Great news! So I will see you in Spa to offer you our beer for the famous hose clip?

Great to hear Begbie

I highly doubt Spa will be on the cards, even though the valves have been saved, it's still a reasonable size chunk of money of money going out to get this done.

I think thats the time to convert the engine to propper 1" belt...

who still believe, that 3/4" for 16V 4cyl. engine is enough is probably crazy... It was the most stupid thing what italian engineers did (the should probably do it to have less reliable engine than rest of the world )

it cost me 3 engine rebuilds (16V highly modified NA)... unless I converted my engines (one in tipo and one in coupe) to 1" belt and from that moment I don´t have any problems.
One damage occured at high rpm, one at tickover and one around 3000 during normal ride. In all cases belt were max 2 years old and clean..)

If you look to another 4cyl engines around 2liter with simmilar valve train design what you see? at least 1" belt... later with Twin spark and derived engines (like 20V) engineers have found it and used 1" belt...

here is small brochure about timing belts:
http://aam-europe.contitech.de/pages/downloads/docs/Riemen_Komponenten_en.pdf

http://aam-europe.contitech.de/pages/downloads/docs/Produkte-Riemenwechsel-ZR_en.pdf

http://aam-europe.contitech.de/pages/antriebsriemen/fehlerbilder_zahnriemen_en.html

Well if this is to be believed then you are doing your part to maintain the 16VT for future generations.

https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicle/fiat_coupe_16v_turbo

Quite the drop off from 550ish in 2007 to less than 200 now. Less than 10% of the number of 20VT's still around. Surely they will appreciate at some point in the future......

Damnit, even fewer NAs than turbos now: 175 total vs 185. But a couple more on the road.

Techincally, mine is still a 16v N/A on the log book though

As I didn't add to it a couple of days ago, I'll be going up to fit the head tomorrow / Saturday, so lots of fingers crossed that no other issues decide to crop up!

it will be fine as i'll be doing most of the work

Making tea and sorting my foglight out

I'm just on the phone to him now about what to bring.

you only need to bring bread , bacon and tomato sauce

Hello, good to hear you have some luck with the cambelt problem! Hopefully your coupe is ready soon and no further issue!

I have a 25mm cambelt kit. And could use 22 to 25mm belt with the correct campullies installed. This kit works really well! Its around 200 pound for the belt and crankpully so not so expensive for a peace off mind and a small investment compared to the rest of engine tuning. This is where i bought it from: http://projoe.nl/product/22mm-camshaft-timing-belt-kit/

He is like GC from holland and developed this kit himself! To this day never seen this cambelt set up fail. Seen to many broken cambelts even on mildly tuned or standard engines so this was one of the first things i have done to the Coupe. But still paranoia makes me replace the belt every 2 years and the bearings every 4 years.

Hope it goes back together ok Begbie.

Ooh just seen these on that dutch chaps website. Love the carbon wheel covers!
http://projoe.nl/product/carbon-wheel-covers-brake-coolers/

Only just come across this thread - good luck Alexis, sorry to hear about your woes.

Well, how difficult is it to fit a water pump? Very if you get a none OE one. One from Eurocarparts (first line) fitted fine to the engine, but as soon as you put the pipe on that goes behind the engine, it doesn't fit, so another was bought from Alt Auto's (SKF), again, same issue was had. A quick call to Joe @ FCSS and once he'd finished laughing, he said all aftermarket water pumps cause issues, so it's a case of having to grind the bracket on the back of the engine block and drilling out the water pump bolts. This was all done, cambelt timed up with the cams, turn the engine over to get some oil into the head, then it's time to start the car and she lives, albeit with a small fuel leak, but that will be sorted next time I'm up there.

Big thanks to Marco @ Torque Automotive for all of his help, patience and the occasional sexual innuendo.

Well done Alexis and Marco, it's great to know she lives again

Woop woop
Glad to hear

The coupe lives and is now back home with me without any incident especially after being stuck in M25 traffic over an hour.

Had an interesting tussle with a Zafria VXR, well wasn't much of a tussle

Good news
Great to have it back on the road, we 16vt guys are becoming a rare breed..
So if i finally can get my finger out....

Well done begbie

Well done. So can you get a water pump that fits properly?

Yes you can with a bit of modification.


That's good news alexis , time to book a track day mate ?

As Nismo says, the pattern parts can fit, but with it's headaches (especially when trying to get the rear belt cover on) but for hassle free it has to be OE, but trying to find one might be slightly more troublesome.

No track day as of yet though.

Good stuff Alexis, glad its back on the road.

Good to hear you're back up and sprinting

Nice one mate. Top marks for keeping the beast going!

How is it running? Also keen to hear if you went with a 1" belt conversion? I am considering it but don't want to lose my balance shafts....