My 16VT Coupe Track day car

I had a converted 16VT Punto GT which blew up in Le Mans, so I had enough and decided to get a Coupe track day car. Bought it as a standard Coupe with a blown engine for £300.

Its had:-

-Full strip including sound deadening
-Battery moved to boot
-All new D2 coilovers
-Camber adjustment bolts
-All new wishbones, ARB bushes, drop links, CV boots
-New engine
-FMIC from Punto
-boost piping from Punto
-New rear caliper carrier
-OZ Superleggeras from Punto
-Apexi AVCR
-Widget
-Cobra Monacos x 2
-Sparco Harnesses


Only got the one pic atm, needs a couple of bits doing then have a track day booked on 3rd October.

Actually I have a couple of pics to add....

My old Punto GT



The new Coupe in progress...

Looks good mate keep the updates coming

Nice project!
Will you install a roll cage?

Not yet, but possibly in the future.

Tom

What are you doing with the punto GT then?

It was a tidy car... Shame the engine let go..

Ive broken it to pay for the Coupe. Was a shame but was time to move on, I had that GT for 6 years or so.

Small update -

I have been running a Fiat Coupe 16VT track day car for a while now, find the thread for that here http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=1046928

I had a chance to get hold of a lot nicer shell for 300, so the reshell was on!

Bought unseen it turned up with a well known 16VT issue, a knackered exhaust cam.

Luckily, I have a 16VT track day car which had a decent 250bhp engine in it already, so it was decided the shell swap was due!

I drove my old Coupe into my friends workshop at 10am in the morning and drove the new reshelled Coupe home at about 9pm. I think that may be a record. The only hold up was replacing the speed sensor which dropped inside the diff casing.

We swapped all suspension, subframe, engine, rad, gear linkage, fuel pump ECU and exhaust.

The only bits we didnt change were brake calipers and rear ARB, but they can be done at any time. And as money is earnt a rollcage and decent buckets will follow.

Anyway, here are some pics after a clean, consider a decent 16VT saved and a bad one off to the scrappers!

Old Coupe







Reshelled











Some swap pics

The car is almost complete, finally. Ive got a track day on Feb 22 and the only small jobs to do before then are fit the Carbon Lorraine pads and fit the rollcage that is somewhere between Italy and the UK, and give the inside a spray.

Quite a lot has happened since the last update, Ive got new Sparco buckets in, completely stripped the interior, fitted new drilled and grooved discs, braided lines, new air filter, new undertray, new coolant hoses, repaired a problem with the electrics, fitted a shortshift kit, oil catch tank, rear ARB fitted, amongst many other things that I cant remember.

Ive also juts done the tracking and set -2 degrees of camber ready for the track day.

Ive only got a couple of pictures, Ill get some more the next time I get the car out of hibernation.

Nice work Tom. Where did you get the rear spoiler please?

Also did you have to buy a fitting kit for the seats then fit coupe sliders also?

Looking forward to more pics.

Spoiler is a universal carbon fibre one from eBay.

With the seats, they came with new side mounts and unused the OMP fitting kits. They are solid mounted and don't move at all.

A couple of pictures from a track day at Bedford last weekend, Snetterton on the 23rd.







Rollcage will be finished this week so Ill stick some pictures up when its in.

Stunning!

That spoiler looks the business. I really like it on the car!

Looks amazing , perfect track pictures aswell

That looks awesome! Nice work!

Here are a couple of pics from the track day at Snetterton on Sunday, car performed well!

Great, action photos

Nice work!!

Any pics of the roll cage?

Not at the moment as the car is tucked away in my garage. Ill probably get it out this weekend so Ill take some.

As promised here are some pics of the rollcage. Ive got to finish up a couple of areas but just havent had time so far. Youll see the cage is bolted and welded, this is due to the way the plates sit it is impossible to get a good fit with it only being bolted in.

Another thing to mention is the lack of cutting I needed to do. Only a very small strip on the back of the doorcard and a very small trim in the dash. Makes me wonder how some others have fitted theirs so badly!

A nice neat install there.

Is this an off the shelf OMP coupe cage or has it been modified?

I only ask as the rear setup looks different to other coupe OMP cages I have seen, in that they all only have one diagonal cross bar which goes to the rear left wheel arch position.
Unlike yours that has two, one diagonal and one straight across with the belts attached to it.

It is an OMP cage, we just welded in another bar for the harnesses. I didnt want to fit the cage without having proper mounting for the harnesses. Im glad I did it now, as it would be impossible to do fitted! Im not that sure why OMP didnt supply them like this to be honest.

Update time, I got some track time at Brands on 21st August and blew up the turbo! Luckily I only live down the road so wasnt a hassle getting a trailer to pick it up. I managed 40+ laps and I think my fastest time was 59 seconds. It was the best track day Ive done so far, the car was working beautifully and hardly anything overtook, I felt like I was in a really capable track car.

So, new turbo is being built at the moment,19 row Mocal cooler is en route as is all the associated pipework. Ive also got Powerflex front bushes and a race gearbox mount from Vibratech to fit.

Here are a couple of pictures...














Broken, always seem to be pro photographers about when that happens!

Did you do that on the full GP circuit? Looks like it from the pics
I found the Indy circuit too short to stretch the coops legs

No just the Indy circuit, topping out at 115mph ish heading into Paddock.

Ah shame its not the full circuit. A coupe needs a bit bigger tarmac stretch really.

What tires are you using?

Toyo R888 215/45/17 on Team Dynamics Pro Race 1.2s.

Latest update is that the engine was pretty knackered after Brands so I'm doing a full rebuild at the moment.

What exactly happened to the engine? Oil starvation ?

Not sure yet, need to take the old engine out and have a look. I'm betting on starvation or oil too hot.