Tuning Performance improvements on a 1.416V?

[Little Red Chinky]

Is it worth it do do performance improvements on a 500 1.4 16V?

What have you done and what benefit (if any) did you get?

Any actual measured results you can share?

Thanks!

PS: Yes, I know that is what the Abarth is for but let's take that out of the equation as it's not an option.

 

[jnoiles]

I did a GSR and a remap on mine it reported this on the rolling road:

The car was fairly new at the time so it might have gained a bit more since loosening up in the last 80k miles

 

[Little Red Chinky]

I did a GSR and a remap on mine it reported this on the rolling road:

The car was fairly new at the time so it might have gained a bit more since loosening up in the last 80k miles

Thanks, this is great and useful I saw u got some gains on both torque and power curve.

How noticeable is it and would you do it again given what you paid versus what you are getting.

 

[deeyup]

Great to see the dyno graph!! A worthwhile improvement for the outlay I reckon.

 

[RUI]

If it's power you want you need a 1.2

 

[jnoiles]

Lol!

Would I do it again? I'm not sure? It felt more get up and go with the remap. It's on a standard map now and I don't know that I feel a huge difference. But that could be the passing of time or the recalibration of my senses since I bought an Elise. The induction I'd do again in a heartbeat just for the lovely noise. I've also fitted a cat back stainless steel exhaust with no centre box and a small 60's style backbox and that's found more oomph than I recall the remap doing.

 

[loveshandbags]

A suggestion to get more responses would be to ask for this thread to be classified as a 'Tuning' thread so that it's seen by the rest of the Fiat Forum. A number of 100HP owners have done quite a few mods and hopefully they will be prepared to share their experiences.

How much would you be prepared to spend and how much extra bhp would you expect for your Rand ?

Here's a Link to a post of what a GSR looks like - these can no longer be got so ebay or the classifieds is your only option.

Here's a picture of the standard exhaust setup for the 1.4.

Shop4parts did list a Magnetti Marelli straight through pipe but an equivalent could be sourced from Ragazzon or Supersprint.

Gazzella Racing have the Supersprint manifold for £275 - you could price match with someone else. A Jetex sports cat at £225 could be 'plumbed in' and possibly drop the centre silencer if you didn't mind the extra noise. Hopefully the CAT light wouldn't be a problem.

Re gains of a full Supersprint setup all you will get is 5 bhp (Click here).

Jason's 'solution' of a custom made CAT back exhaust at £300 ? is tempting and they're getting through the MOTs.

If you decide to do 'nothing' a new paper filter and a new set of standard NGK plugs would still be worthwhile doing.

After buying the Densos I would recommend them over the NGK Iridiums (I had both on the 2 500s). No bhp increase but felt better. Would risk increasing the gap to 1.0mm from the preset 0.8mm gap supplied. Some reports of improved mpg with the iridiums (Densos in particular).

 

[Little Red Chinky]

loveshandbags, thanks for the patience and all the information. I really do appreciate it!!

You've opened my eyes to a new world and a mate at work wished I stopped at cosmetic changes as he had to explain and draw pictures in order for me to digest all the info

 

[babbo_umbro]

Just one word of caution if you're looking at Panda 100HP experiences - the engine management on the Panda uses a unique - and apparently un-modifiable - component, so the most likely source of extra power is not comparable.

 

[ahmett]

A suggestion to get more responses would be to ask for this thread to be classified as a 'Tuning' thread so that it's seen by the rest of the Fiat Forum. A number of 100HP owners have done quite a few mods and hopefully they will be prepared to share their experiences.

How much would you be prepared to spend and how much extra bhp would you expect for your Rand ?

Here's a Link to a post of what a GSR looks like - these can no longer be got so ebay or the classifieds is your only option.

Here's a picture of the standard exhaust setup for the 1.4.

Shop4parts did list a Magnetti Marelli straight through pipe but an equivalent could be sourced from Ragazzon or Supersprint.

Gazzella Racing have the Supersprint manifold for £275 - you could price match with someone else. A Jetex sports cat at £225 could be 'plumbed in' and possibly drop the centre silencer if you didn't mind the extra noise. Hopefully the CAT light wouldn't be a problem.

Re gains of a full Supersprint setup all you will get is 5 bhp (Click here).

Jason's 'solution' of a custom made CAT back exhaust at £300 ? is tempting and they're getting through the MOTs.

If you decide to do 'nothing' a new paper filter and a new set of standard NGK plugs would still be worthwhile doing.

After buying the Densos I would recommend them over the NGK Iridiums (I had both on the 2 500s). No bhp increase but felt better. Would risk increasing the gap to 1.0mm from the preset 0.8mm gap supplied. Some reports of improved mpg with the iridiums (Densos in particular).

Seriously i have done over 20,000 km's on these same spark plugs (assuming the fiat dealer changed them during the service at all i cant prove it to be honest), and they are feeling a little less than new, especially at low power levels with the ac on. Cant wait to change them, i will be doing a full fat service within the next month, waiting for a friend to open an indie garage so would be very cheap for the full fat service. If its not opened in a month i'll go to my regular indie (although i dont trust them that much, but still more than i trust the Fiat dealer!)

 

[grimwau]

A suggestion to get more responses would be to ask for this thread to be classified as a 'Tuning' thread so that it's seen by the rest of the Fiat Forum.

Michael, since the forum software was rejigged a few months ago any thread in any of the model sections that has a tuning prefix will also show up in the tuning forum.

 

[jnoiles]

Here's a Link to a post of what a GSR looks like - these can no longer be got so ebay or the classifieds is your only option.

Mine taken off the car to clean it:

To be honest, you could make something similar with some silicon hoses and joints. I know someone who has done something like this on a Panda 100hp so its not impossible.

A Jetex sports cat at £225 could be 'plumbed in' and possibly drop the centre silencer if you didn't mind the extra noise. Hopefully the CAT light wouldn't be a problem.

At some point in the future I plan to try this. I wanted to do it before the last MOT but time/circumstance got the better of me. I actually have the sports cat sitting on the shelf right now. I just need to get around to doing it but the Elise brakes is next on my to do list. My thinking is that you'd need to extend some wiring for the lambda sensors so they'd reach. Right now they're designed to fit the standard manifold/cat combo and a sports cat would put it under the car horizontally. That should stop engine warning lights coming on, assuming you spec the cat right. i'm thinking of flanging the cat and back pipe so it can be popped out on track days

Re gains of a full Supersprint setup all you will get is 5 bhp (Click here).

But what a noise it would make

Jason's 'solution' of a custom made CAT back exhaust at £300 ? is tempting and they're getting through the MOTs.

And sexy it is too:

http://pripyat.smugmug.com/Other/New-Car/i-rHs99fx/0/M/Exhaust-002-M.jpg[img]

It's so much easier than buying parts then faffing about fitting them. Go to a place. They keep a stock of stainless steel and laser cut flanges, they bend it to shape and fit it. And it's all done by a guy who tig welds joins and bends stainless all day long so the work is beautiful to look at.

[QUOTE="loveshandbags, post: 3086170, member: 105591"]If you decide to do 'nothing' a new paper filter and a new set of standard NGK plugs would still be worthwhile doing.[/quote]

[QUOTE="loveshandbags, post: 3086170, member: 105591"]After buying the Densos I would recommend them over the NGK Iridiums (I had both on the 2 500s).[/quote]

Interesting. I've had the exact opposite feeling.

 

[alexGS]

Michael, since the forum software was rejigged a few months ago any thread in any of the model sections that has a tuning prefix will also show up in the tuning forum.

Yes, I think that's what he meant

-Alex

 

[loveshandbags]

Just one word of caution if you're looking at Panda 100HP experiences - the engine management on the Panda uses a unique - and apparently un-modifiable - component, so the most likely source of extra power is not comparable.

I think Fiat thought that the 100HP 'guys' would tinker whilst the 500 'guys' wouldn't - hence the difference.

Interesting. I've had the exact opposite feeling.

I'm sticking to my guns on this one. The Denos are way better :devil: and the VX are reputed to last the same lenght of time as the NGK Iridiums. Since you can get the VXU22 for the 500 I would buy them. Only the IX version is available for the T-jets. For the TA owners there are NO Iridiums available and for the 1.2 none are specifically made for it.

...

Here is some light reading (Click here). If you had £2,000 to spare you could turn you 1.4 99bhp into a claimed fire breathing 130bhp sleeper.

Nuova used to do a ECU exchange for around £200. Along with a BMC panel filter it supposedly gave an additional 5 bhp but this would have been with premium petrol. They may be trading under the name of Angel Tuning. I used to deal with a helpful guy called Nigel.

Real gains on the 1.4 are got from a Port & Polish (very specialised job) and a head skim (not for the faint hearted).
The standard compression on the 1.4 engine is 1:10.7. The 1.4 should be able to take a higher compression of 1:11 (which is the same as 1.2 model) but it would have to be run on higher octane fuel. The Suzuki Swift GTi has 1:11 and has to run on 99 octane to get the higher bhp.

An alternative route is a hotter cam. There's a thread deep in the Tuning section on this but it affects fuel economy.

IMHO spending £2K for 125-130bhp on a 1.4 NA is justifiable if you don't want the power delivery of a Turbo charged engine.

I would suggest that you start SMALL and then you might get bitten by the modding bug.

 

[loveshandbags]

Michael, since the forum software was rejigged a few months ago any thread in any of the model sections that has a tuning prefix will also show up in the tuning forum.

I had to check that this thread appeared in the Tuning section. Maybe it has to be moved the Panda section to get some responses !!!!:devil:

 

[loveshandbags]

An alternative route is a hotter cam. There's a thread deep in the Tuning section on this but it affects fuel economy.

In case anyone else was interested on 'hotter cams' this cam thread is worth a read with a good explanation by Dave.

One 'mod' that might have got missed was a 'Rover K series throttle body' by Fingers99 here.

Torquecars have a tuning page and an interesting calculator on the bhp increases with particular mods.

Re the 'port & polish' of the head on the 1.4 16V reading 'between the lines' there may not be much to improve over the standard head apart from the compression increase with a head skim. A 'Fast cam' (274/248) by the likes of Colmbo Bariani might be the way to go - this would most likely need a re-map to get the real benefits which can be done on the 500.

Lastly on the GSR CAI it is possible to make an equivalent ('home-made') but on a RR test on a different forum the results were disappointing with little or no gain in bhp.

 

[Little Red Chinky]

Here is the dyno chart of my car. Got it back yesterday, went in for two days (they are somewhat busy!).

Overall, I'm very happy with the results. Sure it did not turn it into a Ferrari, but it does sound like an angry puppy dog with attitude. The drive has also improved and is more responsive. I like it alot

The kw is the dyno results on the wheel. Manufacturer does it on the flywheel (I was told). Manufacturer is 74kw and they reckon if you had to measure flywheel you will get 15kw more, so it will total at around 89kw.

 

[fingers99]

There are some Polski cams around.

The 1.4 16v is said to throw rods if pushed to over 140bhp. T Jet (out of 500 Abarth) should fit -- get the gearbox and ECU boxes while you're at it.

1.4 16v fitted to Cinqs (with aftermarket ECU and decent exhaust) generally puts out 110bhp or so without internal modification.

See this thread for a possible way of adjusting things without ditching your ECU (completely). For adjustments to fuelling and ignition will be required if you're to see much from the changes.

Just one word of caution if you're looking at Panda 100HP experiences - the engine management on the Panda uses a unique - and apparently un-modifiable - component, so the most likely source of extra power is not comparable.

:yeah that:

 

[loveshandbags]

Here is the dyno chart of my car. Got it back yesterday, went in for two days (they are somewhat busy!).

Overall, I'm very happy with the results. Sure it did not turn it into a Ferrari, but it does sound like an angry puppy dog with attitude. The drive has also improved and is more responsive. I like it alot

The kw is the dyno results on the wheel. Manufacturer does it on the flywheel (I was told). Manufacturer is 74kw and they reckon if you had to measure flywheel you will get 15kw more, so it will total at around 89kw.

There's an explanation on the link below off the power losses that you're referring to.
http://www.mini2.com/forum/first-ge...p-wheel-horsepower-v-flywheel-horsepower.html
Use 99 bhp as a benchmark and factoring in the increase I get a figure of 116bhp. Can you confirm if that is just with the Pipercross CAI and the remap ?

 

[loveshandbags]

There are some Polski cams around.

The 1.4 16v is said to throw rods if pushed to over 140bhp. T Jet (out of 500 Abarth) should fit -- get the gearbox and ECU boxes while you're at it.

1.4 16v fitted to Cinqs (with aftermarket ECU and decent exhaust) generally puts out 110bhp or so without internal modification.

See this thread for a possible way of adjusting things without ditching your ECU (completely). For adjustments to fuelling and ignition will be required if you're to see much from the changes.



:yeah that:

There are 16 pages of postings on that link. Which post refers to the Polski cam ?
Also are you saying that you can only get 110bhp from a 1.4 with a decent exhaust system and an aftermarket ECU ?