fuel-pump? Injectors? Low battery voltage = fuel pump not getting enough juice? Who knows, a problem for another time.

For the moment, everything seems fine.

Thank you all for your input, help and time. If anything else comes up, I'll post it here.


Cheers!
 
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