Fiat Tipo Tuning

We look at Tipo tuning and highlight the premier upgrades. Fiat Tipos are good project cars and with the optimum motorsport upgrades you can really improve your driving fun.

The Tipo is a good tuning project to have. The key to Tipo tuning is doing it right - a lot of money can be wasted if you do it wrong.

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 Tipo tuning project.

If you set the toe out to 1-1.7 degrees on the front, and add a bit of negative camber then cornering will often improve.

We would go to a maximum drop of 30mm - 36 mm on most models. You risk rubbing on the arches if you go lower than this.

Top end power should be your overall aim on the Tipo with a nice fat peak torque band.

Keep the car looking standard and remove the badges for the ultimate sleeper!

The best power gains come from larger engine sizes. The more you start with the bigger the return on investment so engine swaps are good value mods for small engined cars.

Engine Tuning.

These are the performance kits are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to go before you get started.

Getting the best sports mods for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 motor sport parts just don't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.

Please watch our video which covers the 5 principles of tuning your car. Be sure to keep up with our latest YouTube content and subscribe.

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: Lighter flywheel, Engine Tunes/Remapping, Panel air filter, Alloy wheels, Sports exhaust, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm).

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

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

Your goal when tuning should be a nice flat torque range. You want to avoid sending all the torque to be at the top end unless you are creating a motor sport car.

The whole point of our pointers is to give a limited introduction of tuning modifications and point you in the right direction, our forum is where you can ask for more detailed advice and tips on your tuning project, the best performance kits and all aspects of modding cars.A fast road camshaft typically is one of the best NASP power mods you can do from a single upgrade to your engine.

The exhaust and intake durations play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car difficult to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a tune/remap for the best performance gains.

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

If you find you experience flat spots and power surges after your performance kits you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Uprating the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

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

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Please note that WE DO NOT FIND IMPROVEMENTS WITH INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car a lot and are finding that the standard air intake has become a limitation.

Induction kits can work well on turbo engines and larger engines (if supplied with a suitable cold air feed or air box), generally though we'd just recommend for Tipo engines you should settle for a sports panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

Sports exhausts increase the flow of air through the engine. But if the exhaust pipe is too big, ie: over 2.5 inches bore, you will lose a lot of the exhaust flow rate and end up sapping power and torque.

Airflow through the head can be dramatically increased with some professional gas flowing. These should match and be setup to take into account any other engine mods. When you tune up your Tipo you will usally see that the standard clutch starts to fail so get an uprated clutch. The best mods in our opinion for your Tipo are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaust. Turbo engines are just asking to be remapped. You will see large power gains on most modern turbo charged cars including diesels making a tune/remap one of the most cost effective and large modifications for your money.

We've also seen some tuners playing with twin charging applications and making some seriously high power hikes.

Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NA (naturally aspirated) engine will give large power gains. Superchargers are generally easier to add than turbos. It is harder to map a turbo as the boost builds exponentially with engine speed.

It is more straightforward to map a supercharger because the boost is proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. Adding forced induction will often require a lower compression ratio or water injection.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Due to the fact that alloys are less heavy they improve performance and they can help to cool the brake disks. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of soft compound tire. Large Tipo alloys can decrease performance. If you get big alloys you will be changing your final drive ratio.

For this reason aim to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel your OEM settings. In all cases without going above 16 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 Tipo options in more detail with our Tipo 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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