Antz28 Fiat coupe restoration thread

Welcome to a new project.

Thsi is done on behalf of a really good mate of mine Antz28 (Antony)

he surprised me with buying a murple 20vt just before x-mas..

say it was just a last minuite impulse buy from eBay..

he got the car fairly cheap and was expecting the worse.

when he picked it up, he was surprised it was nto as bad as he was expecting.

this one had seen better days..

but this project is to show people you DONT have to break a coupe because it needs a little work.

the first big aim for this coupe is to go Spa in April with the club.

And she is nearly there.. of course there will be a few upgrades along the way but its manily to show that you can make a bad coupe a good one with not a great deal of effort.

Also hoping this will help save a few from being scrapped.

So, this is her the day he picked it up... after buying it semi blind..

he picked it up from Brighton...

any one recognise it??

any way.. a long trip home and it made it with out an issue!!


first thing was to do an oil change and get the body work sorted out.
Oil was changed to mobile 1, 10/60
Oil pressure was incresed from 1.5 bar to nearly 2.7bar
hot idle is now 2.5 to 2bar! lovely!

now body work.
it had a bit of damage on the bonnet
De-badge
wheel refurb
new number plates
bonnet re-spray
new centre caps



then it started with a intermitant miss fire..

found a broken/cracked coil.. and a cracked rocker cover
so replaced that and re-furbed the rocker cover!




Next was the issue with the turbo.. we where gettign a small bit of smoke on idle..
we checked the NRV, that was fine.

checked the pipes ect and it turned out to be the turbo..

Ant stupidly got one off ebay.. FAIL.
he also got it off some idiot off ebay who sold him a crap turbo with was worse that the one we had already.

any way, after a few weeks of MASSIVLY smokey coupe..

YES IT WAS THAT BAD!!!
we changed to a fully re-furbed turbo


We also changed the manifold gasket as it was blowing and a stud needed changing.

We also did a cambelt on the coupe for extra piece of mind, Along with new Rad as this was worse for wear!!

while we changed the turbo.. we went ahead and fitted a de-cat to unlock some extra horse's

There is a SS cat back system on the car also, i havent got photos of it, but Ant fitted that when he first got it!

next things to do..

repalce a front hud as a bolt is snapped in it
temp sensor

that should get her running Perfectly and nice and safe!

only things left to do before spa are..

New clutch (may as well)
lighten fly wheel
flea map
4 Wheel alighment
Front disc's & Pads
Rer disc's and pads
Engine bay tidy up

Roll On spa!!!

well well well,, thanks maro, for all your help honestley you been a massive help!

MARO!! WTF!!!

Well, we had it back into the workshop for a few bits and bobs..

Mainly changing the hub..
Thanks Joe

we also changed the rear discs & pads
Front discs and pads
Front metal brake pipes (they snapped off)

Front lower wishbones as they where... well... fu*ked.

only a few little bits to do then she is off to Flea then Spa!

the only thing that bugs me about this car is its odd rev limiter..

last night on a private road i gave it a good hard drive (giggady) and noticed she revved...high.. 8k high..

surely that’s not right.

so a little investigation into wtf is going on there!!

Things left to do...
tidy engine bay
4 wheel alignment
flea map
and any thing else that decides to go wrong

Well.. its been an interesting few weeks with this car.
After changing the metal pipes from Brembo to flexi, we found that we could not get a really good brake pedal.

we had it abck in on Saturday to bleed the brakes again and just as we got a good pedal.. POP the coopr brake pipe from the flexi to the ABS block burst... in my face.

and YES this was a first...

so while we where there we realsied that the flexi will need replacing as thats destined to fail shortly, so we changed to HEL porto colored braided pipes

so after a lot of break pipe, alot of cursing and a visit from Joe (CC) it was all sorted!



brakes feel amazing!

next is the clutch change and a trip to Flea on the 22nd March

well, this car is now ready for its first big meet and a seriously hard time

Antz 20vt will be attending Spa.

its last installment of works has been the following.

New fuel filter
Oil change
and a clutch

which turned into an epic job as we didnt drop the sub frame.

so it took ages to get the box out of a tiny gap... but after a few hours...

we won

removed the old clutch which was slipping..
gave the fly wheel a bit of love with some sand paper


then the clutch went on


put her back together now she drives like a dream with new gearbox oil.

also new visco seal fitted!

ready for spa.

one funny thing, Antz found out how hard the starter motor was to do...
putting it back on.. He FELL ASPLEEP on the engine bay.


so look for this car in spa..