Fiat 500L Tuning

"Thanks for reading my 500L tuning guide."

A mini MPV that sold really well across Europe, came with a wide choice of engines. The 1.4 Turbojet Multiair Turbo and diesels are lively and respond very well to mods.

We review and look at 500L tuning and outline the greatest modifications. Fiat 500Ls make a good tuning project and with the ultimate modifications you can assuredly enhance your driving experience.

The 500L is a good project car to have. Plan ahead and research 500L tuning to save yourself making the usual expensive slip ups we frequently .

Our aim in engine tuning should be to increase peak power at the top end.

The best power gains come from larger engine sizes. The more you start with the bigger the return on investment so engine swaps are good value mods for small engined cars.

Engine Tuning.

The following modified parts are usually fitted by our members, decide how far you want to go before you get going.

Getting the best tuning upgrade kits for your planned usage of the car is a time and money saver. Stage 3 (competition) mods just don't work well on the road and will make the car undrivable.

Engines offered on the 500L chassis

• 0.9 L TwinAir Turbo I2 80 PS (59 kW; 79 hp) at 5,500 rpm
• 0.9 L TwinAir Turbo I2 105 PS (77 kW; 104 hp) at 5,500 rpm
• 1.4 L Fire I4 95 PS (70 kW; 94 hp) at 6,000 rpm
• 1.4 L Fire Turbojet I4 120 PS (88 kW; 120 hp) at 5,000 rpm
• 1.4 L Multiair Turbo I4 162 PS (119 kW; 160 hp) at 5,500 rpm

Diesels

• 1.3 L MultiJet II I4 85 PS (63 kW; 84 hp) at 3,500 rpm
• 1.6 L Multijet I4 (105-120ps; 104 to 120 hp) at 3,750 rpm

Transmission

• 5-speed FPT C510 manual
• 6-speed FPT C635 manual
• 6-speed FPT C635 dual-clutch automatic
• 5-speed FPT C510 Dualogic semi-auto
• 6-speed Aisin AW60T-6F25 automatic

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Stages of Tune

Stage 1 mods: Suspension upgrade (drop 30-40mm), Sports exhaust, Alloy wheels, Remap, Panel air filter, Lighter flywheel.

Stage 2 mods: Ported and polished head, high flow fuel injector, Fast road cam, fuel pump upgrades, Power/Sport clutch.

Stage 3 mods: Internal engine upgrades (pistons/head/valves), Engine balancing, Adding or upgrading forced induction (turbo/supercharger), Competition cam, Sports gearbox.

Peak power is good on competition cars but for a daily driven car you need a long torque band and perhaps extending the rev range.

In this article we shall give a brief overview to the best modifications for your car, but we'd encourage you to spend some time on the site looking into the details of each type of performance mod.A fast road camshaft proves to be one of the best NASP power modifications you can do with a single part fitted to your engine.

The exhaust & intake durations play a large part in your cars power band, but be careful here, getting this wrong can upset the idle and make the car hard to drive in traffic. You'd need to follow a camshaft upgrade with other mods and finish with a remap to fully realise your gains.

Don't forget to ramp up the fuelling when you are increasing the power - it makes the car more thirsty.

Most power losses, and erratic idling after modifications are done can usually be traced to timing or fuel delivery issues.Increasing the injectors is another beneficial modification and will deliver sufficient fuel.

A fuel pump will only deliver a finite amount of fuel, so you may need to uprate this if your injectors are demanding more fuel.

Intake and Exhaust Tuning.

Breathing mods are usually next up. Please note that WE DO NOT FIND IMPROVEMENTS WITH INDUCTION KITS, unless you have tuned your car a lot and are finding that the standard air intake has become a restriction.

Derestricting the flow of air into the engine is a primary goal of performance tuning so get a better flowing air filter if you find that the car is running lean. Induction kits can sound sporty but due to the warm air in the engine bay they will not add noticeable power and more often than not rob you of power on most cars.

Sports exhausts generally help improve air flow from the engine but do not go too big or you could will reduce the flow rate. Stick to 1.5 to 2.5 inches as a rule of thumb.

Getting the head gas flowed will help get more air into each cylinder. This is definitely a job for a pro with a flow bench. Your clutch can slip if it starts to fail and the standard clutches are only ever good for power gains of up to 46%. Fit a performance clutch to avoid power loss through the transmission. The best mods that we recommend for your 500L are Remapping or piggy back ecu, fast road cam and air intake and exhaust.

Remaps offer massive power gains on all turbo charged cars. On NASP engines the benefits are doubtful. However a chipped ECU on a NASP engine will help unleash the potential if you have done a lot of mods.

We've also seen some tuners toying with twin charging conversions and making some very high power gains.

Adding forced induction will see impressive power gains but this is usually too expensive to be cost effective. Turbos are generally harder to add than a supercharger. Turbos provide boost in exponential proportion to th engine speed and this can make mapping difficult.

Superchargers however will give a boost which is directly proportional to engine speed so is easier to map. Alternatively you could perhaps fit water injection to cut down knock.

Handling/Suspension upgrades

Handling modifications are the thing most do first for the 500L.

If you set the toe out to 1-1.7 degrees on the front, and add a little negative camber then cornering will dramatically improve.

Drop the car by as much as 21mm - 40 mm and fit sports stiffer dampers, bigger drops will need other modifications in most instances.

Alloy wheel upgrades.

Alloy wheels will help the brakes cool down and are generally less heavy than steel ones. Further improvements can be made to your cars handling with the addition of directional tread pattern tire. The downside to large alloy wheels on your 500L is that you alter your final drive ratio and this will have a detrimental effect on performance and acceleration.

Due to this fact we would advise sticking to a maximum wheel size of 16 inches, although we know some of our members have fitted larger wheels with no problems.

There is a more updated version of this Fiat 500L Tuning article on TorqueCars.com.

For more information on Tuning your car please join us in our friendly forum where you can discuss 500L options in more detail with our 500L owners. It would also be worth reading our unbiased Fiat tuning articles to get a full grasp of the benefits and drawbacks of each modification.

We need your help improving this article, so please send us your feedback in the comments box below and pass on any tips, points or facts we have wrong or have not covered.

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