Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Something Unusual


A short while ago, one of my Fulvia contacts asked me to comment on this ebay item. From the item comes the picture above; it's a turbo set-up for a Fulvia!

If you click on the link you will find some more pictures.

With my experience at Evolution Engineering which specialised in Lancia and FIAT, I have to say that this "kit" appears to have used various FIAT components - almost certainly from a Uno Turbo. At a glance it would seem to me that the problems would be formidable. Here are some of those that spring to mind:

- With 9.5/1 or 10.5/1 compression (1300/1600) one could run very little boost without meltdown ensuing rapidly, so special pistons would be required to lower the compression ratio.

- This problem would be exacerbated by the necessarily long inlet pipe (where would you run it?) which would mean lag and raised inlet temperatures

- Pressurised carburettor(s) would be very difficult to arrange, so electronic injection/management would be required. To install this would not be trivial; the cheapest approach would probably be to use a plenum chamber and single throttle body scrounged from another Uno Turbo; then of course there's mounting the sensors - oh yes and the small matter of calibration.

- Routing the exhaust, always a problem on a Fulvia would be rather tricky... and how long would that welded-up exhaust manifold last?

- The Fulvia's original radiator would have to go - under-bonnet temperatures would be a big problem and of course you'd have to find space for the intercooler.

- Finally, I would say that off-boost performance would probably not be very impressive.


Desite all this I have a weakness for modifications as my readers probably know, so best of luck to whoever won the auction!

A bientot