Technical Engine swap, 16v question

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Technical Engine swap, 16v question

Use the Cinq/Sei mounts.

Forged pistons, either as a small (4!) batch or as the ones out of a 1.4 turbo (if they'll fit) will sort out compression issues and be much stronger: it's not unheard of for the standard cast ones to suffer from holing or breakeage around the ring lands -- the Mahle cast ones for the 1108 were much better in that respect, but forged ones shouldn't cost a great deal more than the n/a 16v ones from FIAT if you source them from the right place. Technically, they're the best solution. Designed right and you'll have lower compression, squish, bigger ring lands and greater overall toughness: they may even turn out to be lighter.

Design wise, exhaust manifolds for turbos are very, very, different from n/a ones. They need to be much thicker, both for strength and for heat retention, and the 304 stainless commonly used for n/a manis is inadequate.

For the fuel pump, remember that it's not just about pressure but about capacity. You want reserve capacity: if you don't have it, the engine will run lean and eat itself in nanoseconds. Fuel pumps are much cheaper than engine rebuilds!

Common wisdom is that these engines don't suffer from oil surge. One school of thought says that a vertical baffle is all that's required. On t'other hand, it should be easier to make a horizontal one for the SuperFIRE. I've experienced fuel surge with a very low, harshly sprung, sticky tyred n/a Cinq which leads me to believe that oil surge may be a possibility in extremis. You'll need to modify the sump for an oil return for the turbo and, preferably, an extra breather, anyway.
 
Actually, you have a good point there, finding the right pistons might prove cheaper than lowering the CR by other means, and more reliable. I have no idea on the prices (actually found one site that offers 1.4 UT forged pistons for £538.29 inc. VAT = EUR 635.18 inc. VAT, but i really hope it's not that expensive, because it'll be outside of my budget and the project will then have to wait a few months).

Mahle's catalogue says that 1.2 16v is 70.8mm bore and 1.4 UT is 80.5, so they definitely won't fit. It also lists many engine codes with a wide range of horsepower using the same bore, so i might investigate into whether those pistons might fit and then find a forged set for that engine.

I'll read up on manifold design, there's a lot of good info on the web. What i know right now is that i'll need thicker and stronger material for the piping and at least a 10mm mating plate (part of the manifold that bolts to the head, no idea what's it called in english)

For the fuel pump, i'll try to go with the pump i currently have. Since i'll be using MS, if it detects i'm going lean on the WB lambda, it'll cut the fuel completely and i'll go look for a new pump. Thanks for the good point though, i should go for a pump that was actually designed for that kind of HP (and maybe the injectors too)

As far as the sump goes, i'll make a baffle (not much work once the sump is off the engine, so why not), weld on an oil temp sensor fitment, a turbo oil return connector and an oil cooler oil return, but that might be blanked off until the engine is in and i can finally see where the cooler will be and until i find a sandwich plate for it.

Will see about the extra breather as well.

The list of things to-do on the car keeps rising and rising, along with the costs of the project :D

EDIT: Mahle lists my engine as having a CR of 10.2:1 so i'll have to do some calculations on what sort of TDC chamber enlargment is needed.
 
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I'd not worry about welding a boss for an oil temp guage -- it should be possible to tap one straight in. Here's the one on Team Lloyd's (foxyemx, J333EVO, Emma's Dad) 1.4 sump -- and the 1.4 is "just" a longer stroke 1242 16v
DSC_0013.jpg
-- just a tapped in sender. Alternate placements are on the "dirty" blanking plug on the oil pump (use the other one for the clean oil feed to the turbo) -- I'm assuming that the 1242 16v has the same oil pump plugs as the 1108. Likewise, the oil return from the cooler should be to the sandwitch plate.

Don't rule out small batch forgings from the States -- Ross and Venolia are good places to start -- rather than messing about with pistons crafted for something else. You'll wait a bit longer, but the exchange rate may be in your favour.

It won't be cheap, but..........
 
If i decide to go with aftermarket pistons, would you guys recommend boring out to max. bore? (70.8mm is standard, 71.4mm is max.)

Now i'm feeling like a greedy little kid, i want forged pistons but i know it'll make the conversion cost at least 30-40% more than i thought it would... and i'm not sure if i can get away with stock pistons on low boost and maybe upgrade later?

There's a dillemma for me :D

Edit: another source says my CR isn't 10.2 but 10.6, which makes it even harder to decompress...
 
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I'd not go out to max bore -- maybe go up to the second oversize. That way you give the block a longer (potential) life and you'll not really gain anything by going larger.

There's a cheap way to do it (just fit the 1242 as a NA, remap, etc) for anything up to 110 bhp, and an expensive way -- the turbo route. I think if you go the turbo ay, it'll eventually -- they all do -- end up as high boost, but there's a fairly logical progression from NA to turbo nutter.
 
As you say, there's a cheap and an expensive way. I feel that the expensive way is more money-efficient though.

For example, if i decide to go the cheap, N/A way, i might have to throw away the manifold, cam and head if i reach 110 hp and want more.
On the other hand, if i prepare everything for the turbo, i can go the expensive way, but increase the size of the project progressively. Just wondering if it's possible to install everything on stock internals with an open wastegate or limiting myself to 0.1 bar of boost if necessary (and possible) and then when i have ~500 eur for the pistons, install them and go higher boost... and then hypothetically if i have more money, i could change the conrods and go even further.

Just wondering if this sort of idea is possible or should i wait a bit and do it all at once. If i shell out 500 eur for the pistons now, i'm not sure i'll have enough money to do the turbo and manifold part, for example, and getting more money would stall the project for at least a few months.

I don't know what's the best thing to do :)
 
That'll probably work, at least for low boost levels. 0.3 bar is probably more like it, but go easy on the boost, run the highest octane fuel you can get at the pump and get the megasquirt set up on a rolling road by someone who knows what they're doing. For around £400 more you could even go for a more -- shall we say -- stable ECU. Omex (looks to be getting cheaper), Emerald, Canems.......

Lots of other things to spend money on: brakes, suspension, tyres, at anything over around 110bhp (if the 1108 high boost turbos are useful as an example) an LSD is a very good idea, Abarth 500/Mito turbo gearbox.........

It would be very easy to spend £4,000.
 
Already spent money on the brakes, tyres and suspension (rear disks, uprated pads, 195s, waiting for -40 lowering springs and koni shocks to arrive, along with powerflex bushes), that's why i'm short on cash now :)
Also, got the megasquirt, assembled it, got some additional drivers and sensors i figured out i'll need, a WB lambda with a controller and it's all waiting to be put into the car so i can get used to it on the stock engine. As soon as i'm familiar with it, i'll do the engine swap. I'd love to get it tuned by someone else, but RRs are rare here, good RRs are non-existant and i'll probably need to go abroad to get a decent tune.
I'll say that forged pistons are high on my wanted list, but getting them will also take a lot of research on my part, because all custom piston shops want me to specify all the dimensions and options i want, i can't just tell them "make me a 16v valve with a reduced CR". So that'll have to wait at least a month or so until i read up on it and fully understand what i want.

The costs are already high but i'm getting closer to the goal. The "only" major investments left are obtaining a turbo and intake mani and fabricating an exhaust mani and the turbo-back exhaust (and the roll cage and the seats and the harnesses and... :)). I'm not giving up though, one step at a time. :)

Thanks again for all the help, i know i wouldn't even be starting this if it weren't for this forum and i hope i'll have some nice pics in the weeks/years to come to share with you guys :)
 
Aaaarrrrgghhhh....don't end it there!!! what next, what next!? :p

Seriously though, I'm thinking of supercharging my Punto 1.2 16v (Mk1), I'd love to see your progress on this! Did you ever sort out pistons?
 
cheers arc, read through that the other week but if i remember rightly, he kept std internals and it went pop.

that's how i found this thread, looking for 70.8mm forged lc pistons :)

saying that, just reading through the end of that thread again (must have skimmed last time), it went pop due to the crank pulley woodruff key - so mebbe i should go turbo but what about the manifold? either that or weld the pulley onto the crank :p

either way, i'd be happier with forged lc pistons, would be nice to have reliable power :
 
contact Guy Croft for custom forged pistons. Wont be cheap tho, you can send him the stock piston and tell him what you want, and he'll draw it up and get them made up

Make sure the end of the crank is square, me dad had his crank pulley come loose twice on his galaxy. He made a little tool to lap the end and true it up. it needed doing badly as there was a high spot which made it impossible to fully clamp the pulley on to the end of the crank, hence why it soon came loose
 
Ok, i'm back after a long break.

As far as the engine bits are concerned, so far i've got an engine (block+head+all thej internals), an intake manifold (plastic, off a brava?) with all the injectors and a throttle body.

Well, that's the problem, the throttle body is electrically, instead of cable, operated. What do i do? Is there a way to make megasquirt run this TB? Is there a way to mod it to use a cable instead?

Thanks in advance.
(btw, i knew that i need the cable TB, but my dad was on the scrappie and got this for me)
 
Can someone help me identify the connections on this intake? Never seen one on a car, so it's gonna be a bit hard to match them all without your help.

1 is i guess a water temp sensor?
2 ???
3 ???
4 idle air solenoid?

There's an another connector on the other side of the intake, gonna take a pic after i resolve this part of the problem

Again, thanks again for all help.
 

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Thanks.
As for what it's off, my guess is bravo/a as well (see one post above).

Can i safely block 3 and 4 and use 2 as the megasquirt's vacuum gauge line then?
Also, going to need a new TB probably, since my dad did the buying :)

P.S. If you guys would like some more pics, just tell me so i can take them while it's all still apart.
 
Great, thanks :)
I hope i'll manage to find a throttle body on monday, if not i'll have to wait until friday probably, and then there'll be more pics, yay!
 
Progress update:
- Took the head to the machine shop for chamber milling, hopefully they'll remove enough material to drop the CR a little, also some valve work going on that head. Expecting the head to arrive tomorrow or in 2 days, so there'll be pics.
- I drew a .dwg for the decompression plate. If anyone's interested (it's based on the headgasket that was on the engine) it should be a good starting point if you're building your own (either HG or decomp plate). Have in mind that i didn't test it yet and it's a 1.2 16v engine. Since the decomp plate will give me 3mm more headroom, i might make it a non-interfering engine :D
 

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