Fiat 124 Spider Tuning

"Thank you for reading this 124 Spider tuning guide."

We review 124 Spider tuning and point out the premier modifications for your car.

The 124 Spider is actually a very credible roadster, we are surprised that more units of this little gem were not sold, but the dedicated following it has will ensure it lives on and thrives.

There are not many cars that we would call a future classic and Fiat have always had a sporty roadster, we fondly remember the X1/9 and the 124 spider will certainly become another future classic from the Fiat stable.

Fiat 124 Spiders are popular cars and with carefully picked motorsport inspired upgrades you can definitely enhance your driving pleasure.

The 124 Spider is a good car tuning project to try. With the right mods your 124 Spider can be transformed into a stunning project. Don't waste money, do your homework and follow our unbiased guides to each performance upgrade to avoid wasting money.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are the thing most do first for the 124 Spider.

If you set the toe out to 1 to 2 degrees on the front, and add some negative camber then cornering will often improve.

We would go to a maximum drop of 25mm - 39 mm on most models. You risk compromising your handling if you go lower than this.

Turning our attention to the 124 Spiders engine we need to get a bit more power out of the top end.

The best power gains come from larger engine sizes. The more you start with the bigger the return on investment so engine swaps are good value mods for small engined cars.

Engine Tuning.

These are the motorsport upgrades are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you wish to go in your tuning project before you get started.

Getting the correct grade of performance parts for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 motor sport mods just won't work well on the road making the car difficult to drive.

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Modifying to Stage 1:

 Lighter flywheel, Panel air filter, Sports exhaust, Remap, Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Alloy wheels.

Modifying to Stage 2:

 Power/Sport clutch, Ported and polished head, high flow fuel injector, Fast road cam, fuel pump upgrades.

Modifying to Stage 3:

 Engine balancing, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Competition cam, Sports gearbox, Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves).

Peak power is all well and good but for a daily driven car you need a long torque band and perhaps extending the rev range.

In this article we shall give your a good starting base to the best performance parts for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance part.One of the most cost effective mechanical performance modifications you can do on your NASP engine is to fit a fast road cam .

The intake and exhaust flow play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car impossible to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a cam upgrade with other mods and finish with a reflashed ECU to fully release the power gain.

When pushing up the power you will need to increase to the fuelling. More power needs more fuel.

If you find you get flat spots and power surges after your performance parts you should check the fuelling and try a higher octane fuel as well. Higher capacity injectors will enable you to supply sufficient fuel to the engine.

If you've uprated your fuelling with bigger injectors you will also need to get a bigger fuel pump to supply it.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Please note that WE DO NOT RECOMMEND INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car a lot and are finding that the standard air intake has become a limitation.

Induction kits can work well on turbo engines and larger engines (if supplied with a suitable cold air feed or air box), generally though we'd just recommend for 124 Spider engines you should go with a high performance panel air filter preferably made from cotton.

Do not go with the biggest exhaust you can buy this will slow up the exhaust flow rate - the best exhausts for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches. It is the shape and material more than the bore size.

Getting a professionally polished and ported head with larger valves can fully maximise your power gains. When you start tuning your 124 Spider you will see that the standard clutch starts to suffer so get an uprated clutch. The best mods we recommend for your 124 Spider are remaps, sports camshafts and induction improvementsTurbo engines are just asking to be Reprogrammed. You will see significant power gains on most modern turbo engined cars including diesels making a remap one of the most cost effective and significant modifications for your money.

We've also seen some tuners experimenting with twincharging applications and making some impressively high power gains.

Adding forced induction will see impressive power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Superchargers are usually easier to add than a turbo. With a turbo the power curve is related exponentially to the engine speed making it harder to map.

Superchargers, however will give a boost which is correlating to engine speed so is easier to map. Decreasing the engines compression ratio will allow you to add forced induction, water injection may also help prevent detonation.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are usually less heavy than the steel ones. If you are serious about performance then you will need to carefully choose your tires - ideally with a soft compound tire. The downside to large alloys on your 124 Spider is that you're altering your final drive ratio and this will have a detrimental effect on acceleration.

Because of this aim to keep the overall rolling diameter of the wheel the standard factory sizes. In all cases we do not recommend going above 16 inches.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss 124 Spider options in more detail with our 124 Spider owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Fiat tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

Please help us improve these tips by sending us your feedback in the comments box below. We love to hear what our visitors have got up to and which mods work best for them on each model of car. Comments are used to improve the accuracy of these articles which are continually updated.

This article was written by Waynne Smith on TorqueCars, and I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Fiat. You can leave a response below or join TorqueCars forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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