I got my hands on my little Abarth 595 Competizione on the 19th of July, and I have already given in to the urge to modify the wee car.
As I perused the interwebs gaining knowledge about the car and what mods were, both beneficial and aesthetically pleasing, I came across an induction kit from 500 Madness. This company is based in the US, and it was not until I emailed them about their kit that I learned the US market cars use a 1.4 Multi-Air variant of the engine, whilst the UK, EU and I believe Australia uses the 1.4 T-Jet motor.
Unfortunately, the 500 Madness Induction system would not fit my wee car. The reason I liked it was because it came with a pretty cool engine cover, that just finished the job off in my opinion.
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| 500 madness Induction Kit |
I noticed a lot of people were using the Forge induction kit. It looks very well finished off, a quality bit of kit, and sounds pretty aggressive, it was just the fact that I did not really want to cut my car's scuttle panel. I know it is not a big deal. It was also the fact, again in my opinion when the car's engine cover/regular air filter is removed, well the engine looks kind of bare.
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| Forge Induction Kit |
So after much searching, I discovered GT Tuning's offering. I know GT Tuning have been around quite sometime, as I can recall back in the day when I had my BMW Mini's, GT Tuning offered some good bits of tuning gear.
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| GTT Cold Air Induction Kit |
Anyhoo I ordered the Cold Air Induction kit online from GT Tuning's website, selecting the colour of the engine cover and hoses, and it arrived yesterday, and was waiting for me as I got in from work.
Just awaiting the finishing touch, a cool looking Abarth badge to put on the engine cover.
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| Ordered an Abarth Badge off of eBay for the engine cover |
A quick cuppa, then I was out under the bonnet of the wee Abarth. I still haven't found a name for the little car, I am sure something will come to me soon.
I followed the provided instructions, which were pretty informative and accurate. I dropped a couple of things down the front of the car by accident, a hose clamp and a washer during the removal/fitting of the air filter. It was a right pain getting them out from the under tray, but a combination of a bicycle spoke, a magnet and a one of those grabber type devices soon recovered each part that I had dropped.
Two of the most difficult parts of the process were firstly removing the original air filter along with the engine cover. This was mainly because I had never taken one off before, and I didn't want to break or snap anything. When I read in the GTT instructions about watching you don't break the peg on the back of the manifold, I was kind of double-checking I had removed everything, before I had to give the air filter and engine cover a decent pull to get it off its rubber mounts. There are two of them, and as long as you pull up evenly, you don't put any undue force on the rear peg on the manifold.
The second part that took sometime was in installing the GTT induction kit and getting it to line up with the two notches on the engine cover and around the oil filler neck. Once my dad and I had figured this out, Oh! I forgot to mention, I had called on Ern's expertise as I don't fully trust my skills the rest of fastening up the kit was easy, that included popping the small provided filter in place on the what I think is the inlet pipe, I may be wrong, anyhoo it went on with a rubber hose and two hose pipe clamps.
I then jumped in the car, well rather manoeuvred my self in, something I have found is that it can be quite awkward getting into the car due to my prosthetic socket and the high sided Sabelt seats. I don't want to wreck the side of the seats as I get in and out due to my stupid socket.
Once in the car, I started her up and allowed her to tick over. To be honest, the car doesn't sound any different whilst sat in her, either in normal or sports mode. I am hoping the filter will just allow her to breathe more easy, as the original filter I have read is quite restrictive.
All in all happy with this first mod, it looks neat, hasn't made the car obnoxious to live with, as I now use this wee car as a daily for work, I mean I probably only do just over a hundred or so miles per week.
I like the fact the car has a valved exhaust, and you can bimble along fairly quietly, yet put the car in ASBO mode when you feel like being a bit of a hooligan, whereas Grandma my GSR Beetle is permanently in hooligan mode and on a longer drive can make your ears pop as her exhaust drones.
Anyhoo now more saving to do as I have a few more mods I would like to do to the wee Abarth.
