Fiat Stilo Tuning

"Stilo your heart."

A very popular car in the UK from the Fiat stable. The Stilo chassis has much to offer, with the right mods it can be a capable performer and we note that Fiat produced a high performance Abarth version which provides a source for upgrade parts for your Stilo.

We review and look at Stilo tuning and point out the ultimate modifications for your car. Fiat Stilos are good project cars and with carefully chosen sports enhancements you can definitely enhance your driving opportunities.

The Stilo is a good car tuning project to carry out. Plan ahead and research Stilo tuning to spare yourself making the usual expensive mistakes we frequently come across.

Tuning tips and articles

Engine tuning Transmission tuning Care care Intake & exhaust mods Improve handling Forums

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Improving the handling for people often first priority in your Stilo tuning project.

Good suspension tweaks that dramatically enhance handling for the Stilo include a couple of degrees negative camber and 1-1.5 degrees of toe in or out on the front wheels. Toe in for stability, or Toe out to improve cornering. It would also pay to improve the brakes, by adding larger discs and or higher friction pads..

We would go to a maximum drop of 28mm - 40 mm on most models. You risk grounding out if you go lower than this.

Our aim in engine tuning should be to increase peak power and torque at the top end.

Stilo make good sleepers if you debadge them and fit the most powerful engine mods and handling mods you can source!

To be completely frank and honest, on the more modest engine sizes you are wasting your time spending money on modifications, so if this applies to you get yourself an engine swap then apply the following mods.

Power mods.

Petrol engines offered in the Stilo chassis were.

  • 1.2 L Fire i4 petrol  80 PS (59 kW; 79 hp
  • 1.4 L Fire i4 petrol
  • 1.6 L i4 petrol 103 PS (76 kW; 102 hp)
  • 1.6 L Ecotec i4 petrol 103 PS (76 kW; 102 hp)
  • 1.8 L i4 petrol 133 PS (98 kW; 131 hp)
  • 2.4 L I5 petrol 170 PS (125 kW; 168 hp)

Diesel engines

  • 1.9 L JTD I4  8v 101 PS (74 kW; 100 hp)
    1.9 L JTD I4  8v 120 PS (88 kW; 118 hp)
  • 1.9 L MultiJet 16v 140PS (103 kW; 138 hp)
  • 1.9 L MultiJet 16v 150 PS (110 kW; 148 hp)

The following uprated parts are usually carried out by our members, decide how far you want to push your car before you begin.

Getting the right uprated upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 motor sport parts just don't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

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Best Engine Mods for your car

  1. Engine Tunes - engine tuning/remapping provides the most advantage in terms of cost savings,  aftermarket ECUs, and piggyback ECUs are all alternatives.
  2. Fast road cams are one of the most significant mechanical changes, but they must be installed by someone who knows what they're doing and they are not always easy to source but you might find a local firm to regrind a stock camshaft.
  3. Intake and Exhaust - Note that on their own these mods will NOT ADD POWER in most cases, but they can help enhance power after other mods by removing the restriction.
  4. Upgrades to turbochargers and superchargers - forced induction is the most efficient approach to increase air supply, allowing you to burn more fuel and make more power. It is one of the most costly upgrades but provides the best gains.
  5. Head work - The goals of porting and flowing the head are to get air flowing into the engine while removing flow restrictions and turbulence.

Typical stage 1 mods often include: Suspension upgrade (drop 28-40mm), Alloy wheels, Panel air filter, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Sports exhaust, Lighter flywheel.

Typical stage 2 mods often include: Fast road cam, high flow fuel injector, Ported and polished head, fuel pump upgrades, Power/Sport clutch.

Typical stage 3 mods often include: Engine balancing, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Sports gearbox, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Competition cam.

Peak power is good on competition cars but for a drivable and fun car you need a long power band and perhaps extending the rev range.

The aim of our hints is to give a starting base of customizing upgrades and point you in the right direction, our forum is best place to go if you need more detailed advice and tips on your customized car project, the best sport parts and all aspects of modding cars.One of the biggest mechanical motorsport mods you can do on your NA (naturally aspirated) engine is to fit a fast road cam .

It improves the intake and exhaust durations and increases the power if done right. Ideally you'd add other mods and finish up with a performance chip. TorqueCars would caution you not to go with a competition cam as this affects the engines idling and general town driving characteristics.

Don't forget to increase the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty.

Frequently power losses, flat spots and erratic idling after sports modifications are done can usually be traced to timing or fuel delivery issues.Bigger injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.

Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned Stilos uprated injectors.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Now we move on to the intake and exhaust and ensure proper flow through the engine. Please note that WE DO NOT FIND IMPROVEMENTS WITH INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car massively and are finding that the standard air intake has become the bottleneck.

Derestricting the airflow into the engine is the primary part of car tuners so get a better flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean only if you find the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound sporty but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not really increase power and more often than not rob you of power on most cars.

Sports exhausts generally help improve air flow through the engine but do not go too big or you could very well end up with a reduced flow rate. So generally speaking, keep to 1.5 to 2.5 inches as a rule of thumb.

Getting the cylinder head ported and polished will allow you to get more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a professional with a flow bench. A good triple plate fast road uprated clutch will help to keep that power going where it should. Never cut corners or think that a standard OEM clutch to cope. The best mods we would do for your Stilo are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaustRemaps offer massive power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NA (naturally aspirated) engines the benefits are doubtful. However a tune/remap on a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods. Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains. It is generally easier to bolt on a supercharger than it is to bolt on a turbo. Turbos provide boost in increasing proportion to increasing engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.

Superchargers however will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is simpler. Alternatively you could perhaps install water injection to control knock.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are generally lighter than the steel ones. If you are serious about performance then you will need to carefully choose your tires - ideally with a directional tread pattern tire. The downside to large alloy wheels on your Stilo is that you're changing your final drive ratio and this will have a detrimental effect on performance and acceleration.

With this in mind endeavour to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the recommended OEM sizes. In all cases we do not recommend going larger than 17 inches.

If you would like to know more, or just get some friendly advice on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Stilo options in more detail with our Stilo owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Fiat tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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