ive got sanspeed s/1 remap , standard esseesse, monza......... 171bhp on dyno. esseesse only takes it from 135 to 160bhp, remap s/1 will get another 10 or so , but torque figure is better and holds on longer, peak power is at 5500rpm, drops off after that............. but theres so much more that can be done ! only problem with mine is that at 3-4000rpm there seems to be a drop in power before resuming boosting, possibly an actuator / spring or solenoid fault ( as S J H reported with her car ) , getting it looked at soon tho, hope its only a minor blip !

What you need to remember here is, the headline figures only tell half the story. Let me tell you about my old Focus ST....

At first, when the car was basially standard, it was treated to a Superchips Bluefin...according to superchips that would give me around 255bhp (225 standard) and the car was certainly quicker. Over the next few months I added a full exhaust with decat, large intercooler, and closed induction kit. At this point the car was perfect for the Graham Goode Racing superchips map, which was specifically designed with those mods in mind, Again, there was a noticable improvement in performance

Fast forward around 6 months, and there was a new kid on the scene, in the form of a company called Dreamscience...they claimed to have full access to the ECU and could change every setting, where the current tuners could only access basic functions...well didn't that sound like a load of bull....

As I was quite involved with the ST scene at the time, I was invited to their HQ in Hull to have the car reflashed with their new generic map for standard cars, for which they were claiming 271bhp. I was pretty sceptical it's fair to say, but when I took their demo car out, which was standard other than the map, it felt about as quick as mine, although it pulled better from low revs! I was pretty amazed, but not as much when they flashed the map onto my car. It simply blew the map I was running away, despite just being a generic map for standard cars! It actually used less boost, but kicked in lower and held longer. The peak torque was around 2.5k revs and held, so the car just pulled like a train! When they started to produce maps for modifed cars, it got better and better. Performance Ford tested my car at Bruntingthorpe and it recorded 0-60 in 5.7 seconds (6.7 std) and 157mph (150 std). On the rolling road, it made 291bhp an 361 lb/ft torque....a little disappointing, but we discovered it was a bit broken on the day and wasn't hitting wide open throttle due to a faulty throttle potentiometer

So for my money, ignore the headline figures...get a test drive where you can, and ask to see a rolling road graph. A nice flat torque curve and linear power line will be better than a peaky headline power figure any day of the week

I had a long chat with the owner and he told me several things:
 
- a basic remap will get you to around 160-165bhp
- with a remap only, and an airfilter, you can get 180bhp max.
- with a remap, air filter and custom exhaust the most you can get out of the engine is around 190 bhp.
- there is almost no chance of a service wiping a remap; he's been doing them for years and years and has never had that happen. He also said he'd be happy to replace it for free if it did get erased.

If I may ask, who is that company that you are talking to?

The remap only figure sounds about right to me...
An airfilter on a further unmodified car (so remap + airfilter/induction) as the A500, will never bring additional 15bhp though, hence why the expression probably is "max 180".
If the airfilter brings any measurable advantage it will be in the lower single digit figures, not only my experience on a variety of cars, but also the general experience here with different tuners.

I doubt that 190bhp will be achievable without further hardware modifications.

If you proof me wrong the better it is though

Well here is my thoughts based on previous cars I've modded.

Standard cat-back abarth exhaust system, the bore is plenty for 200bhp let alone 135 or 160 bhp IMO. There is no resistance in this exhaust system it only has one box and two exits and is very short. The only bit worth changing is the turbo downpipe and cat to a 200 CPI sport cat with a more freeflowing bend. Putting a 3" drainpipe on a 1.4 turbo is way overkill and a waste of money. Although it's said turbos like less back pressure there is no benefit to doing it on this car with the standard turbo.

If you want 200 bhp from this car, you need the punto's bigger turbo and its injectors. Then a remap will yield much greater results and it will be worthwhile upgrading the intercooler.

I'm sure if someone got the prices from fiat, we could buy the turbo, injectors and manifold for a cheap price, then add a remap. job done.

In my Vauxhall days everyone was upgrading to VXR turbo's. A VXR turbo and manifold only cost me £445 brand new with fitting parts.

Oh yeah and induction filters, sorry waste of time - the GTT one looks OK but not worth the money at all.

Good to see, that I am not the only one with some doubts...
I have modified quite a few of my own cars, and think I have some sort of experience in it

It's pretty much possible to remap the Abarth to 210 bhp with standard hardware, but I am not sure how long that would work

Quote from: corsa on January 27, 2012, 02:19:48 PM

Good to see, that I am not the only one with some doubts...
I have modified quite a few of my own cars, and think I have some sort of experience in it

It's pretty much possible to remap the Abarth to 210 bhp with standard hardware, but I am not sure how long that would work

I disagree, sorry, I don't think the standard turbo will ever break 200bhp no matter how you map it, I'd be happy for someone to prove me wrong.

Maybe my post was a bit wrong...
What I meant is that you can get the 200bhp, but that this will only work for about 400 yards

I fully agree with you there Daron that some figures are not achievable with a certain configuration...

As daron says i dont think no matter how you map it you'll be able to get over 200 hp - the point isnt to deliver as much boost to the engine rather the most oxygen. Past a certain point the turbo will just be blowing very hot air which will actually decrease the amount of oxygen going to the engine and subsequently power. Corsa, get some pics of your hypermotard up - 

Turbolad - The standard exhaust system is inefficient to say the least - the backbox can flow a reasonable amount but the standard cat and centre section if changed will show and improvement on a standard car let alone one that has been tuned and thus needs to void more gases. The centre section is narrow but is further crushed down just at the point after it connects to the cat where there is an oxygen sensor. So even though the rest of the pipe after that is wider (still narrow) backpressure has already been created by the crushed section at the front. The g-tech is 70mm which is 2.75 inches- slightly surplus to requirements but with a turbo wont matter as it simply wont increase power any further not reduce it