The Mad Fiat - 2015 Abarth!

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texanbrit
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Re: The Mad Fiat - 2015 Abarth!

Post by texanbrit » Fri Oct 19, 2018 5:42 am

That might just be the lwfw
2013 Abarth 500c (NGen Turbo'd) - Isabella
2012 500 Pop (broken, engine rebuild on hold) - Popabella
2014 500L (Daily workhorse) - The Hulk
2013 Abarth 500 (broken engine, current project) - Abby

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NGEN
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Re: The Mad Fiat - 2015 Abarth!

Post by NGEN » Fri Oct 19, 2018 7:23 am

Might be some lightweight flywheel chatter... I had that for about 10 minutes when the clutch/flywheel was initially installed but then it went away for good.
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MadFiat
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Re: The Mad Fiat - 2015 Abarth!

Post by MadFiat » Wed Oct 31, 2018 1:29 pm

Some newer folks may not know the history of the MAD FIAT....

This car has seen everything, pretty much.

I took a 2015 500 Sport on the first Twisted Sisters run. Those idiots put me in front of like 20 Abarths and I had to somehow not get run over. It was like being the new guy in prison. Don't drop the soap! And don't slow down!

After that, I hit up the Fiat dealer and traded my 10 month old Sport on a new Abarth. Thus began the obsession.

I immediately had Brian at NGEN install a NeuF torque insert. By 500 miles on the clock it already had an RRM Ultimate piggyback.

Soon after I installed a V4 intake with the K&N filter. Since I drive in Texas summer weather, and make frequent long trips at high speed.... I melted the K&N Apollo intake within days. EC apologized and sent me a second K&N Apollo intake. It melted in 2 days. Plastic all warped and misshapen. EC sent me their "beta" carbon filter. It was nice except that being a beta it had some fitment issues I wasn't happy with so I sold the V4 at a loss.... Not happy.

Switched to an Injen filter and was quite happy.

The RRM Ultimate was moody, however, and never seemed to make power when I wanted it to. The car would be severely down on power some days. Had to reset the PCM often, so I gave up on it.

Next piggyback was a Unichip V4 with Throttle control. It was OK. Actually, I lie. I could barely tell it was even installed. The stock Unichip tune is WEAKSAUCE. I would unplug it just to see if there was a difference - and no lie - I couldn't tell if it was plugged in or not. Maybe I had a dud? Or just a very weak tune.

So then I bought a Eurocompulsion Unichip. Slapped on the Stage 2 tune and went to town. Car scooted like a muthufucka. I began to become aware that my boost was much higher than it was supposed to be. Frequently it was around 27-28 psi. It would hit 30 psi at times. People didn't believe that, so I took video. Lots of speculation followed about what could be "wrong" with my car. I reflashed the EC uni to different maps but had high boost on all of them. I took it on and off many times trying to diagnose issues... Once when removing it I forgot to disconnect the battery first... hoo boy I got tons of error codes. Most of them cleared right away... a couple would stay around to haunt me later.... disappearing for a while then coming back... the beginning of troubles.

I upgraded the rear suspension with a 30mm torsion bar from Ron at CPR, and a set of Koni Yellow's. I cut 1/4 coil from the springs at some point.

I bought 4C coils back when you still had to order them from places like Latvia... Brian talked me into an intercooler upgrade, so I got the CHQ Intercooler. I bought the first of several radio upgrades (that's a tale of its own). I went to the 2016 Twisted Sisters and chased down supposedly faster cars who were running tunes such as RAW, TORK and EC. The factory PCM adapted amazingly to the 30psi unichip lol. Most of the power was on the big end with the crazy overboosting unichip. I knew it was on "borrowed time".

I sold the Unichip because I figured it would eventually blow my motor. Unhappy with the lack of power, I bought a used Madness V2. It turned out to make less power than the RRM I'd originally had, but was "moody" just like it was. So I sold that and got a "Lorenzo" tuned Chipbox. Was actually happy with the ChipBox. Went with an RRM High Flow 200 cell catalytic converter.

I bought a turbo core planning to do a Gpop turbo once EC could tune 2015 models. Brian at NGEN caught wind of that and asked if I wanted let him use the core to get started doing GPOP upgrades. Next thing I know he's calling me to schedule a (not cheap) big turbo install as the first vict- I mean, customer. Remember, I had NO TUNE on the car. 2015, no Eurodrive yet in Fall of 2016. Tired of CEL codes (p0420) I removed the RRM 200 cell and went back to the stock cat at the same time as the turbo upgrade.

For perspective, I had bought the car in July of 2015. Now it was just Fall of 2016. Car barely a year old! At Thanksgiving, Bryan installed the big turbo. Immediately I noticed a lack of power and several issues such as underboost, BOV codes, etc. Swapped out the BOV for a Forge Internal. Bought a Forge wastegate. Adjusted it. Most of the underboost/BOV codes were lessened but they would still appear if you got on it hard just wrong. Lots of lag. Do not recommend big turbos without a tune!!!! The chipbox tried but couldn't keep up. Plus, now that it was making more power, the "moodiness" of power one day, not much the next, returned.

I went catless. The catless really helped recover some of the lost boost - definitely worth it on a big turbo. Bought a used set of Ignition Projects coils, in an effort to solve some high-end breakup that had been present since day one. Oh, and I still sometimes got random codes, especially a barometric pressure sensor code. A couple of EVAP codes suddenly appeared and would not go away.

I upgraded my intake to a V4.1, and for some reason dropped a load of money on a used SuperSprint 200 cell/muffler exhaust.

In February 2017, EC released 2015 tunes. I flashed almost immediately and nearly as quickly discovered it wasn't the solution to all my problems of low boost. The turbo just wouldn't spool. Toby attempted tune revisions, but without a hands on look at what was going on, it wasn't going well.

Spring of 2017. Fiat on the Dragon. Drove the MAD FIAT a thousand miles to get there. Lots of people wanted to figure out why my car wouldn't make good boost on the big turbo. It was realized that the NGEN turbo has very different profile than the standard GPOP. Based on info gained there and datalogging I provided, Toby was finally able to make a "good" tune that would suffice until NGEN could get their car dyno'd. I beat the hell out of the car at FOTD despite it not running well at the low end, because up top, it was fucking fast once the turbo spooled. So I drove it at redline pretty much exclusively for days, shifting only when the valves screamed... Probably a mistake..... Oh I got to drive the "revised" tune for about 2 days... then...

A few weeks after FOTD 2017 someone turned in front of me at an intersection and wrecked MAD FIAT. It thought it was a gonner, but they decided not to total it. A $3000 repair estimate balooned to $7000. The shop was pretty incompetent, thankfully the damages were mostly superficial. They did an "OK" job on the paint though I can find masking marks on the hood to this day. They failed to fix scratches on the sideskirt, and installed the wrong turn signals, using Chrome instead of Black (which is why I have chrome signals now). Worse, they left a broken and bent radiator in place. They didn't even tighten the intercooler hoses, so on my first drive I had to loop back with zero boost and have them fix that. I was without my car for nearly 2 months that summer.

Immediately after getting my car back from crash repair, I gave up and sent it to the Fiat dealer to get the PCM replaced as the random CEL's wouldn't stop and were getting worse. Dealer wanted to diagnose each CEL despite it being obviously a bad PCM, and some of the CEL's specifically said replace the PCM if that code was present. So I ended up charged for 2 hours of unneeded diagnostics. Oh yeah they didn't warranty it for pretty obvious reasons. I had removed the SuperSprint exhaust prior to taking it, and made it look as stock as possible, but they weren't fooled. Cost of the useless diagnostics and the PCM replacement was around $1100..... most likely due to my accidental unplugging of the unichip while the battery was connected a year earlier. Oh, and the dealer kept dragging their feet on what should have been a very quick procedure to replace the PCM. Not happy with Northside Fiat at all about how long they took on this.

So.... August of 2017 I had MAD FIAT back and running on the revised tune. Around then I realized that with the wreck happening right after FOTD, and then the PCM being fully reset when replaced.... which reset the oil change counter.... I thought I had changed the oil after FOTD, but then realized I had only planned to but had not when the wreck happened... I had missed the oil change by several thousand miles... it had 8000 miles on oil that had been abused and tortured. I realized this when it started running rough at idle. I hastily changed the oil, but there was no improvement.

Figuring that was just something else to figure out.... I traded the removed SuperSprint for a NeuF Race Exhaust and cash from texanbrit.

I was now planning to take the car back to the body shop to have them fix what the screwed up.... Then Hurricane HARVEY hit....

MAD FIAT almost went underwater. It was saved (yet again) from the scrapheap by a last minute last ditch drive through rocker deep water to get to safety as floodwaters rose. I managed to save the MAD FIAT where most of my neighbors lost their cars... In hindsight I'd have been better off financially had it gone underwater..... .....

After Harvey, I bought a flood salvage PT Cruiser. I started driving that in December, going easy on the MAD FIAT until I could deduce what was causing the idle misfires, which were getting worse. Around December, it started randomly dying at idle sometimes. It would throw P0302 codes, but only when cold. Nobody had a clue. I changed fuel injectors. No difference. Changed coils. no difference. Went through different kinds of plugs. Nothing. I began to suspect either a bad PCM (again) or a bad multiair brick. Finally one day in March, I hit the top of first gear and the engine just shut down. It would start, sputter roughly and die.

It was over. Everything. MAD FIAT dead.

To Be Continued......
2015 Rosso Abarth 5MT - MAD FIAT - EC Phase 2 + Supporting Mods
2015 Granito Lucente 500T 6AT - Projecto Estupido
2017 Fiat 124 Spider 6MT - Another one???

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operamatt
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Re: The Mad Fiat - 2015 Abarth!

Post by operamatt » Wed Oct 31, 2018 7:10 pm

enjoying the read... keep it coming
“if one day speed kills me.... i was probably driving a fiat”

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MadFiat
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Re: The Mad Fiat - 2015 Abarth!

Post by MadFiat » Wed Oct 31, 2018 7:51 pm

Missed a few dozen upgrades and changes along the way ... lol... it has an EC intercooler currently... ATP 200 cell cat because catless smoked too much. Whole bunch of other small changes, shifters, etc, not documented.

Car has been modded WAY too much.
2015 Rosso Abarth 5MT - MAD FIAT - EC Phase 2 + Supporting Mods
2015 Granito Lucente 500T 6AT - Projecto Estupido
2017 Fiat 124 Spider 6MT - Another one???

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Re: The Mad Fiat - 2015 Abarth!

Post by MadFiat » Sun Feb 03, 2019 2:53 pm

After the engine swap Mad Fiat ran great. Too good to be true! Currently it's down with a burst intercooler hose. Waiting on word of a replacement currently,will update once that issue is solved.
2015 Rosso Abarth 5MT - MAD FIAT - EC Phase 2 + Supporting Mods
2015 Granito Lucente 500T 6AT - Projecto Estupido
2017 Fiat 124 Spider 6MT - Another one???

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MadFiat
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Re: The Mad Fiat - 2015 Abarth!

Post by MadFiat » Sat Feb 16, 2019 5:29 pm

Intercooler hose swapped. Was running OK but not great. Boost leak tested and apparently a twisted clamp doesn't hold boost well. So fixed that and now SHE RIPS! (In a good way). Test drive rated 4 fist shakes from onlookers, so it's doing great.

Now if someone can make my bumper fit, I'd buy them a beer.
2015 Rosso Abarth 5MT - MAD FIAT - EC Phase 2 + Supporting Mods
2015 Granito Lucente 500T 6AT - Projecto Estupido
2017 Fiat 124 Spider 6MT - Another one???

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NGEN
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Re: The Mad Fiat - 2015 Abarth!

Post by NGEN » Sat Feb 16, 2019 7:27 pm

Glad to hear it's back up to speed!
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MadFiat
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Re: The Mad Fiat - 2015 Abarth!

Post by MadFiat » Sat Apr 06, 2019 10:21 pm

Can't win.

Mad Fiat is down AGAIN.

2nd busted intercooler hose this year. I've put maybe 1500 miles on this since I replaced the hose before. Couple months?

Contacting EC, who took care of it last time w/o hassle, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do long term. I am in a financial bind recently and absolutely cannot afford to switch to a different FMIC setup, but I don't think I can trust the EC Fmic lines to not simply bust again like this. May have to go back to the stock SMIC setup.
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2019-04-06 16.04.57.jpg (66.13 KiB) Viewed 6132 times
2015 Rosso Abarth 5MT - MAD FIAT - EC Phase 2 + Supporting Mods
2015 Granito Lucente 500T 6AT - Projecto Estupido
2017 Fiat 124 Spider 6MT - Another one???

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texanbrit
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Re: The Mad Fiat - 2015 Abarth!

Post by texanbrit » Sat Apr 06, 2019 10:54 pm

Let us know what EC says. I don't understand why they split for some people, and why we don't see failures in ATM and others that use silicone hoses. I guess this is one advantage of hard pipes.
2013 Abarth 500c (NGen Turbo'd) - Isabella
2012 500 Pop (broken, engine rebuild on hold) - Popabella
2014 500L (Daily workhorse) - The Hulk
2013 Abarth 500 (broken engine, current project) - Abby

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