Well autumn has been a fun time. Ingrained oil, nasty prickly heat wrap, countless burns, scraped knuckles and swearing but I said I would do it and now it’s complete! The cinquecento is now not only Punto engined but now turbocharged, oooohh the fun is definitely there!
Yes it’s barmy but there are still possibly worse ways of blowing your money other than keeping and spending it on your first car. Anyway here is a brief log of which the conclusion is…I’m never getting under a car again!
After my previous engine swap, this was the next stage in the cars long term fun plan. The engine swap I did last summer was covered here.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17611642&highlight=startername_caneyj . If anything, this build was even harder! The aim was to create a reliable conversion whilst sticking within a reasonable budget. With the car having covered 200 mixed miles I believe the reliability is holding out though through unforeseen circumstance it wasn’t quite as cost effective as I’d hoped he he but still it wasn’t that bad considering.
I had all the parts including a compact K03 turbocharger scavenged off a turbo diesel golf, a custom exhaust manifold to mount it, a fuel injector computer, a cosworth 2nd injector and throttle body mount as well as a number of smaller components.
Big problems came fitting the turbo and manifold to the car finding they were not only too far forward fouling the radiator but the actuator was also on the back meaning the water rail path from the engine block was blocked meaning a new fabricated radiator mount to bring the rad forward as well as a completely re-worked cooling system to get around the turbo’s awkward location grr.
With the assistance of an engineer friend we got the new parts welded up and a new front exhaust downpipe made at long life. A trip to Mocal (just down the road from me) also saw me with an oil feed for my turbo to which I reached this stage.
I also had bespoke boost and induction pipes made up at long life so was also able to get the rest of the basics mounted.
Yes it’s barmy but there are still possibly worse ways of blowing your money other than keeping and spending it on your first car. Anyway here is a brief log of which the conclusion is…I’m never getting under a car again!
After my previous engine swap, this was the next stage in the cars long term fun plan. The engine swap I did last summer was covered here.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17611642&highlight=startername_caneyj . If anything, this build was even harder! The aim was to create a reliable conversion whilst sticking within a reasonable budget. With the car having covered 200 mixed miles I believe the reliability is holding out though through unforeseen circumstance it wasn’t quite as cost effective as I’d hoped he he but still it wasn’t that bad considering.
I had all the parts including a compact K03 turbocharger scavenged off a turbo diesel golf, a custom exhaust manifold to mount it, a fuel injector computer, a cosworth 2nd injector and throttle body mount as well as a number of smaller components.
Big problems came fitting the turbo and manifold to the car finding they were not only too far forward fouling the radiator but the actuator was also on the back meaning the water rail path from the engine block was blocked meaning a new fabricated radiator mount to bring the rad forward as well as a completely re-worked cooling system to get around the turbo’s awkward location grr.
With the assistance of an engineer friend we got the new parts welded up and a new front exhaust downpipe made at long life. A trip to Mocal (just down the road from me) also saw me with an oil feed for my turbo to which I reached this stage.
I also had bespoke boost and induction pipes made up at long life so was also able to get the rest of the basics mounted.
with a sub 8 second 0-60 time! My club officer who also runs a similar low boost car says that on a track, the car will see its way to the end of the gearbox at about 125mph and unlike the standard cinq, from 70+ it is still very quick making overtaking a breeze.

Would love to see your car sometime, sounds fun really and a project I would abolutely love. Shame I can't add a turbo easy to my car. 