Fiat Coupe Tuning

"A coupe d'etat"

The Fiat coupe is yet another stunning Pininfarina design and looks as hot and edgy today as it did when it was first launched back in 1993.

The Coupe had a relatively short production run but owners love them and few have left the roads due to owner neglect. Turbo engines are the preferred bas for a tuning project.

Handling modifications are usually your first port of call for the Coupe. The car is already fitted with one of the worlds best suspension setups, McPherson struts / wish bones front and trailing arms on a subframe to the rear with an anti roll bar, but with a few tweaks you can sharpen up the handling a lot. We suggest that you fit uprated suspension and lower the car by 30-35mm. Larger drops require arch work - especially on models already equipped with sports suspension.

Turning our attention to the Coupes engine we need to get a bit more power out of the top end. the 1.8 was a sturdy engine putting down 130hp not far of the NASP 2.0 4 cylinder engines. The best engines for the Coupe tuner is the Turbo engines as these give quite a good gain for a relatively small cost. 

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 the 1.8 and early 2.0 engines.

Fiat Coupe Tuning modifications.

Peak power is all well and good but a driveable and fun car needs a wide power band and lots of low down torque. Across the coupe engine range, fast road cams offer one of the biggest performance gains as far as a bolt on part goes. When pushing up the power you will need to pay attention to the fuelling.

More power needs more fuel. Improve your cars response to the throttle with a Fuel pressure boost valve. Uprating the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel. Uprate the fuel pump to cope with the extra fuel requirements of your tuned Coupes uprated injectors.

Fiat Coupe Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust.  Most Coupe owners will go with a washable panel air filter. On the turbo engines an induction kit will help increase power providing you address the problem of needing cold air. Warm engine bay air will rob you of power. When it comes to the exhaust please do not go with the biggest exhaust you can find this will slow up the exhaust flow rate - the best for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.5 inches.

Getting a professionally flowed head with larger valves can fully release the engines power. When you start tuning your Coupe you will find that the standard clutch starts to complain so get an uprated clutch. Remaps offer significant power gains on all turbo charged cars.

On NASP engines the benefits of just doing a remap are very doubtful. However it will help to unleash the full potential if you have done a lot of mods. Despite the large cost involved adding forced induction to a NASP engine will give large power gains. It is easier to bolt on a supercharger than it is to get a turbo working. It is harder to map a turbo as the boost comes on exponentially with engine speed. It is easier to map a supercharger because the boost is proportional to engine speed on a linear curve. Alternatively you could add water injection to control knock.

That said if you really want forced induction then source a good 5 cylinder turbo engine and use this as the basis for your Coupe tuning project.

Fiat Coupe Wheel modifications.

Because alloy wheels are lighter they improve performance and they help to cool the brake disks. The downside to large alloy wheels on your Coupe is that you alter your effective final drive ratio and this will have a detrimental effect on performance. Although some people have gone larger we would stick to a 17 or 18 inch rim size as the maximum.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Coupe options in more detail with our Coupe 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.

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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