My 1250 turbo cinquecento story

Here is my rather long story off my turbo cinquecento

Ok so here is the story with my turbocharged 97 cinquecento sporting.

from being young my dad owned a black 96 sporting which we owned from nearly new so from a young age id been around and grown sadly attached to the cinquecento. The cinqs do get the p##s taken out off them alot fro being small and badged as a crappy car by people who dont no about cars, for me i always saw that they where all they needed to be......cheap,nippy and FUN.
My dad taked about a company called Vaanaken Developments who had designed a bolt on DIY turbo conversion for the 1108cc f.i.r.e engine in both low boost and high boost forms.
The low boost kit costing 1500 quid boosted power form 54 too 85hp and torque from 63 too 95lb/sf of torque, i my head at the time i exspected this to make such a small car mega fast haha. But anyway i set my mind on getting a kit once i left school, sadly Vanaaken had seized production off the kits and i had no idea where to find a second hand one so i gave up and started mondifing my cinq sporting in normally aspirated from to get around 65bhp ish.
But around 2007 a friend off mine (JAMES-ST) was scouring Ebay and came across a 97 Vanaaken low boost cinq fitted with the punto 60 engine (1242cc 8v sohc spi)!! i snapped it up asap and went to pik it up. The owner claimed 100bhp/100lb/sf of torque so i was desperate to see what the equivalent off a good 1600 engine was like in a little cinq. First inmpressions wearnt great, it was running only 3psi off boost and had a few issues under the bonnet so nowdays i recon it was running barly 80bhp, still very nippy and the motorway journy home released another 1.5psi off boost (i think the actuator was siezed) so it got a fairt bit quicker thankfully.
I got the car home and started with the refreshing -
full service with good oil, new Bosh super four plugs, Splitfire H/T leads, new vac pipes as the old ones where split and i ordered the first few major engine mods....these being the Tricker 40mm uprated throttle body, Greddy Profec electronic boost controller to make future tuning easyier (although i incrased the boost 4 percent straight away anyway) and the exhaust centre box and cat removed...... With this done i took it straight to Noble Motorsport in Chesterfield to see how healthy the engine was and for a full set-up. The end result was a very healthy low lag 96.6bhp and 96.6 lb/sf of torque @ 0.35bar so i was very happy.
The test drive made me so happy, it was loads more powerful than before with nice torque and and lots off revs! result!
From there on i changed had more power in mind which meant going high boost!!
To go high boost on the standard engine four major things should be fitted -
An intercooler
A higher pressure high flow fuel pump.
And the engines compressison ratio needs to be dropped.
Ow and the addition off an adjustable fuel pressure regulator.
i ordered a 1.5mm alluminium decompression plate to deal with the compression ratio and bought a second hand Punto GT turbo intercooler from ebay , following this i also took a desision that i would later regret........this being to buy a GSR stage two cylinder head for 330 quid with the ports ported and polished, three angled valve seats and a good skim. Its also worth mensioning i also had to fit an adjustale cam pulley because the 1.5mm lift on the head knocls out the cam timming!
With the conversion to high boost finished i went back to Nobles again aming for 1 bar off boost and hoping for alot off power!
Sadly things didnt go to plan!, After sitting in the waitning room for 2 hours listning to the familiar sound off a stressed turbocharged Fiat engine being thrashed I was given the bad news.......
“when we try and run the engine at over 0.65bar off boost its pinking!”
The reason for this was a mistery at the time but i was pleased with the results anyway as the car was now runnig at 116bhp and 113lb/sf of torque! The test drive was brilliant, its felt rapid with so much more pull. The first car i came across was a 175bhp MBW 325 up hill and i was catching him constantly putting a guhe smile on my face! I got home and started looking into why the setup wasnt delivering the goods however and found out the following things –
1. The GSR engineering cylinder head was skimmed by 0.8mm reducing the effect off the decompression plate.
2. The SPI fuling setup meant the outer two cylinders where running leaner than the inner two making the DET more prone at different boost levels.
So i was a little stuck at this stage, instead i turned to the rest off the car by changing the tierd old Apex 30mm springs for 40mm Apex springs and shocks and adding a front upper strut brace which really tightned up the handling. Next was the addition off lots of gauges and shiny buits under the bonnet hehe! Also on the handling front a set off 4 new Toyo Proxes T1-R tyres where fitted to make sure it stuck to the floor as best as possible.
It wasnt long before i craved more power and seen as im stuburn and i had 1 bar off boost on my mind i set about lowering the C/R more to stop the detanation issue and able me to run 1 bar. Having no money and desperate for a way to achieve this i simply put an extra Payen head gasket to lift the head up, i returned to nobles once again and prepared my self fopr good news.
It never came, instead i got more bad news starting with “its lost 22bhp striaght off at the same boost as before” it was running 94bhp@ 0.65bar, another 5bhp waa gained from adjusting the cam timming making it 99bhp and then they started winding up the boost.
It was only making 112bhp @ 0.8 bar off boost and 117.6bhp @ 1 bar!!

The only good news was that the torque har spiked up to 125.lb/sf @ 1 bar but the commenst from the guys at nobles wearnt good –
“the inlet temps are at 60 degrees, its lost alot off power from dropping the C/R and over working the turbo causing not alot to be gained”
Depressed i left Nobles for a test drive where i found more dissapointment, the engine was badly missing under load so i had to nurse it home. It turned out that the high boost level (15psi) was overcoming the spark at the plugs so i the gaps needed closing up. Again i went for a test drive and this time the car nose dived as the fueling leaned right off! This turned out to be bad luck because the dump valve diafram was split Once these niggles where sorted i got too try it out n the road where i found all the problems where well worth it! The torque increase had made if feel balistic and the torque spike was so low down it felt like a powerful diesel with a huge surge from 2800rpm. Nothing i came across that day could keep up until i went to overtake a simple transit van that is! That caused the boost pipe to blow off making it sheffileds slowest cinquecento haha.
I actualy found that the boost pipe issue was occurring a lot running 15psi so i decided to fit better larger 2” pipes with silicone hoses to match,,,,,,at the same time i re-routed the piping away from the hot exhaust manifold (over the gearbox) to lower the inlet temps and on the same issue i made a homemade intercooler water spray system that sprayed screen wash onto the cooler. These small things made a big difference on the road as the power was noticeably increased! So at that time i estimated the small Mods had helped see 120bhp.
Not to long after i went for a new 2” high flow custom exhaust that had one straight through silencer, and a Decat. The first thing i noticed with this was the nice sound of the turbo spooling through it as well as in increased spool up time with what felt like a small top end power increase so i was well happy!
It wasn’t long however before the aggressive torque spike from low down started causing problems-
It broke two drive shafts, it broke and engine mounting leading to a damaged top end and a broken Cosworth injector, it started slipping the clutch, and it caused a a lot of traction problem in the wet where i even experienced wheel spin in 5th gear once while switching lanes to overtake!
Back to the handling and braking side off things i went for another suspension setup, that being the Spax PSX adjustable kit and some cross drilled and grooved GT turbo discs as the new found power was showing how week the brakes where from speed!
Although i was happy with the car i was overly curious as to why the setup wasnt putting out the power id planned, this is what i found from researching –
1. Adding the extra head gasket had lowered the c/r so far that the engine had become very inefficient lowering the engine power and meaning the need for alot more boost to make power back up.
2. The big find was that the turbo fitted to my car (Garrett GT15454) was off a different design the the T15 turbos fitted to Vaanaken high boost kits , and therefore was only designed to run at peak efficiency as low as 4-5psi, the low compression meant that running a bar off boost was necessary to bring power back up but at this level the turbo was over speeding and superheating the air going into the engine killing off power. So a combination off the turbo, the cylinder head and the twin head gasket setup was on the SPI fueling method simply wasn’t doing well and the very proof was in the figures and readings.
So.......back to the drawing board,
My first plan of attack for ease off fitment was to Hybrid my GT15 with a larger compressor wheel and housing to lower charge temps, flow more air and therefore gain maybe another 10-15bhp! But then I’d be stuck with the failing SPI setup which made the engine dangerous but this time with more power to do more damage if it all went wrong. So i made the big decision to build a trick fueling setup that would give multi point injection on boost and allow the O.E spi setup to run the engine under normal conditions, to do this i had to run the Punto 75 head and inlet which was a huge plus because the inlet is off a much better design for high speed flow and the head has larger valves and ports! I then planned to combine this MPI setup with a bigger turbo full stop!

So....the turbo
I have covered a cousre at turbotechniques on turbo tech and compresor maps so i was in a good position to choose the best possible turbo for my car!, i started out with a target hp figure which was around 145bhp which seemed a sensable figure which would see a cinquecento to the devils door. So scrapping the idea off Hybriding the tiny t15 in went in search off a turbo that would flow my required 15-20lb/min off air at a pressure ration off 2 at the best possible efficiency. I payed a visit to the mini turbo forum where they directed me to the Garrett GT1752 turbo which is fitted to the Saab 2.0 and 2.3 engines developing bwtween 150 and 250bhp, so at the factory 150bhp it was bang on target, i managed to get hold of a map which showed that using that turbo on my engine at 14.7 psi off boost i should be seeing the bright side of 150bhp! With the turbo running bang slap in the centre off the most efficient island on the map...yeeeees!
I had a Hybrid GT1752 made up using my GT15 bearing housing to maintain the plumbing and then a GT1752 turbine wheel,comp wheel etc etc to make up a full GT17. Now my old GT15 turbo had an area ration off 0.35 turbine side and 0.33 comp side so it was very small where as the new GT had a 0.47 turbine and a 0.53 comp making it miles bigger, the bonus with the GT1752 turbo is it is a very well designed efficiant turbo so it requires little gass flow to spool it up making it a low lag turbo for its size and the compressor wheel doesnt heat up the inlet air to much as apossed to the GT15 air heater i ran before!
To make it fit i had to build a new manifold, new down pipe flange, new oil return in the sump, new inducer pipe (intake nozzle pipe). I even had to grind a small amount off the cranckcase away!!. With the turbo in it was time for the next big step.......sorting out the C/R.
Because of the past Detanation issues and needing to switch to MPI i removed the GSR head in favour of the punto 75 head and manifold, but i later found out that the punto 75 engine (that i run) actualy started out in life with a 9.8:1c/r unlike the punto 60’s 9.5:1 so i needed to measure the combustion cambers, piston dish, head gasket and decomp plate to make sure i was going to get my required 8.5:1 c/r. After measuring i found that i needed a 1.5mm decomp plate so Mike at Ferriday Engineering got me one sent out the day after and i continued building up the engine.
I had origonaly planned on using the O.E punto 75 injectors with the MF2 for on boost fueling but for fear off not getting enough from them i popped a set off yellow Volvo 850 injectors capable off around 170bhp alone to deal with this, plus they where high impedance items reading 17ohms so its was safer to run these with the MF2.
Once it was all done off she went to Nobles for the day!
I was hoping and praying things where going to be ok with the new setup as its the first off its kind running the GT1752 and mpi/spi together.............
I got the phone call from Nobles..........
“hi jason your car is all done.....its done 157bhp @14psi!!”
I was gob smaked......IT WORKED!!!......and all that power!
When i picked the car up i studied the Graph to see 156.7bhp @6600rpm and 145.6lb/sf of torque @ 4600rpm! And later found they did a trial run at 18psi which delivered 167bhp and 160lb/sf of torque but the intercooler wasnt up to it with inlet temsp spiking and running the danger of blowing the plastic caps off!
The drive home at first was slow, i was scared!. But then i plucked up the courage coming onto the rotheram bypass to boot it in third from 2000k..............nothing mush happened until 3500k and then all hell let loose with the needle flying round the speedo and hitting 70mph in no time it was rapid!, change to fourth and back on the gass.............speedo flying round once again like i couldnt beleieve.
After having a chat with Nobles about the setup they said –
“There is another 20bhp to be made from this at 14psi!, the cooler is to small and restrictive and we notice the bad restriction on the thottle body plenum.....sort them out and come back and youll see 175 @ 15psi”
Nowing this made me feel better because guys on the mini forum had been getting 180bhp from 1300cc 8v engines on big cooler running htis turbo at 17psi. I found driving in the wet however slightly scary! Any boost in 1st 2nd or 3rd caused an instant rev limit visit and full boost in fourth would spin the wheel up nicely.
It wasnt long before i wanted to feel the extra power Nobles where talking about even though i new the stock internals where over there limit as it where, so the best step towards the hidden power was inlet temps, the GT cooler is naf but it fits nicely so i decided to go for water/methonal injection! I bought a second hand kit for 200 quid and piped it up running just water with the smallest water jet, instantly i could feel an increase in midrange torque! and the inlet temps shot down. The next few days i tried a larger water jet and forgot about it until the next day when i went to chase a Westfield kit car.........all the hairs on my arms stood up with the acceleration it was rapid!!!! instantly i was checking boost gauges...there had to be an over boost issue but no it was the work off the water injectoion..................to be continued

retyped this a few weeks ago seen as a lot has changed since then ......but its very long....im sad haha

jason