The Mighty Mito

"Mito Tuning"

Alfa Romeo have shaken off the old concerns about rust and reliability and have a fine reputation for producing cars that are fun to drive. The Mito is a fairly new concept from Alfa Romeo, a small fun car with cheeky styling. 

Although the styling is not to everyones taste it is winning a fair few fans. Although the car is percieved as being a bit girly we know many blokes who have bought the car for their partners only to become the main driver of it themselves.

So lets look at the best modifications for the Mito and see what we can improve upon. The range of engines is rather limited with 3 1.4 (2 were turbo charged) units and 2 diesel engines (1.3 and 1.6). Thankfully these small engines have been heavily optimised and deliver good power figures. Ideally you want a turbo based engine to tune up as these give much more return than a NASP engine.

Before we start talking about power figures we recommend that you fit a strut brace to help improve the handling. The rear torsion beam suspension is a very clever design with a stiffer setup to the rear. On sharp turns the suspension geometry gives toe out helping the car turn sharper. It takes a bit of getting used to and has been described as a little rubbery but most aftermarket mods will compromise this fine setup so TorqueCars advise you to leave well alone, unless you are seeking a competition setup and have a large budget to spend. The car loses something when the suspension is too hard.

The traction control and adaptive suspension setup combined with the electric power steering make the Mito a ground breaking car for Alfa Romeo. If they continue at this pace of development we are sure to see some stunning cars from Alfa Romeo.

Mito Engine Tuning.

Your aim when tuning should be a nice flat torque curve and a wide power band. Fast road cams offer one of the biggest performance gains as far as a bolt on part goes.

The following modifications are usually performed by our members, decide how far you want to go before you begin.

Getting the right mods for your planned usage of the car is vital. Stage 3 (competition) mods just don't work well on the road.

Stage 1 mods: Exhaust, Panel air filter, Remap, lighter flywheel

Stage 2 mods: Fast road cam, ported and polished head, fuel injector & fuel pump upgrades, 

Stage 3 mods: Engine balancing, forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), competition cam.

The next area for modification is the intake and exhaust. Stick with a washable perfromacne panel filter rather than a full induction kit . (If you really do want the sound of a full induction kit then make sure the cone filters gets a good supply of cold air.) Do not make the mistake of going with the biggest exhaust you can find this will slow up the exhaust flow rate - the best for power gains are usually between 1.5 to 2.0 inches. A sports cat will also free up some power for your Mito to exploit. 

Getting a professionally flowed head with larger valves can fully release the engines power. Your clutch can begin to let you down so if it starts to slip get an uprated clutch to avoid power losses through the transmission. Remaps offer significant power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful.

A 1.4 Turbo petrol engine is good for up to 190hp on a remap with the turbo diesel engines offering gains from 20 to 30bhp. The only downside to a remap is the need for fastidious servicing but most performance car drivers will already be using top quality service items and sticking to the service schedule.

Alfa Romeo Mito Wheel modifications.

Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are usually lighter than the steel ones. It is worth noting that although they can look cool on the Mito Big alloy wheels will actually decrease your performance. The larger you go the lower your acceleration will be - this is due to the change in your effective final drive ratio.

The added weight also affects handling, remember this is unsprung weight and you will usually end up tramlining with large wheels. Although some people have gone larger we would stick to a 17 inch rim size as the maximum anything bigger and you compromise the handling too much in our opinion.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss Mito options in more detail with our Mito owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Alfa Romeo tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

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This article is flagged for an update, so please pass on specific tips below that I can include. All articles, and content was written by me, Waynne Smith TorqueCars founder. Some outlines are just too general so I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. This entry was filed under Alfa Romeo. You can leave a response below or join our forum to discuss this article and car modification in detail with our members.

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