Advise on engine swap needed.

[rudycob1]

Hi Guys,
I have a Fiat 500 with a Fiat 126 650cc engine and I have been looking at this web site for some months.
I am currently restoring and rebuilding the car but would like more power.
I see that one of the routes to go is to fit a Fiat seicento or punto engine.
There is talk of fabricating a plate to fit the engine to the gearbox and a spigot bearing. Are these available to purchase from anybody?
Can anyone who has done this conversion be kind enough to give me advise on what is required and how to go about it. All your advise will be really appreciated.
I have uprated suspension, front disc brake conversion, bigger 126 rear drums already fitted.
I just need to consider either doing the engine swap or tuning the 650cc engine?
What about registration if I swap the engine? Do I simply inform DVLA and insurance or will the car need an SVA?
Look forward to all you comments and advise.

[Rusty's Uncle]

Hi Rudy & welcome, I might as well chip in first with my views. At the moment you have what sounds like a classic car restoration . If you start chopping it to take the larger engine with all the watercooling etc then it immediatly becomes a "project car". My own personal preference is to see what you can do with original type engine and if you have been studying the forum you will have seen what smallcox has done with his turbo 126 and there is a huge range of tuning parts available and it just depends upon the size of your wallet and how fast you want to go. I am not against "project cars" and have seen a few stunning ones when they are well planned & executed but for each one of those there are probably 20 failed or bodge jobs. Base price for a reasonable 500 seems to be about £5,000 then upwards from there depending upon what goodies it has. Project cars may be fun but seldom have a good resale value.
Have you driven the 500 with the 126 engine in as they can be quite nippy and nippy can turn to scarey when you start adding a few GGs 

[Da Londo]

Hi Rudy & welcome, I might as well chip in first with my views. At the moment you have what sounds like a classic car restoration . If you start chopping it to take the larger engine with all the watercooling etc then it immediatly becomes a "project car". My own personal preference is to see what you can do with original type engine and if you have been studying the forum you will have seen what smallcox has done with his turbo 126 and there is a huge range of tuning parts available and it just depends upon the size of your wallet and how fast you want to go. I am not against "project cars" and have seen a few stunning ones when they are well planned & executed but for each one of those there are probably 20 failed or bodge jobs. Base price for a reasonable 500 seems to be about £5,000 then upwards from there depending upon what goodies it has. Project cars may be fun but seldom have a good resale value.
Have you driven the 500 with the 126 engine in as they can be quite nippy and nippy can turn to scarey when you start adding a few GGs 

+1

[fly]

There's somebody selling a 126 with all the gear to do the conversion on ebay at the moment; offer them something for the kit without the car.

[hudsonhenry]

I have first hand experience of doing what you want to do, I am currently working on my second punto engined 500. The first had an 1108 in a fairly standard state of tune running on a single carb, the latest has a 1284cc engine running twin 40's on a custom manifold and a custom 4into1 exhaust.

My advice would be, think very carefully before you start down this road. Your 500 will be worth the most if you come to sell it either as a standard looking 650 or an abarth replica, you can get good power from a 650/700/800cc air cooled but 50bhp on a road engine will be about the practical max with some of the race engines in Italy putting out over 70 bhp.

The Smallcox turbo route is well worth considering as its easy to return to standard if you want to maximise resale value. He is getting great power figures, much more than a standard punto single cam engine but the pay off may be reliability and engine life.

If you do decide to go for it and want to avoid having to take a BIVA and ending up with a q plate, then you need to avoid cutting the monocoque and work within the DVLA points system. On the first car we put the radiator where the spare wheel and battery normally live and cut big holes in the front panel and inner panel for air flow. On the latest car we are mounting the custom made radiator in front of the front panel covered by a 600 abarth style fibreglass cowling.

With the new car we want to be able to remove the cowling, radiator and engine and slot in an air cooled within a day to allow us to use the car as an abarth replica in long distance rally's or if we decide to sell. An engine swap car will always be more difficult to sell and worth less than an Abarth tuned air cooled.

If you want to do a conversion properly, be prepared to spend a lot of time and a lot of money and most importantly, be sure that you can see it through before you start.

Have a look at my website www.retro500.com for some inspiration and if you decide to proceed then I will give you as much help as I can.

Nigel

[rudycob1]

Thanks for all your views so far.
I have driven it with a 600cc engine in it.
I have a 650cc engine and a lot of tuning parts which I have already purchased. 40/80 80/40 camshaft, panda head - skimmed, ported with bigger valves and double springs etc, monza sport exhaust, adjustable push rods, weber 40 DCOE with inlet manifold, Abarth: rocker cover,4Ltr sump and fan shroud cover, full gasket set, latest 123 electronic ignition, electric fuel pump.
So as you can see I have a lot of what I need to tune the 650 engine.

I take on board that this has now become a Project Car so I want to have a little gem. All the bodywork is already being modified with wider arches, 13" Image split rims 13 x 7 with 195x45x13 tyres. The car has been lowered all round and now sits at 160mm. Suspension mounting points have been modified and all the work carried out so that the tyres do not rub anywhere.
Currently even fabricating independent double wish bone fully adjustable rose jointed front suspension.

However the question still is will this be better than a seicento engine swap and maybe even tune the Seicento engine.
Within reason cost is not an issue as long as it is done right and performance matches the look of the car. It is being built more as a show car  but with performance to match and road legal. I do however want to keep the Fiat theme, hence no bike engines.
Please let me have more of your thoughts and suggestions and let us see what we end up with. Thanks to all again.

[rudycob1]

Hi Nigel,
Thanks for your reply.
I am glad you have responded on here as I have been looking on your website for quite some time and must admit that that is were I got the inspiration to consider going down that route.
I would appreciate as much help from you as possible.
Can you tell me in your opinion what performance comparison and drivability I can expect from tuning the 650 against the seicento swap.
Can you give me a list of parts that I will need, where I can get them from and idea of costs.
With regards to cooling, I have managed to fit a modified new 500 front bumper/spoiler to the car already (photo of car image after playing around on photoshop) and as you can see I have quite a large open gap for a grill. I could quite easily fit a radiator (after some modifications) behind there and into the spare wheel well.
I see that you have a steering rack conversion on yours, any advise on this will also be appreciated.
I do not want to touch the engine bay bulkhead for the reasons that you mentioned.
What is your car like on insurance and how did you go about with DVLA?

My email is [email protected] if you would like to send me some pics, spec, etc.
Again I really would appreciate your help. Thanks.

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[Rusty's Uncle]

Hi Rudy , a serious player & the picture is much clearer now and I think we can see the way you are going to go so can only wish you the best of luck with the project.
Now if you get fed up tripping over those silly old air cooled engine parts you are welcome to gift wrap them and drop them down my chimney on 25th December 

[1973/126]

 I`m liking the idea of having a bigger engine in the back with no structural mods to de car where it could be easily reverted back to it`s original state.
 The only thing I don`t get is the point to mount a much more powerful engine to a standard gearbox. They seem to be suffering even with the standard engine. You`ve got all the power, but you can`t really pull away any faster, and with 7" wheels and 195 tyres surely the standard couplings wouldn`t last too long.
 I remember "smallcox" had to re-do his gearbox to 5 speed as his tuned engine was just revving too high with the standard box in forth, so he couldn`t really get the top end speeds the car was capable to do. This might be completely different with punto engine, as it`s got much more torque, but I guess hudson is the man to answer this.

 Rusty you`ve already gott that silly 800cc Alquati engine, so don`t be greedy

[1973/126]

 Here is one with a tuned Skoda Favorit engine and Rapid gearbox.
 It`s in Slovakian, but you can use google translate.
 They are claming the car is capable to do over 100mp/h in 3 gear
 http://www.126fan.sk/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1992

[rudycob1]

I must admit the gearbox capability has crossed my mind but like you said we can only be guided by the people who have far more experience on this. What other options are there?
Looking forward to more info on this conversion. I am liking the idea of fitting the 1200 Punto engine but what about the Abarth Punto engine? Will that fit?
What about drive shafts and couplings, can these be strengthened in any way? With the sort of power output with this conversion there is bound to be some serious wheel spin on hard acceleration?

[hudsonhenry]

Umm gearboxes....

The 1108 had between 60-70 bhp and I had no problems with the gearbox. It did however have skinny tyres that would spin up easily and it did eat the rubber joints (1500 miles max). The power pulse on a 360 degree twin is quite severe and on a four cylinder much smoother and therefore much less harsh on the box. It is very important to use a sprung clutch as opposed to the 500's solid one as this cushions some of the forces. The new car is using CV joints and is much more powerful but built with high revs rather than lots of low down torque. I'm going to see what breaks first then look at how to improve it. The tyres will be much bigger 165 70 R10's and much more grippy

I use a 4 speed 500R crash box with a bis diff, as I understand it the syncro gears were narrowed slightly to allow room for the syncromesh (can anybody confirm/) so the 500 R box is the latest of the crash boxes. It takes a little more skill to drive but its great when you get used to it. I have always been careful pulling away, no drag racing starts, just feeding the power in once the car is rolling. I have been reading about "frozen Solid" who cryogenicaly freeze components to give them extra strength so when the box needs a rebuild I will probably get stronger components from Bacchi in Italy and freeze them prior to build.

The speed is limited by the bis diff, tyre size and revs, and the 1108 would easily exceed 100mph but much beyond 100 you do feel very venerable. It would however cruse all day at 80mph, I did a couple of rapid trips across Europe in times that an aircooled would never achieve.

There are other transaxle options but most will require quite a lot of modifications to fit, of the top of my head... Skoda, Mk1 Renault 5 Gordini and Gordini turbo, early Audi 80, VW, Subaru 4wd converted to 2wd, Imp? Porsche 356, Hewland... any others?

Hope that helps...

[rudycob1]

Hi Hudson,
Great to know your view on the gearbox.
I came across this http://motomax.pl/www-1/index.html they sell uprated drive shaft conversion to tripod joints. This sounds interesting and I think I will go this way. Will the 600cc or the 650cc box be good? Any chance of helping me with the parts list and costs? Can you supply these bits? which engine should I look for? what clutch assembly do you recommend? What about ignition and fuel system? will I need all the ECU and mapping or can I go with webers? Sorry for asking so many questions but looks like I'm hooked on this idea and would like to start shopping for the bits that I need. Thanks.

[smallcox]

Hi RC1,

I quess I should throw a couple off comments in as my ears are now burning (thanks Huds and Rust). Yes I agree a mind field.
 I see from the picture the car looks well presented so you know your stuff. I am a bit biased here as most of the cars I own have had small engines as I beleive in lightness gives better handling response, so fitting a bigger engine to the overhang of a already back heavy car, would I believe take the fun away from hard cornering safely.
If the car is a fun car and not going to be used everyday then I would surggest a Masda rotory engine. These engines appear very compact and high revvvving with good bhp and low tourqe figures that would fit into a 126 engine bay with very little mods needed, (I have not tryed personally however). Not a lover of bike engines but if done well they are light and powerful. I run a tubo on mine with 82 lb of torque and 80 bhp at the wheels and covered many miles. It was used every day and covered 40,000 miles with no real problems . Stronger internal are required and can make this expensive. The engine is smooth and quiete due to the turbo in the exhaust system. The gearbox has never broken on me and I run a bis gearbox with a 5th gear installed for better gruising, You do need to respect the box however.

[Eklipze3k]

In terms of overall size, I understand that the 1368cc 16v unit from the Panda 100hp (and others - Punto Mk2b Sporting, Stilo, Grande Punto) isn't much larger or heavier than the 1108cc/1242cc FIRE units - a lot of the Cento guys have started using these in favour of turboing the FIRE units as the overall amount of work required is much less for good power/torque returns, might be worth having a look at - Nigel, did you ever consider this unit for a conversion?