Abarth 124 Spider - Hardrace Strut Brace + other mods I forgot about.

It's probably a good few months now when I did a little research into what strut brace I could purchase to fit my wee Abarth 124 Spider. There were a few on the market, however I really wanted a blue coloured one to tie in with my car, call it OCD.

Another reason for a replacement strut brace was for more practical reasons. You see as I am running Yellow Speed Racing coil overs, with the original brace I could not adjust the suspension, through the top mounts. without removing the factory strut brace. The original brace completely covers the top of the struts, so has to be removed for any adjustments to be made, which means it is a right faff.

Hardrace strut brace,

Now as many of you will know the Abarth 124 shares the same platform as the Mazda MX5 ND, so when I couldn't find a suitable Abarth version I started looking at braces that were made for the Mazda.

I happened to come across a blue Hardrace Strut brace, so decided to go ahead and purchase one. 

When the strut brace arrived, it was well packaged and the box contained all the required mounting plates and fasteners.

Can now get access to top of coil over struts

Both Ern and myself got cracking with the job in hand and soon the old brace was removed, and replaced with the new Hardrace version. It was a very easy job, and not only does the new brace look a lot better astheticaly, but I think I have noticed improved stiffness when driving. So I am very happy with my new mod.

Oh and I also forgot to mention whilst we were on, around about the same time I had a Sports CAT fitted to my car, Well the garage that fitted it were unable to pop the heat shield back on, as there were no mountings on the new CAT. After driving my car I noticed it smelled and felt very hot. My da and I ended up remobing the CAT in our back yard. It was easy yo get off, however after wrapping the CAT with Funk some Lava Wrap, what a nightmare getting the bloody thing back on. It was one single bolt in a suport bracket that we had the issue with.

   

The Ern working on my wee Abarth 124 Spider

Follwing putting the CAT back on we fitted another of my new mods a PTP Lava Turbo blanket. Now with both the wrap on the CAT and the turbo blanket my wee Abarth is sorted. 

  

PTP Turbo Blaket for Abarth 124 Spider.

Oh and finally I ordered an eMotion2+ Personal OBD Tuner from Celtic Tuning. I attached the tuner to my car, downloaded the file to the box, and then uploaded to my PC and sent the file off to the eMotion2+ people. Within a short space of time I had a new modified file and was able to pop that on the tuner box and reupload to my car.

   

eMotion2+ OBD tuning Box

The whole process was pretty easy anI didn't encounter any issues. The eMotion2+ guys were very friendly and helpful. Now that the remapped file is on my car I can definitely tell a difference. I am not sure how much extra horses it has given me. My car now along with the Sports CAT and the new remap, where I get some small pops and bangs with the valves open on my Ragazzon exhaust sounds absolutely epic.

As a 56 year old old fart I now love driving my car in "Hooligan Mode" and it makes me feel relatively young again, especially in the fine weather with the top down.