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

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

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Rock on Rog, I spent 16 grand on my 2 litre nova, i got 225bhp and about 240ft/lb of torque though!

Paul mate, stick with your car mate,

If you wanna get big power then the best way to go is, Cams and throttle bodies with some light head work just a port and polish with a light skim, the 20v should react really well to this, Rog will help you here as the guy knows his stuff.

If you wanna go silly you could spend stupid money and do what i did, I built my engine from brand new, not re-built, every single component was brand new,
High compression pistons, running 10.5-1 C/R, 296 degree cams (although the 310 degree cams would have given more power they didn't have them in stock at the time), solid lifters, fully ported polished and skimmed head, was running a DTA ECU and 48mm direct to head throttle bodies.

The thing turned 225bhp and 240ft/lb on the hottest day of the year 2003 so on a cool day we reckoned on about 235bhp.

Stick with what you know best mate, I knew my nova inside out, i had the suspension setup so i could play with the lift off oversteer, I put around 30 grand (6 grand for insurance) into it and loved every minute,

If you want power from your N/A then go to a reputable engine builder near you and have a chat.

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

Quote:

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I like the way they are machinists and dont do the rebuild

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I hope your not being sarcastic rich!

No they don't do re-builds but the geeza does know his stuff and will do any head work he wants, so I thought if he wanted to get the head off for the cams then he could send it to dave for some work before re-fiting it.

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.