The Broken Fiat Club

Few clarifications to be made here. I'm not gonna spend all evening writing this so things may be out of order.

1) Stock Abarth puts down around 140 WHEEL hp. Not 160 - that's bhp.

2) If you started with a 500T then that's going to be even less. But most of us don't count from a T's horsepower.

3) Only a couple of tuners in this country are dyno'ing and even have a clue what they're doing with tuning these cars.

Now, for whatever reason, because I'm not made out of money, I have tried numerous different combinations of hardware on my Abarth. I've ridden with others who have different hardware. I've chased and kept up with guys who supposedly had the one of or the "most powerful" yadda yadda.

I've had RRM Ultimate, Madness V2, Lorenzo's Chipbox, Unichip.US Unichip, EC Unichip, big turbo, and development versions of the NGEN tune. Numerous variations of hardware as well. I have seen what this car responds to, what it doesn't, and more importantly, the differences in each.

RRM Ultimate was punchy. It's been dyno tested at around 190-195 whp. It was not long after that that people discovered that the PCM starts cutting power after about 200bhp with piggybacks, due to acceleration vector limits in the PCM. Similarly, most dyno runs on 2wd dyno show torque limits being applied after about 200bhp. This is due to inbuilt safety limits that are designed to keep everything in spec (emissions/safety, etc).

The EC Unichip had a trick to avoid some of those inbuilt safety limits. The result? It could make more than that 200bhp. Was that dyno measured? Not well, because of limits in dyno methodology people were using (including EC). However, I can guarantee you my EC Unichip was faster than the RRM Ultimate. Even when it wasn't running 30psi (which it did sometimes, due to a glitch between EC's trick and the 2015 PCM).

Then there's the big turbo. When NGEN launched it, the assumption was that the phase 2 / phase 3 tunes that existed would be fine for it. Turns out they didn't account properly for the flow characteristics of this turbo, which resulted in a loss of low and mid range power. However, that turbo, once it spooled up, made the car take off like a rocket - above 4500 RPM. It would pull hard until redline without letting up. This was yet again on a level that was significantly faster than either the RRM Ultimate or the EC Unichip. But without EC having ever laid hands on the turbo, their tune was merely guesswork.

Now, Bryan's car. Prior to being dyno tuned, the turbo already makes way more power above 5000 RPM than stock. And it did that taking longer to spool than stock. Now, if you had read the report of when Bryan's car was being dyno'd you would know that he was experiencing some pretty bad clutch slip by the time they started doing proper power runs. Power dropped off SHARPLY at 5100 RPM. Now, having had that turbo in my car quite a long time I guarantee you that power should not have dropped at 5100 RPM like it did - that was clearly the result of clutch slipping. It would have made more without that.

Now, you say, "That's only 240 hp and 260 lb ft of torque" .. OK Yes, true. On a very specific dyno which they imported from Europe to properly dyno this type of car. Now they could have cheaped out and bought any old dyno, or even gotten a 4wd dyno from a US company. Why didn't they? Because they found that they don't get accurate results that way. I guess they could have spent MORE money in some attempt to CON THEIR CUSTOMERS by providing LOW DYNO NUMBERS... lol...

That said, as you know, different brands and styles of dynos often have vastly different readings. You cannot really compare dyno results from different manufacturers, using different technology, to each other.

So, does the other tuning shops in the US produce tunes that make MORE power than EC? I would say, based on my experience and experience of those I know who have actually had tunes from some of these other shops, there's only one other shop that might, and that's Tork Motorsports. His claims about dyno results are very mutch doubling down on his arguments that EC's numbers were "fake". As far as I know he's still using a 2wd dyno, with various tricks to get around the limits imposed by that. That, and I have not seen any dyno results from Tork showing this mythical 275hp without use of e85 or other techniques which were NOT in use on Bryan's dyno run.

So, the gist of all of THIS is...

We could argue all day long if those advertising claims by EC are true. Fact is they make tunes that work, and are faster than non-tuned cars, and there is not a competitor on the market who can do significantly better. Definitely not Joe B. Randomguy down at the Honda shop on the corner, and not most of the fly-by-night tuners who pop up and say they have a tune for the Fiat who don't actually deliver.

In the light of "evidences" here are a few actual dyno charts I could find.

First, the NGEN turbo discussed above on Bryan's car. You can CLEARLY see where the clutch slip hit. As I said, having driven this turbo on a pre-dyno development tune, it does NOT drop power until near redline. It builds and builds.
Now a couple of Tork tunes - from 2017. He says these were running his "Super Stocker Turbo" which is good for "250 to 260 whp". We know from a certain Youtuber running the Tork tune on a 1752s, though, that power north of 260 required e85. Also, if you look at these charts, the Tork tune and turbo was making under 200hp at 5000 RPM, whereas the NGEN turbo, before clutch slip, was making over 230hp at 5000 RPM. So who is making more power.
What about that 1752 tune? Power curve is indeed closer to the NGEN turbo. But torque is down by 10-15.
Finally, one could say, well that tune was a year ago, Tork could/has done better. OK. Where's the dyno chart?
Again, these are done on vastly different dynos so any comparison is not worth much.

However, I don't think EC's claims (or Tork's) are in the same category as "250hp" with a piggyback.

I think we’re all mature and sophisticated enough to hold two thoughts in our heads at once:

First thought: EC’s numbers are BS and not backed up by dyno runs — any dyno.

Second thought: EC is the most prolific and most experienced NA market Fiat tuner and very easy to work with.

retrophit wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 6:04 pm I think we’re all mature and sophisticated enough to hold two thoughts in our heads at once:

First thought: EC’s numbers are BS and not backed up by dyno runs — any dyno.

Second thought: EC is the most prolific and most experienced NA market Fiat tuner and very easy to work with.

True.

I would love for there to be more options, especially for self-tuning or local dyno tuning. Unfortunately there aren't. I'm not even sure if Open Flash Tablet ever was properly updated to support 2014+ PCM's. Even if it was, those who had used OFT on earlier Abarths found that what they thought they could do with end-user tuning wasn't actually doable, and they ended up worse off than if they'd just used a canned tune. A lot of folks announced 2014+ support, only to find out it was more complicated than they thought - which is what bit Speedmotive's butt in the case posted at the beginning of this thread.

Back on topic, I'm sure Lorenzo was assured by his tuner that all was copacetic. Lots of tuners think they've got it figured out, but when the shit hits the fan, it's the vendor that gets the flack. The tuner may have been able to figure it out, but ultimately customers don't like being test subjects. They want to be delivered a tune that works, and is reliable.

The NGEN number was probably higher than 235whp, the clutch was slipping badly (as you can see in the odd curves).

I see the problem though. We know that a stock Abarth puts down ~130whp and we know that NGen got 235whp on the same Dyno. We dont really know what any of other setups will do on the same Dyno.

I think ECs published numbers are clearly too high as well though, but then everybody's numbers are high in my opinion. RRM claimed 250hp with an intake and their piggy back for instance.

It's an argument that will never be settled until everyone runs on the same 4 wheel dyno under the same conditions, so probably never. It would be nice though if EC would let us have a Dyno day to rest a bunch of different setups. I don't know what it would cost but I'd really like to see that.

I honestly don't know why you all get so bent out of shape about HP numbers anyway. Have fun, enjoy the car, acknowledge that I have more

The numbers posted on ECs website are based on using Auterra. The tunes were developed prior to getting their dyno. The reason why those numbers haven’t been updated is their plan is to rework all of those tunes on their dyno, which will then be updated. As for their numbers being BS, they arent. They are just based on a different platform. The last thing these guys are trying to do is be shady or provide false numbers. They are the one tuner that have stuck by these cars since the beginning and have no intentions of stopping. Can’t say that about the others out there. It’s why we are using Euro+Drive and won’t change. As for our numbers, the car did run higher numbers. In fact, we hit 244hp on one run but the dyno software crashed. Another factor is the large fans were not hooked up which plays a part as well (I believe they are now). It’s a tough, long trip to get up there but we plan to get up there again since we now have the clutch and Flywheel to handle the power. Until then, these are the numbers that we got (and are pretty happy with the results)

Or EC could just release documentation for their numbers.

Anyway, I think numbers matter because they help you evaluate the cost/benefit of certain mods. Our young friend has been saving up to prepare his car to meet the P2 standard so he can uncork this promised 235WHP and that’s just not going to happen. And that’s shitty IMO.

NGEN wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 8:26 pm The numbers posted on ECs website are based on using Auterra

I know this from digging thru their posts and videos, but why not make it more clear? Why not publish charts? If they’re not willing to post evidence then they shouldn’t post actual hp claims. Just say “big gains” or other phrases.

You’ve been very transparent with your turbo, why not hold EC to the same standard?

retrophit wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 8:39 pm

NGEN wrote: ↑Sun Sep 23, 2018 8:26 pm The numbers posted on ECs website are based on using Auterra

I know this from digging thru their posts and videos, but why not make it more clear? Why not publish charts? If they’re not willing to post evidence then they shouldn’t post actual hp claims. Just say “big gains” or other phrases.

You’ve been very transparent with your turbo, why not hold EC to the same standard?

As you suspect, when they dyno the tunes that are already out that's just going to add fodder for the competition to throw at them. Without any acknowledgment of course of the competition's own shortcomings. That said, at least Tork was been willing to show dyno numbers - even if it's still a question about how reliable those numbers are since he uses a 2wd dyno and won't say what "magic sauce" he has to get around Fiat's PCM limiters.

I suspect that once updated dyno-made tunes are available, there will be dyno charts that come with them.

Ok, ok.. I've opened up a Costco sized bag of worms. I did a dyno run on Jan 13 at Tork Motorsports. I didn't have the Turbosmart WGA, GFB DV, Brisk plugs, or 4C coils then. I put down 147whp on John's Dynojet. Check my mod list and see if the gains add up. Skylor was running P2 with all the [Michael] Bolt-ons and did a pull of 200whp. That's what I'm shooting for. 200whp. Its 85 more whp for me. Take into consideration the hp numbers lost to the wheels like I mentioned in my previous post, that IS a 100 BHP gain.

Some guys measure from the base, some guys measure from the taint. I'm measuring from the crank (engine taint) so I can brag about +100hp at meets and in my Christmas cards I send to the family.

Whew..