Fiat 127 Sport Tuning - the good old days

 

The Fiat 127 Sport was one of my favourite cars, it came with a highly tuned 1049cc engine as standard and was a great alternative to any Ford or Jap car of the time. I cut my tuning teeth on these cars and learn how to tune the old school way. I largely had no budget but did what I could by myself through lots of reading, practice and determination. By the end (and with a little more budget) I had built a 1301cc street racer able to take on Ford Sierra Cosworths with ease. The Fast Car magazine extract (Sep 93) is the car before it was re-shelled into an immaculate 1978 shell I found locally. As you will see the car performed well, 0-60 mph in 8.2 seconds (with 1 passenger) uphill translates to roughly near sub 7 seconds on the flat with only the driver. Top speed was just under 120 mph, or 122 down hill! 30-50 mph took just 3.5 seconds. Quarter of a mile was 16.4 seconds uphill which translates to around 15seconds on the flat – faster than a Porsche 911 of the time! This is the Fast Car magazine article from 1993,

Click on the image to enlarge and read

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I estimate the engine to have been putting out 120 bhp and around 100 lb/ft torque, follow this spec and you could have it too - the spec was Head – gas flowed (significant modification of the bend radius) and ported (20-30% larger) Very high compression – skimmed head by 40' at least (watch water feed to the manifold) Kent Cams 330° re-profiled cam Head cam bearings hard anodised Weber carb bored out and enlarged by about 20% and re-jetted BTB 4-2-1 manifold and 2” 2 box straight through exhaust system 5 speed box Ride height reduced by 4”

Fast Car Magazine

On the day of testing I drove the car to Bruntingthorpe testing ground where a group of cars were being tested. One car and owner in particular was of interest, it was a guy I had asked for directions who had a mini on a trailer and was rude. He had a full blown 1360 engine professionally built and had spent a fortune on it. It was also running a glass fibre body so I was interested to see his times when the mag came out. Well when it did I laughed and laughed as my little Sport has blown it away quite comfortably!

The below pics are after the reshelled