The flippin’ New Guy

[Hannotek]

Good morning!

I’m Robert, or Hannotek which is my Korean name. I’m new to the forum and I look forward to interacting with you all over time.

I’m a retired soldier with eight kids, and I work on my cars to relax. The project car I just purchased is a 2012 Fiat 500 1.4 Multi-Air (NASP). The car was barely running when I found it, and I’ve done a lot of work replacing broken and leaking parts. It runs really well now, and I’ve started looking for upgrades. That’s what drove me to this forum. There’s a lot of experience and information that I can learn from here.

In addition to the Fiat, I maintain two other family vehicles. One in my wife’s 2015 Ford Escape, 1.6 turbo. And the other is a 2015 Ford Transit 350, 3.5 turbo, 15-passenger van. I do most of the work on these vehicles, except the jobs that require me to remove engines or transmissions. I have a fairly small garage right now.

In any case, I’m happy to be here and I can’t wait to get tuning on the Fiat!

Cheers!

 

[TCJBOLDIE]

Hello and welcome and thank you for your service
I am a Fiat fan from way back when I had 125 Twin cam and loved the way it drove.

I have sold my old turbo powered car that was easy to increase the power by upgrading the turbo or just increasing the boost pressure along with a remap on a dyno to ensure the AFR's were spot on.

However I now have a NA Honda Type R and would love more grunt but have done the sums and to get app 20-30 more HP requires spending app 8,000 Aussie dollars

You can get a bit more power by porting the head ,upping the CR, a new cam and a freer flowing exhaust system.

You can also improve acceleration and throttle response by fitting a lightweight flywheel and forged alloy wheels for less rotational mass.

Any significant power increase will require forced induction and rebuilding with forged internals.

 

[Hannotek]

Hello and welcome and thank you for your service
I am a Fiat fan from way back when I had 125 Twin cam and loved the way it drove.

I have sold my old turbo powered car that was easy to increase the power by upgrading the turbo or just increasing the boost pressure along with a remap on a dyno to ensure the AFR's were spot on.

However I now have a NA Honda Type R and would love more grunt but have done the sums and to get app 20-30 more HP requires spending app 8,000 Aussie dollars

You can get a bit more power by porting the head ,upping the CR, a new cam and a freer flowing exhaust system.

You can also improve acceleration and throttle response by fitting a lightweight flywheel and forged alloy wheels for less rotational mass.

Any significant power increase will require forced induction and rebuilding with forged internals.

TCJBOLDIE,

Thanks for the warm welcome! It’s always nice meeting fellow gear heads and car enthusiasts. Your 125 twin cam sounds like a fun ride! This is my first Fiat, and I’ve loved the last two months I’ve had with it. Most of the time has been in the garage stopping leaks and cleaning things up, but I’ve been driving it every day for the past week, and I can feel it getting stronger every time I put it back together.

Thanks for the guidance on getting more power. My father was a mechanic in the airforce when I was a boy, so he taught me how to fix darn near anything on a car. But he never really did any tuning or modding. He liked to keep everything running at stock efficiency. I didn’t even know what tuning was until after I joined the military when I was 17. I helped one of my buddies change out a clutch and flywheel that were still in good condition. When I asked why he was changing them he said the new ones were lighter and would net more horsepower. That was my first intro to the world of tuning!

I have some projects lined up for the Fiat, and I’ve already sourced the parts for a few of them. The first is changing the head gasket, spark plug tubes, and the tube seals. When I changed the plugs last month, I had corrosion in tube one, and oil in the other three tubes. I found the source of the leak (a cracked PVC valve seal), and fixed it.

The next project is flushing the cooling system and putting on a new radiator with Mishimoto hoses. The car had 135K miles on it when I got it, and it was poorly maintained for most of those miles. So, I’m refreshing a lot of the basic parts.

The last project that I have the parts for is a brake system upgrade. I’ve purchased some new rotors and pads, and a new set of braided steel brake hoses. I’m planning on turning this little car into an autocross/time trial car, so I’m spending a good bit of time beefing up the suspension and braking systems.

These parts were all I could afford from my project car fund and should take me a month or so to finish. That will give me time to set more money aside for the rest of the build!

Thanks again for the welcome!

 

[TCJBOLDIE]

IF your motor is a Direct injection then hi mileage will coke up the inlet port runners so they will need de gunking and while you are doing that port match bith head and manifold using a gasket as a reference and to finish it off use flap wheels to get the final finish. You can mirror polish the runners as far as the injectors IF it had port injectors and use a heavier flap wheel past that for a slightly rougher finish to help fuel air mix.

Port matching and mirror polishing will also help power and slow down carboning up the ex ports as well HPC coating the inlet and exhaust manifolds will also help.

Fitting a thermal insulating gasket to the inlet manifold will also help reduce IAT's

Every little bit helps

PS have the injectors sonic cleaned and flow tested as well.

 

[Hannotek]

IF your motor is a Direct injection then hi mileage will coke up the inlet port runners so they will need de gunking and while you are doing that port match bith head and manifold using a gasket as a reference and to finish it off use flap wheels to get the final finish. You can mirror polish the runners as far as the injectors IF it had port injectors and use a heavier flap wheel past that for a slightly rougher finish to help fuel air mix.

Port matching and mirror polishing will also help power and slow down carboning up the ex ports as well HPC coating the inlet and exhaust manifolds will also help.

Fitting a thermal insulating gasket to the inlet manifold will also help reduce IAT's

Every little bit helps

PS have the injectors sonic cleaned and flow tested as well.

Wow! This is good stuff. I will do some research into this porting and mirror polishing. Thanks!

 

[TCJBOLDIE]

I'm old school but don't know a lot about the technical computer stuff in new cars.

The "mirror polishing" should be restricted to the inlet manifold and runners before the injectors in a MPI port injected system BUT can be done all the way to the valve seats in a DIRECT injection motor where the injectors are in the combustion chamber.

With PORT injection you can port and shape the ports downside of the injectors BUT you will need to use a more coarse flap wheel to get a slightly rougher finish much like when the cylinders are honed as that makes for better air fuel mixing as it creates a bit of turbulence in the incoming charge.

Remember port shape is more important than the finish if you are doing this yourself.

I look forward to the end result of your endeavours.

 

[TCJBOLDIE]

FYI lighter flywheels (and wheels) WILL NOT give more power BUT they will allow the motor to rev faster or more freely due to less mass/weight.

 

[Fabia17]

Wow! This is good stuff. I will do some research into this porting and mirror polishing. Thanks!

This sort of work needs great care if you want great results and in my opinion is best entrusted to the people who know what they are doing. I tried to port and polish my Chrysler Cross Flow head, I thought I'd done a great job until I tried my local race shops head.... As they say, no competition.

 

[Hannotek]

This sort of work needs great care if you want great results and in my opinion is best entrusted to the people who know what they are doing. I tried to port and polish my Chrysler Cross Flow head, I thought I'd done a great job until I tried my local race shops head.... As they say, no competition.

Fabia17, thanks for your input! In the last day or two, I’ve researched the porting/polishing and it does look like something beyond my skill set. I understand the process, but I’ve never done it. What I’d like to do is find a shop that does it and is willing to let me watch so I can learn from them. Finding a shop like that is the challenge! Even so, the porting and polishing remains on the list of things to do for my Fiat.

Thanks again, and it’s great to meet ya’!

 

[Fabia17]

Hi, porting will give the engine more breathability, and carefully gasket matching the ports is also useful, but if you intend to use the car primarily on the road I would probably give the polishing a miss. The reason for this is that with a polished port at low air speeds (under 75% throttle) the fuel will just form droplets and condense out onto the walls of inlet tubes, this collects in pools at the lowest point in the system.

As you can imagine this will cause no end of low end running issues, from flat spots to engine hunting (unstable idle speed) or failure to idle at all, and may only run at full throttle, like a drag racer..... Not ideal.

This is why stock cylinder heads are left quite rough inside. It's not all about cost cutting in the factory. There is method in the madness (as they say).

The internal roughness of the manifold is used to create swirl and disrupt the air flow, this helps to ensure the air, its moisture and fuel are well mixed before entering the cylinder, this in turn helps to create a more even flame front during the ignition phase.

A mirror polished head will not do this, it will just trickle the fuel into the cylinder unmixed from the air causing an uneven and erratic burn.

If you have direct injection then this would be a slightly different prospect, however I would think twice about it for street use.

In the persuit of more power and economy from ever smaller engines manufacturers now go to extraordinary lengths in designing and testing the gas flow of their cylinder heads and combustion chambers, this is the only way to squeeze more out of small engines, so in my opinion, I think you should leave well enough alone and enjoy it for what it is.

A little turbo would give you a shed load more power, provided it was done with a remap. But with the high mileage the motor has done it would be a great excuse to build a new motor up on the bench with trick internals, then jam a turbo on it... And watch it turn 12 or 13 second quarter miles.... Grin Factor 9000 buddy

 

[obi_waynne]

Hello and a very warm, welcome to TorqueCars from me the admin!

So sorry for my very slow reply, I've been busy updating the site framework and chasing bugs. Hopefully we are there now, with a much faster more efficient site and server.

I'm sure you'll fit in just fine and look forward to Talking Cars with you.

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