HP increase update

[James Seabolt <jseabolt@domain.elided>]

Well it's been awhile but I have decided to go with Joe Serra's turbocharger
kit. FIAT had two bids when they turbocharged the spiders. One was Legend
industries and the other one was Joe Serra. Legend Industries won the
contract because their system was much cheaper than Joe's but not better.

I've talked to two guys with Turbo Spiders and they say that the Lengend
systems on their cars are junk so I have decided to stay away from that
system. One guy said he went through two rebuilds because of detonation
problems.

I got the oportunity to meet Joe at Freakout 97 and he seems to be a very
knowledgable man. I've got an old Clymer spider manual and in the back it
contains pages of parts offered by Serra. When first reading it, I thought,
"I wonder what ever happened to this guy, if he's still in business". Then
low and behold I got to meet the guy. At first I didn't know who he was then
it hit me one day that he was the guy I had read about in the Clymer manual.
He moved his operation from California to New Jersey and is producing FIAT
parts once again. He told me that he had a lawsuit against Stillen or
Jackson racing because they copied his design on the adjustable cam gears.

I think for awhile he was concentrating on Mazda and Honda performance parts
so since the demand is back, parts are to.

I haven't decided to go with 7.1:1 pistons (he sells these to) and run a
higher boost (with incredible turbolag) and get more HP or stay with the
stock pistons and run a lower boost. I'll have to decide on this.

I finally found a knock sensor to protect the engine that will work with my
ignition system. It's made by a company called J & S. It's about $400 but
it's cheaper than running the risk of detonation.

I heard of a trick that some guy did with an X 1/9. I think this was the way
he did it.

He cut the throttle body off a Spider intake plenium and then graphed it to
the intake plenium on his X 1/9. I don't know how he did this since the
direction the throttle cable pulls the plate open are reversed.

Then he used an air flow meter from a Spider, the injectors and I guess the
CPU as well. I beleive all of the wires in both harness' go to the same
places so he didn't have to modify the harness.

Wouldn't you have to port the head and intake runners before you would see
any benefit from all of this?

I've seen these bigger throttle bodies for VWs. I wonder if the same thing
could be done to Spiders? Looks like you would have to increase everything
else downstream like using a bigger air flow meter (like from a Datsun 280Z,
another trick Joe Serra told me about) before you could get more air into
the engine.

However using a bigger throttle body is just one less restriction in the
intake system so it should help some none the less.

I ordered a bigger throttle body for my Jeep Wrangler today. I don't know
how the F.I. system is setup on my Jeep but I can't find any kind of air
flow measuring device before the throttle body. I assume it measures air by
somekind of sensor in the throttle body because it's got a bunch connectors
going to it. I guess FI systems have come along way since the old Bosch L
systems. It's suppose to give me a 11-12 HP gain which I think is pretty
good for a device that can be installed in a few hours.

Also I learned that by placing a pot resistor between the CPU and coolant
termperature sensor would allow you to increase the fuel/air mixture from
the driver's seat. I suppose by advancing the timing along with this would
yield more HP as well. Of course the real test would have to be done on a dyno. 

This makes sense because with the 1982 Spider I once owned, it ran really
rich but ran very well that way. When I got it, it didn't even run. Before
finding that the coolant temp sensor connector had popped off causing the
plugs to foul and smoke terribly, I started plugging wires together like the
O2 sensor.

I found two wires near the CPU that were unplugged. I assumed they had
something to do with the O2 sensor but I later found out they were for cars
driven in altitudes of more than 4000 feet above sea level. These two wires
were equipted on 1982 and later Spiders and X 1/9s for emmision purposes.
But I live in a valley so it caused the engine to run rich. I assume that
when these two wires were plugged together it added resistance somewhere in
within the loop and enrichened the fuel mixture.

Although the car smoked and the engine was in bad shape, the car felt like
it had 130HP. 





 


James Seabolt -----> mailto:jseabolt@domain.elided
Webpage: http://pages.preferred.com/~jseabolt
ICQ # : 7344463

United States

1980 FIAT 2000 Spider (injected)
1981 FIAT X 1/9 (Injected)
1994 JEEP Wrangler (2.5l )
1976 Chevrolet Pickup (454 Big Block)