Forum 7/2/99 to ....

Any letters you send to to me which, are not personal will be posted here so other people can reply.

1. 10/2/99, James of Richmond wrote :

   I have now been a mk2 turbo owner for a Year. Love the car it is great. Just wanted to pick you brains on a couple of bits.

   1, At the moment I have an Ansa system from downpipe back. Sounds great! Not to loud and it has a nice low burble. Problem is it is leaking from the rear silencer. The pipe has only been on about 18months and covered 11k miles. I want to put on a Stainless system but I don't know which to go for. Mine is a Pre Cat so I do not need to worry about that. From my investigations so far I can go for a Mongoose or Scorpion. Have you used these before? Are they very loud? What are the performance gains (not that I am really bothered about that as my Sunday Car is a 400bhp V12 jag)? Do you know of any other Stainless systems for mk2 Turbo IE?

   2, Does anyone produce a Stainless Intercooler? I like my projects to last.

   3, I live in London, I do get around the south of England a fair bit so traveling is not a problem. Do you know of any Fiat tuning wiz-kids around this part of the world?

   Any info you have would be greatly appreciated

   James of Richmond.

2. 10/2/99, Chris Fricke wrote :

   re: compressor bypass

   any UNO t already got this bypass! It connects the upright steel tube between the intercooler and the throttle plate to the intake side of the turbo. If the throttle is fully closed the vacuum behind it opens the diaphragm valve.
   For some instance FIAT put a restrictor in the connection to the steel tube. If you want to try the effect of a after market valve, don�t buy one, but: open up the restriction, use 10cm of hose to relocate the valve, close the rest of the hose leading to the compressor inlet and let the valve breathe freely into the atmosphere. I never tried it, but in my opinion the advantage would be less load to the intercooler and a turbo spinning a little longer after lifting the throttle. At the negative side there should be noise while shifting. Most race cars use this set-up, so there should be no harmful side effects to engine or parts. But I have no real world experience!

   Maybe you are interested in modifications in my UNO? I call it the revenge of all discriminated small cars...

   1570 cc Fiat TIPO engine, polished head, valves and intake, enlarged throttle plate, secondary air/ water/ air intercooler, modified and polished pistons and combustion chamber for 8.2:1 compression, large intake valves, high lift and duration camshaft, enlarged turbo, additional injector for boost over .6 bar, larger oil cooler, 2 1/2" exhaust system, flywheel 40% lighter, solid sinter clutch with high pressure plate, UNO 75 gear box ( long 5th gear, longer final drive) and all this small but time taking jobs, like weight matching rods etc... The is cat. converter is still in place and working! The German tuner NOVITEC build these without the fine work and rated it at 197 HP and a topspeed of 246 km/h. They were not known for their reliability.
   I took some of their parts, but build the engine by myself, using my experience in tuning aspirated engines plus a lot of theory and calculating. It has done about 30.000km now and is daily driven by my girlfriend in the past 5 month! Most funny about the car is the fuel consumption, actually it is about 30% lower than a stock 1.3l 100HP catalytic converter engine, if used in the same load range!

   The engine dislikes rpm below 1400 (more the clutch than the cam I suppose), fells like a 75ie in the midrange, and explodes from 5000 rpm to 6700, where the ugly limiter stops more fun. All that is in a stock looking 1988 chassis, no turbo letters, no turbo plastic, just plain grigio quarzo. The brakes are improved with slotted drilled rotors and Ferodo racing pads front and rear, but still not what I wish. Shortened yellow Koni shocks with race valves, H&R springs and 20mm sway bar, 7x15 alloys with 195/45/15W Goodyear Eagle F1 give a lot of road hold, but comfort is, I would say, a little limited. I never tested the top speed, I think it is fast enough. 0-100km/h is somewhere around 6 seconds.

   Ok, thats it, if you have any quwestions, mail me!
   Chris

3. 8/2/99, Nigel Peart wrote :

   Thanks for your reply,hadders. I've spun thru the web site and noted most of it,just a couple of things to run past you. 1997 Turbo with about 54000 kms [genuine]

   1. I'm assuming that Fiat,whilst developing the engine, found that max.engine life and reliability was gained by limiting boost to 0.75bar. Mine is standard, and although more power is lots of fun, how does it affect the motor in the long term?

   2. With the hot climate in Johannesburg, perhaps the fuel metering unit cooling fan should remain in place?

   3. Can an Air Conditioning System be fitted? There does'nt seem to be much room for it,and future cam-belt changes may become very tiresome!

   4. What is recommended cam-belt life? AND if it breaks, do pistons smash valves?

   I've only had the car 5 days,and done about 400kms so far,I chose this over a Lancia MonteCarlo,I know the Montes very well having worked in the Lancia trade both here and in the UK,but this goes far better. Perhaps they should have put the 1400 Turbo motor in the Lancia!!!!

   Cheers for now
   Nigel Peart
   [email protected]

4. 7/2/99, Reuben wrote :

   Hi you all this is Reuben. Do you know of any turbo ie beieng available from Torino factory ?

   Regards Reuben

   [email protected]

5. 7/2/99, Joe Rubido wrote :

   Hi There

   Jens wrote that if you run your engine with out an airfilter it will suffer dust damage, before that happens you will probably damage the turbo as the blades in the turbo are very thin and if any foreign object strikes them whilst they are spining at over 100,000 rpm you can imagine the result.

   Good point aboat the intercoolers, but its not as simple as it sounds, first you have to make pipes an route them around the engine components, the oil cooler would need to be relocated, probably in front of the radiator. The only company who did this was Barry Waterhouse Engineering, he used to modify a Cosworth 2 wheel drive intercooler to fit the uno, by moving the oil cooler rad in front of the coolant radiator. A lot of work involved, when you can buy ready made alloy intercooler that achieve the same result almost or fit water injection.

   With reference to the gearbox, Jens is correct in saying that you could change the 5th gear with out dismantling the complete gearbox since it is on the outer end of the casing, The fact that later cars have tipo derived gearboxes doesnt mean you can fit a gearbox from a tipo and it will bolt straight on, since the Uno turbo has equal length driveshafts, The turbo model a specific gearbox casing.

   Jens wanted to know if you can put a cylinder head from a 1988 on to a 1991 with a cat.? are you sure this 91 model has a 1301 cc Engine , if it has a1301 cc engine, yes no problem you can swap the cylinder head as engines from late 1987 where prepared to run on unleaded, your compresion ration will not change. Recomended modifications to do with the cylinder head off, would be to have the head gasflowed to improve its efficiency. mach the inlet and exhaust ports to the manifolds.

   By the way, what country are you in ?

   Regards Joe Rubido

6. 7/2/99, Joe Rubido wrote :

   Hi there

   Gudmundur Runar Jonsson wanted to know what oil pressure should his gauge display when the engine is running, the oil pressure should not exceed 4 bar pressure under normal circumstances, that is ok, and should not drop below 1 bar at idle.

   K &N is just one manufacturer of high performance air filters,Check this page for more information: http://ws4.u-net.net/~knairfilters/

   I hope this helps

   Regard Joe Rubido

7. 7/2/99, Joe Rubido wrote :

   Hi there George

   glad to hear, that Uno turbos are going strong down under. with regards to your questions.

   Turbo Timers: device that keeps the engine running for a couple of minutes after you turn of the ignition and lock the car, to allow the engine turbo to cool down. In some countries it is ilegal to leave a car with its engine running without someone supervising it. Also fiat has always used on the Uno watercooled turbochargers and has also specified that only synthetic engine oil should be used. These measures prevent the turbo from carbonizing the oil inside the turbo when turn of the engine due to heat build up.

   Never the less, if you have give your a real hard drive, i would recommend you let it idle for a minute or two to allow the turbo to cool down a bit before you switch off your engine.

   Car seats: The original seats are not exactly what you would call the best seats in the world, by any means, they lack lateral suport, and develop lots of play in the linkage that allows you tilt them forward. You can buy sports seats from Sparco or Momo, and they also make adaptor frames , that allow you to bolt them into your car. This is what I have fitted to my car. Sparco Supersports recliner seats + sparco seat frame and runners.

   K&N make direct induction airfilter kits for the 1.3 engine its part N� 57-0092 and for the 1.4 engine its part N� 57-0056, also for the 1.4 engine you can use part N� RC-2600, the reason your local agent doesnt stock this part or list it, is because these are parts made by K&N Europe. Check this page http://ws4.u-net.net/~knairfilters/

   By the way is your car 1301cc model or the 1372cc model, if your car has the larger engine as your K&N stockist to look up the RC-2600 air filter, Its a conical filter with a rubber flange.

   They are a large mail order firm in the UK.

   I hope this helps

8. 7/2/99, Joe Rubido wrote :

   Hi there Alan

   The only decent body kit I have ever seen for the Uno, was made by Hormam motorsport, in Germany, contact a horman agents and you might still be able to find one.

   To be quite honest, I doubt they still manufacture the kit since uno has been out of pruduction for a while now. but you never know. maybe someone has a kit gathering dust in a corner.

   the kit consisted of front and rear bumpers, front and rear wheel arch extensions and sills.

   I will try to find a photograph and I will get it scanned.

   regards Joe Rubido

9. 7/2/99, Joe Rubido wrote :

   Hi there Rubben

   I believe that the fiat Uno turbo ie Racing sold in italy was identical to the other Uno�s sold in other countries.

   Let me explain, for example in the late 1970, early 1980, fiat sold the models 127 sport and 131 sport, but for the italian market they where badged Racing, but otherwise these car where identical. Also for the Japanese market, they sold the Uno turbo ie, as the Uno turbo ie Abarth, but the car identical to the european model except that instead of having graphic on the side of the car that said "Turbo ie", it said "Abarth".

   I hope this helps

   Regards Joe Rubido

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Last updated : 9 February 1999
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