NA 20v... How can i get mor power? i have done....

Forgot about the viscodrive... and yes, with that amount of power the viscodrive would make a difference....
Ofcourse the low down power would suffer with those cams, but would the lack of low down power be as big as with the 20VT?

Anyways, that's all off topic.
I agree... if you really want more power go for a 20VT.
I'm sure there are some great examples of mint coops for sale.

The 20V is already a pretty rapid motor compared to what else is out there on the roads. I'd personally save the money that is intended for ECU and cams upgrades - speaking as someone who once owned a tuned NA engined car, the lengths you need to go to extract noticeable extra power are huge.

That's not advocating the purchase of a 20V Turbo either. The cheapest solution here is to ignore the idea of having a "faster" car and to enjoy the excellent performance (and now noise) that this 20V makes.

Still, who am I to comment with over 300bhp... (disclaimer: I didn't pay for it)

Using hot cams on a twin cam engine doesn't always lose bottom end power/torque infact it can improve it all the way up the revs.

If your looking for more power then you could go for the cams and maybe use some throttle bodies, you'd have to get it all mapped but it should give good improvements.

Cams, separate throttle bodies, higher compression and a tubular manifold should make it a bit more powerful. (Not sure on tha manifold, as it's a 5 cyl engine. Reckon someone else know more about that. 4-2-1 doesn't really work in this case..)
As everyone already said, tuning a N/A engine is always more expensive than tuning a supercharged/turbocharged dito. But that doesn't mean that it's impossible or that it should not be done. You'll love the sound of the throttle bodies if you decide to go down that road.

Ok...

thankyou all for your posts.. i havent made mysef clear...sorry

First off i have a bravo hgt not a coupe (sorry ) which i love, i am on here because the bravo forum arent really a great help on this subject, you lot know more about power increases as you all do them, where as 20v engines arent as popular on the bravo forum

I can not insure a 20vt so unfortuneatly that is out of the question.

i have spent too much on my hgt to walk away, its had resprays and retrims etc etc so i have wasted too much money making my own to sell.

i love the looks and basically the whole car. (although i would love to have all that money back and spend it on a 20vt coupe)

ANYWAY...


i have the 20v, and i was just wondering what i can do and if anyone knows who to talk to about getting more power from her?

i have looked at a 20vt conversion, but i just can not insure it.

does anyone know if 2.4 valves fit? and if they would gain power?

anyone had head work done? if so where from, as i dont know of any 20v tuning specialists?

I know 1.5k is alot but if a turbo wasnt on option would you consider it?

thank you all for you coments i enjoyed reading them all, hopefully there are more to come.

sorry its not a coupe but its the same engine

Paul R
P.S.Hi B

Also where can i get manifolds etc, i can not find them anywhere

looked at throttle bodies but they are at least another 1k.

.....................

i have to get my cambelt changed so i am looking at changing the head over (hi rog. if you are about ) , i have 2 spare at home including a full spare engine so parts are easy enough.

Is there a tuner that tunes the 182 20v lump?

Thanks again

Paul R

charlie c had some head work done on his 20v.

have you had a spoerts exhaust fitted yet?

any pics of the car?

Have you thought about uprating the brakes/handling characteristics of the car morre, as sometimes the way to go faster is to make it stop better!

hi paul,

i have 2 non tuebo heads.

you will benefit from headwork, along with the cams and unichip mapping id estimate a 20-30bhp increase.

nobody has done headwork on the 20v to my knowledge, so there are no definate power figures available.

the problem is the cost, with the labour it isnt cheap, although you will save on the cambelt change labour if the head has to come off.

fitting the cams alone is easy, an extra hour on top of the cambelt change.

Paul i would honestly say your better off putting the money to one side and moving over to a 20vt turbo for your power as the cost to get good power gains from an NA engine isnt cheap as rog and others have said its labour cost mainly.

The money spent on mods for your NA could help pay off the insurance and extra bit you would have to pay for a turbo after selling your NA...

Not being funny KP but the guy has said he can't afford insurance on a turbo about 5 times

more to the point he has spent a sh1t load on his bravo customising it to his tastes, so has obviously got a love for it like we have on our own coupes.

good luck to him if he wants to spend a couple of grand on tuning it, we all do it.

yeah i dont mean to be but the insurance compared to the price of the mods and then the hike in insurance for a grp 19 cant be that much mroe if shopped around??

Lol -
* Kingpleb's question time. Your questions answered by the man you can trust *

Q. Hello KP my name's Sadie and my boyfriend is upset that I don't "do it". We have been seeing each other now for 3 months and I do feel I love him, however I am a virgin and don't want to rush into things. But I don't want to lose him. What do you advise?

A. Hello Sadie, I would suggest going down the Turbocharging route if possible, with money saved not performing intercourse with boys being saved to ultimately buy a turbo. Hope this helps. KP.


More next week: KP helps save a gay marriage, via turbo.

hey it worked for you Pinin so whats up lol

***see the light people, See that turbos are the way***

PMPL

to time cams properly then the head needs to be off, even the cam marks are not 100%. Anyway if you can do some work yourself then this will help. Your question about 2.4 valves indicates that maybe some back ground reading on engine tuning theory is required as there is no room for error in the NA tuning game, therefore know what you want to do and how you want it done to start with. There are a great deal of BS companies out there who will take your money and give you a hash job.

You will get no real gain unless you spend 4k minimum, even that is a small sum. Real decent engine builders charge a lot of money for their work, and you most definitely pay for what you get. Good components are expensive too and many custom bits take a lot of time to design and source, those you make it out to be simple have never done it. Another major point is you have no chance with the std ecu forget it, even a unichip will be a comprimise if you spend significant money on the unit then why ruin it with the mangement.

Some type of throttle body arrangement would be bast but the diffculties lie in the 5 cylinders and that individual bodies dont really exist. So unless you get some made, or et 2 pairs and a single this may not happen. Also joining the throttle spindles will be an issue, then the fuel rail or equiv would need to be sorted. Unless they join to the head dirrectly using the oe bolt position, you will need a manifold, or somehow modify the existing one with a flange to mount the bodies on. There is a huge range of throttle bodies, you need to choose some with the correct butterfly diameter prob 40mm, and the short enough length to clear the bulk head. Complicated, perhaps would need a few weeks to sort just that out.

The head, from what I have seen the 20v head has a steep downdraught angle inot the chambers so probably is pretty good out of the box, to improve on would need some development, and testing. Now a number of people have had head work done on the turbo engine but none of it(correct me I im wrong) has been tested to see the actual effect on head flow. So in your head some changes may adversly effect flow and the net gains may be less then the sum of the changes expected. WHat am I saying here - head work is not a formula, and if someone has no development history then the results can be dissapointing. Either way such work should include

Full clean and decarbonise.
Removal of valve guides (this is the only way to get really tidy head work)
Clean up of casting marks.
Blend of port throat into the valve seat.
Blue print of valve seat,
throat cut and chamber cut to bring seat width into spec and aid low-medium lift flow.
Valve reface and back grind for the same reasons.
New guides (why use old ones at this stage)
Head sould be refaced.
Now in te NA the choice has to be made about the rpm the power band will sit, often spinning the engine faster can permit the use of lumpier - longer duration cams allowing a higher power out (gross simplification) the longer duration cams will have been developed to work at a certain rpm and much of their effectiveness rely on port velocity to increase the cylinder filling. But there is a significant financial cost, high rpms are in general bad, and bad for road cars. The increase in wear versus increase in engine speeed is not linear. A high rpm engine will need a rebuild far sooner then its std counterpart. Also in the search for power the low speed tractibilty of the engine will be sacrificed and in road car this is where it spends most of its life. Along with this the components have to match the desired rpm, e.g cam springs - std cam springs should not be used with uprated cams, no arguments, even race springs are not expensive and they will stop the low tension area when resonance sets in. Also pitons and rods will not accept high rpms, and even forged pistons need to be chosen correctly, as the rings they fitted with if too heavy will flutter and break the piston seal at an rpm that can very realistically be in you expected power range this will ruin the effective CR, and torque will rapidly drop off.

Ok, as you may see this is a serious line of work you may be going down. I suggest a few options to you

1. Do nothing (often over looked but in a few years you will be able to afford insurance on a better car, and you may well be bored of your bravo)
2. Try the small mods and maybe a cam, this will costs ome money and no doubt will be dissapointing as there will be numerous comprimises along the way. (if you increase cam lift and do not check piston to valve clearance then you will NEVER know if the piston will colide with the valve destroying the engine).
3. You go all out, plan modifications, reasearch ways to adapt current items for this engine, and generally start becoming your own engineer. Build/have built a high spec unit, design/make the ancillaries, buy a suitible engine management. This is more money then you will guess, and I cant see anypoint unless your car is for racing.

4. The only other thing I suggest is the 2.4 enigine std as a swap.

Hope that helps in some way, if not PM me, no way am I re-reading this post, too lazy sorry,

rich

First off thank you all for all your help.....

right.....

@JOEL........, hi, yes i do have a performance exhaust but ? over what performance i get, as its only a powerflow so dont hold out for much...just gives such an amazing sound (as we all know, 5cylinders)
i have a few pics, but they are very poor and the car looks better now...i will try and post some tomo if interested although snow is expected.
would be nice to hear from charlie c if he is about?

@WILL... hi, i have a full FK coilover suspension kit fitted with adjustable height. i also have brembos in the garage but have issues with clearance at the mo.

@ROG 20 VT...Hi, i left a message on your answer phone but never left my number unfortuntatly... when do you next open for business..dont want to be rude and contact you in your holiday brake. As i definatly need a cambelt asap...

@KING PLEB...i would love a 20vt but its just not posible for me at the moment, at the moment i can not even get a quote ...thats before they tell me how much. In an ideal world i would have the hgt and a 20vt but i just can not do this (at least not yet) for now the bravo stays as its insurance group 14 and being 20, with limited income it really my limit + i would have to pay for insurance the following year etc etc... i can only start to do these mods to my car now as my insurance is starting to come down. unfortuneatly its one step at a time. +have you every asked for insurance on a 20vt bravo...try explaining this to insurance compains, that alone isnt worth the head ache!lol...COMPUTER SAYS NO

@Pinn... think you are saying go with the turbo but unfortuneatly not possible...(see above)

@sediciRich ... Thankyou for your time on that write up, its greatly appreciated, you have echoed words of a bloke on the bravo forum that seems to know his stuff aswell s thankyou for enforcing this further, my comment about the 2.4 valves was purly an idea of the top of the head but yes my knowlegde is limited....the princples are all there in my head but in practise my ideas dont always work. To be honest i think i will fit the cams and a dastek and be happy with what ever i get, as i have heard before that the head aint bad so if it aint broke...

i was hopeing someone else had been crazy enough to though money down the drain on a 20v but alas no....

still 180+bhp in a hatch shouldnt be too bad i suppose?

Paul R

Owning a 20V NA, following this thread has been fascinating, and shows the real power of this forum. I asked a similar question on another thread, and got some great advice from Barnacle.

So, not contributing anything I know, but just wanted to say thanks.

where is Barnacle now hey

@Che..have you done anything to your 20v engine? or you just going to get a 20vt?

anyway just to stress thank you all for your help...



Paul R

Paul,

Am just starting to look at what to do, but having followed this and other threads, I suspect more is to be gained by looking at the handling than just pure power.

So, upgraded filter to a K&N with some minor air intake mod's (my father in law is an engineer, so we are trying a couple of things, I'll let you know), dropping in a strut brace, and will be getting the tracking/balancing/Tyres etc looked at. Although nothing revelatory or likely to have a radical impact, I suspect that for the kind of driving I do, these very minor bit's and pieces will be enough to keep me busy. Once this stuff is done, I'll see what's next.

No problems matey i didnt realise you had a bravo. if so i still think it would be prudent to hold the money back

Being there and done it with previous cars i have hindsight and the use of only a few years wisdom i know what i would do

but each onto their own and i reckon you could do good by this route of action laid out

Turbo charged cars are rubbish, you should get the scrapheap challenge guys to build you a ramjet out of a drainpipe, i reckon it would be worth at least 20hp on the dynos...

I think a drainpipe mod would not cost to much on the insurance!

No Akeme, the drain pipe would be too heavy and affect the power to weight ratio too much.

What you really need is http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Rolls-Royce-Avon-1...1QQcmdZViewItem

It might take a bit of fettling, wasn't there a how too guide on the old site?

well...thinking about a 20vt now... just trying to work out budgets atm its early days but who knows...still trying to work out how to part with the hgt

anyway early days... i wouldnt be driving it untill september (i turn 21) but looking now so i am clued up if i dicide to take this route..

untill i have made a dicission (its killing me) cams are on hold...there is one on here for £2k for that price i can not justify the cams and dastek.

i dont know what price is good for a 20vt and what is bad.....yet.

Paul R

I know Ross (H2pyer on this forum) is insured at 21 on a 20VT with mods. He may put you in the direction of a young driver friendly performance car specialist insurer.

Here's what I'd do with hindsight: enjoy your Bravo for another year, get another no claims under your belt, then go for a 20VT.

Get off the guys case - that's not just directed at pinin, its directed at all of you. Poor chap comes on here looking for advice and just gets told he's a plonker and should build a 20vt instead. Has this new forum turned into the Evo Forum where anyone who even dares spell "integrale" wrong finds him/herself the subject of a lynch mob?

If we all wanted to do the same, it would be a boring world and we'd all get dumbed down to driving identical Skoda (not very) Rapids or Trabants

Not everyone likes the characteristics of a turbo engine. As far as racing goes, I race a 20vt purely as a matter of economics - to get 400bhp from the Alfa based V6 I was running last year gets into SERIOUS money and SERIOUS reliability problems. But the V6 would sound nicer and be a better track drive

If the chap wants to tune a 20v n/a, then let him go about his business in peace. If you can help him with proper advice, do so. If you can't - its the season of goodwill, show some!

Pfft 400hp from an alfa v6, your rubbish!

I got 450 from my gtv in gt4!

I bought my '98 R 20vt for 3995 in september, 44k and fsh (some fiat some specialist) seems now is the winter of alot of performance car drivers discontent, you can pick up some amazing bargains atm, a 94 M3 with just under 100k miles can be picked up for around 5k, HGT's are good cars, maybe it would be better if you spent your money on handling mods for it rather than go for small bhp increases?

I was not trying be a c*ck, just from the first post i assumed you had a 20v coupe

Try this guy Paul, a bit far away but he knows his stuff, he's on;y a machinist though, but if your removing the head to fit new valves and such then you could send it him, his turn around is very quick.

http://www.daverushton.co.uk/contact.htm

hello guys,

"Nothing beats cubic inches" on NA-Engine

i would fit a 2,4l kappa/stilo engine it has stock 175 HP good and good torque (221Nm)at 3500 revs. If this is not enough and if money doesnt matter i would add..

-C&B Camshaft, (more Lift)
-bigger valves,
-head work,
-bigger injectors
-free exhaust
-ecu software

..you can gain up to 50hp or bit more, so you should have arround 200hp on an NA engine ,its not bad.

I would buy directly the turbocharged model the 20VT or 16VT before spending much money into the na engine without getting big power gains.

if you need help with the ecu you can contact me i've already programmed some hgt and coupe 20V.

best regards

Salvatore

good link house, I like the way they are machinists and dont do the rebuild(this is good and will mean they are dedicated to their specific blueprint operations), they have all the tools, very few have a sunnen rod bore gauge exactly the same as the one in rick voeglins book. Line boring too, and re grinding. Good link.

rich

I have a Stilo Abarth 2.4 20v N/A as well as a 2.4 20VT (converted using a 20VT 2.0 block) so know a bit about the various bits
here are some ideas for you to tune a 20v N/A....

You could look at whether the standard Stilo Abarth cams are better than 20V N/A. They are a straight swap, but I don't know what the difference in profiles is, so if someone has 2.0 N/A cams hanging about I could probably get them measured and compared...

The Stilo Abarth C&B cams are much more agressive than the coupe 20v N/As C&B cams and so are also an option. The cam profile for the Stilo Abarth C&B cams is the same as that used on the Punto HGT /Bravo HLX/Barchetta etc(only of course 4 pistons instead of 5 - otherwise the head etc is the same). The Punto doesn't have as long stroke as the Stilo (82 vs 90.4mm) so it is likely these cams would work well in the 20v N/A which has a stroke of 75.65mm but would make it more peaky than the 20v N/A C&B cams.

The Stilo Abarth head has larger diameter valves (in+ex) and valveseats, it also has some improvements in the port design over the 20v and 20VT heads. If you could get hold of one (not that easy!) then it would probably provide almost as much benefit as porting a 20v head.

The Stilo Abarth gets the power low down mainly because of the VIS intake I believe. If you do not have a VIS 20v N/A (post 98?) then even if you did a 2.4 powerplant swap you would not get the same torque characteristics unfortunately. It also would be VERY tight under the bonnet, probably it wouldn't fit without lifting the bonnet a bit (otherwise Fiat would've brought the coupe out as a 2.4 as the engine was available from 1998). The 2.4 engine is taller and cannot be mounted more than a couple of mm lower. It is also prohibitively expensive to swap so I would rule that out.

If you have aircon you could possibly mount a supercharger in place of the aircon pump - something like a Rotrox unit. It would have to be quite mild supercharging due to the compression ratio though. Probably not a good idea on a high miler either.

Anyway, if you want any Stilo Abarth bits measuring like the throttle body etc I can do that for you (might take a while before I have time though)

paul - on a side note, i have a lightened and blaanced flywheel on the shelf for a NA 20v.

no definelty not, I can see how that may look sarcastic. What I mean is they are a dedicated machinst firm who dont get tied up in the rebuild part. This most likely means they are specialists, who do not attempt to be a jack of all trades, I will edit the early post now.

rich

Sorry Rich, read it quickly this morning and thought hello is he having a laugh!!!!

Yeah they only wanna concentrate on machining which as you say is great cos they don't get tied up in re-builds which is whay they turn around a finished head in 3 days!

Ok, my decision is made…HGT stays…Y? well.. I have relised that although a coupe turbo would be great I am only bloody 20, and I will kill myself…+ I want to finish my project as I love the car and I have done nearly all of it with my own hands and very proud of it. I love the engine and I am just putting in cams to enhance it not replace it. I will look at coupes and other powerful car in a couple of years when I can pay the insurance, right now I cannot. Thank you all though, as all of your input has made me look down other avenues that helped me make the decision to stay with my na 20v

@Nyssa7… thanks for the comments… everyone means well and no one has been nasty.. plus how pissed off would I be if I spent all this money and didn’t even enquire about insurance etc on a 20vt…

@Akeme.. What do you mean by handling mods? I have FK coilovers alround and a set of brembos gathering dust in the garage (because I can not fit them yet because of clearance)

@House.. sounds like an awesome nova, but I will never go to the lengths of building a brand new engine as much as I would love to . enquired about so valve work and a head skim..see how it goes, would love to have a na with 200bhp (it will probably stay a dream) as I am still confident that a hgt with 200bhp wouldn’t be far off the heals of a standard 20vt (if there are any standard ones left?)… that link is great by the way… will defiantly be using him as he is really sound…offered great advise…head skim £30+vat and triple cut valves an seats £3.50+vat x 40 (valves and seats)… he says that the 20v is prone to dropping valve and this could be why the cambelts go before their time…he said don’t go made on a port and polish as he would hate to see me(or anyone) spend 400+ on a good port and polish to then drop a valve…

@Salvatore..thanks for your comments..if I was to take the engine out then I would fit a 20vt lump, I know they fit (people have fitted them to bravos) and if I want more power is relatively easier to do… but I would sell the car before I swapped the engine out. As you said, buy a 16vt or 20vt from the start. I would love your advice on the ecu though…once I have finished playing with the head I will be getting some ecu work done… so far I have been told that dastek is a good cheap and reliable way to go, would you agree with this? Thanks for your advice.

@JohnS.. you have obviously had to play with a lot f 20v on your power quest…the cam front, I have sourced a set of c&b cams for my engine… I do have some spare 20v cams though would be good to compare the 2…do you have a spare 2.4 set of cams? I don’t have vis, the car is registered 99 but it’s the last of the non vis… I bought this on purpose because the insurnce is quite a lot cheaper (for me at least) even though there is only 7bhp and 1insurance grp up…so that rules out the 2.4 stuff really or does it? I don’t know…if I was to swap the 2.0 out I would put a 20vt in as its so much cheaper to get power out of these at a later date if I wanted… plus I know these fit with out bonnet problems etc. I don’t want the cams to be too aggressive as I want the car to be drivable still..if poss

@Rog…just called and got the answer phone… am I ok to text you? I am very interested in the flywheel… I need to get most of this sorted by the 9th of jan.. Do you think this is likely? As I go back to uni in Coventry… at the moment I am at home in Braintree so not far from you…do you have anymore 20v goodies?

Thank you all for your help, I know this route doesn’t make sense to most but the car is my pride and joy as is your coupes and I just want to make it better not replace it. I plan to keep the car for a couple more years at least, get some no claims then think about selling.

Paul R
P.S. this is the second time that I have had to write this as I was told the page was no longer available when I posted

Well done mate, good decision,

Dave is a top bloke and will steer you correctly, plus his work is top notch. good luck mate,

if you do decide to go with the re-buld option gimme a pm cos i do re-builds and be spoke engine building and would be happy to help.

Good luck Paul - keep us updated

@house... i have a spare 20v engine... i will send it over and let you work some magic

@Scooby... will do... would love to come along to a rolling road meet one day (if a hgt is welcome)

@Salvatore, thats right, definatly a Bosch motronic... do you do remaps yourself? where are you based? i would love to send you my ecu...

...............................

I dont suppose many are reading this now but this is the link to the results that a friend of mine got from his work on his 155hgt he has hand drawn them to compare each together...

what do you think... please dont go posting nasty things on there. just put them here.

heres the link.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/15639/thread/1126125579/

Cheers all for your help

Paul R

the user tom on that forum appears to have read some of A graham Bells book Modern/4 stroke performance tuning. But hes wrong about forced induction and individual throttle bodies as this is what skyline gtr's have as std. There are many other avftermarket ecu's, many are small UK companies, and tend to be approachable to ask about 5cyl set ups as most wont have considered it for obvious reasons. If their ecu can run 5injectors somehow then they are usually able to work round everything else, but who pays for this work - well that would be another question. Didnt that hgt put out some good power, my fingers are crossed my unit now.

rich

paul,

back to work on the 4th, so ring me then and i can book you in before the 9th.

the flywheel requires the gearbox and clutch to be removed (incase you didnt know that) so is a bigger job.