Hi All,
I recently purchased a 2020 Abarth 595 esseesse for something to do during the lockdown and have spent some time over the past few months modifying the car.
I thought I would share my experience with the car over and my non-mechanical thoughts on the modifications I have carried out.
The stock figures for the car is 180bhp and 184lbs of torque, which is plenty going through the front wheels, the LSD on the car handles the power superbly and accelerating out of the corners is great fun.
Even when stock, the Akrapovic exhaust is loud! If you Rev the car between 2700-3000 rpm in third, put your foot down and release the pedal in sports mode it roars (maybe a little too much).
On to the modifications:
Forge Induction Kit - This was the first mod installed, great quality piece of kit, not too difficult to install and as you may know you do have to cut the scuttle cover to install. The positives for this kit is also its negative, the noise, it makes a great whooooosh noise as it sucks the air through the scuttle, however I can see how some people could get annoyed with this after a while, especially if just driving around town. Keeping the car in normal mode opposed to sports mode does help with quieting the induction at lower revs.
Forge Blow Off valve - always thought these sounded awesome, but again it’s personal taste, from what I read this can help prevent back pressure on the turbo (maybe wrong) and prevents turbo chatter.
Forge Turbo Actuator - very easy to install, went with two turns of the actuator rod for the pretension setting. Looks very aesthetically pleasing compared to the original. I went for the diaphragm and standard green spring. I did notice that the boost gauge was reading higher after this mod and it felt it was holding boost better at higher revs.
TMC 200 Cell sports cat - Removing the old cat was the most difficult part, had to remove the heat shield first before being able to pull it free. Note that you cannot install the factory heat shield back on. Also I noticed after installing the sports cat the the idle tick over was a little lumpy (someone out there maybe able to let me know why)
Forge Turbo Heat shield - this works very well, my only annoyance with this is it is not very compatible with the sports cat as the bottom fixings screw onto the heat shield of the original downpipe which is no longer there. It does fit, just not that well.
Now for the interesting part, I took the car to Tune4Performance today and had it remapped. Noting that the car is 180/187 stock, with the parts installed without remap the car was already running 205bhp and 230 torque. Tony did say that he has had a stock esseesse on the Dyno which was running 190, therefore the parts above appear to be giving between 25-15bhp increase without a map.
I went for a remap with Tune4Performance and managed to get 220bhp and 260 torque, which is still a good amount of extra power, can definitely feel the difference and feel like I am being pushed back into my seat a bit more.
Anyway very happy with the car! The next mod will be a FMIC, although not sure if I should go for the Airtec or Forge?
Will post the dyno figures once Tony sends them over.
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