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Old 30-04-2005, 11:42 AM
Whittler Whittler is offline
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Default Fiat Coupe 20v Turbo Plus Installation

I thought it would be interesting to other WI Forum members to see my installation and hear about my experiences with the Aquamist System 2D.

Firstly I would really like to thank Richard, who without all the time he spent answering my questions and assisting with tuning my car the results I have achieved would not have been possible. And to Paul and Dave at PTS - Luton who did the installation of the Aquamist and re-mapping of my Unichip to obtain great results .

Background Info
A standard Fiat Coupe 20VT produces 220BHP and 228 lb/ft torque out of the factory and as it weighs in at 1310Kg its performance is pretty good; 0-60 in 6s, top speed 155mph. It has a 2 litre, 5-cylinder turbo-charged engine (Garrett GT28) with wing mounted intercooler to provide limited charge cooling. It's front wheel drive with a viscous coupling (a form of simple LSD and traction control) to prevent the usual FWD torque steer and get the traction down on to the road. The Fiat Coupe was (and some say still is) the fast production FWD car ever produced

However you always want a little bit more, and many Coupe owners are now tuning their cars to very high powers.

My Fiat Coupe 20VT Plus


I have been steadily adding more mods to my car over the years of ownership, the is the list of additions to date:

*** Engine ***
Turbo Dynamics GT28r ball bearing turbo
3" turbo down-pipe
Forge DV006 Dump Valve
Torque Italia stainless steel straight induction pipe and RamAir cone filter
Pace front-mounted intercooler
Miltek hi-flow race cat
SuperSprint exhaust system
Denso Iridium IK22 spark plugs

*** Electronics ***
Dastek Unichip with electronic wastegate controller mapped onto Novitec ECU chip
Blitz SBC-iD III with Dual Solenoid valve
ERL Aquamist System 2d, with dual mapped Unichip (running 50:50 Water:Methanol)
Racelogic Traction Control

*** Suspension and brakes ***
KYB Ultra shock absorbers all round
RedDot grooved and cross drilled front disks and RedDot fast road pads

Reaching the limits
Even with all my growing list of mods my car would not achieve more than about 260BHP and 250 lb/ft torque, which was frustrating, it seemed that I had reached the limit of my current set of mods. At the rolling road session where these results were obtained the dyno operator said that I had problems with both in-take and exhaust restrictions and maybe charge temperatures. I decided that I would have to resolve these by having a custom made stainless steel straight induction pipe with RamAir cone filter fitted to satisfy the intake problems and a custom made 3" turbo down-pipe fitted to resolve the exhaust problem, both supplied and fitted by Torque Italia, an excellent Fiat Coupe tuning specialist based in South London. I also decided that an Aquamist system me allow to reach my tuning goal of 300+ BHP and keep the charge temperatures in check as well.

Research and Development
I had been interested in Aquamist for many years and after a little internet research and contacting Richard I found out that my Dastek Unichip could be interfaced with the Aquamist WI to provide some interesting tuning opportunities. Initially I thought that the System 2C would be my best option as the High Speed Valve (HSV) can be controlled by the Unichip. After contact Richard it became apparent that the System 2d was the better choice as it provided more sophisticated operation when interfaced with the Unichip and some essential fault sensing as well.

After buying my System 2d I visited the ERL Aquamist factory in Peacehaven as a guest of Richard. He was keen to look over my car and offer his advice and guidance for installation and set up. It was a great day out and resulted in Richard and I determining an ideal mounting postion for the Aquamist components and the prototyping of a bracket there and then . Also it gave Richard plenty of other things to think about too (he's un-stoppable once he gets going :wink: )

The following images are of the installation on my car:

The prototype bracket and racepump in-situ


The System 2D components mounted behind the wing panel


Close-up of racepump, manifold and relays


WI water tank, HSV (centre of pict), supply filter, tubing to WI injector


Close-up of HSV (foreground) and WI Injector in the inlet tract piping


View of engine bay


Tuning and Results
Following my visit to the Aquamist factory I had to find a competent garage to install and re-map my Unichip to take advantage of the Unichip/Aquamist combo, there are very few tuning centres that are able to offer this type of service and after consulting with Richard I selected PTS in Luton because there were willing to install a System 2d and map my Unichip, and had already succesfully completed two Unichip/System 1S installation on friends Fiat Coupes. So I booked myself in for the work to be done.

One of the good features about the Unichip is it's ability to store two maps; a second timing map can be created in addition to it's standard (everyday) map and this can be used to provide more aggressive timing when the Aquamist is injecting water. Richard had been in contact with Paul @ PTS to discuss this dual-map option and had also been in contact with Dastek (Unichip manufacturers) to work out how this could be utilisied to best adantage. Richard also offered to go to PTS on to assist with the tuning of my car and to gather some more information about the Fiat Coupe 20VT with Aquamist System 2D.

My car spent a whole day on the rolling road (Paul told me about 12 hours in all) and both Paul and Richard were able to try many things and take loads of reading from all over the car. Much of the time was spent experimenting with the Unichip and Aquamist set up trying to squeeze the most performance out of the car. I didn't manage to see the car on the rolling road however it was described to me that it looked like something in an intensive care unit, there was that many wires, cables, sensors, meters and oscilloscopes connected to it.

I?m sure that you want to see the dyno graphs and know the final result now??

323.1 bhp @ 6307 rpm / 288.5 lb/ft @ 4872 rpm this was with water injection on, boost was set to 1.3 bar (18.8 psi)

Power Graph


Torque Graph


The graphs show 4 dyno-plots on each:

Red ? 288.6 bhp @ 6000 rpm / 269.4 lb/ft @ 5084 rpm
This was with no water injection and was the base map of my Unichip. This was was interesting as it was the first time on the rollers since having the intake and exhaust mods carried out, in combination they increased my power from 259 BHP to 288 BHP and torque from 250 il/ft to 270lb/ft, a worthwhile mod in it's own right .

Green ? 306.3 bhp @ 6137 rpm / 277.7 lb/ft @ 5241 rpm
This was the one of several runs with water injection on but not yet optimized

Purple ? 313.2 bhp @ 6430 rpm / 281.8 lb/ft @ 5110 rpm
This was the best run of the long day with water injection on and the ignition map optimized; the car was quite hot when this was done after many hours on the rollers.

Black ? 323.1 bhp @ 6307 rpm / 288.5 lb/ft @ 4872 rpm
This was the final run carried the following morning once the car had cooled over night.

Exceeding Expectations
The final results with WI working and the Unichip optimised are very pleasing and exceeded my expectation in dramatic style (thanks Richard :wink: ).

The final set up is that I run a 50:50 methanol:fuel mix and a single 1.0mm WI injector mounted between my front-mounted intercooler outlet and the intake plenum. The Unichip has two maps stored, one without and one with WI on; the second map is a more agressive timing map were the ignition has been advanced to take into account the anti-knock effects of the methanol:water mix. The methanol is also preventing my air:fuel ratio becoming lean at high RPM as it becomes part of the combustion process and increasing the RON rating of the fuel. The reason for this is that my injectors are now nearing their limit of fuel delivery .

When driving, the Aquamist is set to operate at 10 psi and/or 2800rpm, so as you accelerate the rpm rises, the turbo spools up, the little LED on the Aquamist FIA amp lights up, the Unichip swaps to it's second timing map and away you go . If you are cruising in high gear (sixth on my car) you can put you foot down, the Aquamist comes in and it feels as if you have engaged another gear...it's great .

In terms of the cooling effect of the WI I hope that Richard can add some more details but I believe he told me that at one stage during the rolling road session the charge temperature was reaching 75deg C :shock: (it had been on the rollers a long time!), when the WI engaged the charge temperature dropped to about 43deg C. This is an amazing reduction. So in normal everyday UK temperatures lower charge temps can be expected.

Aquamist really works, I'm very satisfied
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  #2  
Old 30-04-2005, 01:16 PM
meetmrglock meetmrglock is offline
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Default Re: Fiat Coupe 20v Turbo Plus Installation

Quote:
Originally Posted by Whittler
I thought it would be interesting to other WI Forum members to see my installation and hear about my experiences with the Aquamist System 2D.
well done, whittler!
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  #3  
Old 02-05-2005, 11:35 AM
Richard L Richard L is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2003
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Whittler. thank you for posting such a detail description of your setup on the system2d.

I would like to add some details on my very short involvement (one day) on the long tuning history of this car.

I got involved in Whittler's car purely by necessity rather than by accident.

It went back a few months when the Fiat Coupe Forum engaged on an Aquamist group buy. Here is a brief history what actually happened.

One of the participants (Tom) have had a system2d installed and tuned by a regular tuning company known well within the group, almost immediately after the group buy. The result of the tune was subsequently posted to the forum and the result was very disappointing. When the 2d was switched on, it gave NO power increase, a small inlet temperature drop was recorded.

I was made aware of this post and submitted my view on the result of this particular tune. As a manufacturer, we have a duty to our customers that they should get the best "after sales support" possible since they have put faith and investment on your product.

A week before this tune, I made a call to the tuning company as most of the forum members who bought the Aquamist was planning to book a Aquamist "group install and tune" with this company. A much involved conversation on the phone with the tuner on how to best tackle and get the best possible result from the aquamist. He agreed that and understood the basic principle of tuning with water injection, he have had previous experience with Aquamist and assured me that he knew exactly what to do.

Tom's tuning result was disappointing because the tuner refused to tune with water injection on the grounds that the engine is endangered if water injection fails. This topic was discussed in depth during the telephone conversation and a wiring diagram was posted to the Forum long before the group buy to show how the "failsafe" mechanism can be incorporated - absolutely no reason for not implementing the water injection tune.

Meanwhile another members posted a positive result on the same Forum but using another tuning company who was willing to wire up the suggested Aquamist/Unichip interfacing circuitry, after a RR tune, it has gained a noticeable power and torque increase. I recalled that there was no fuel trim but only modified the ignition timing curve when water injection was detected. The tune was on a relatively small nozzle and I think potential gain would be greater if a large nozzle size was used.

A week or so later, Tom submitted another post to the Forum that he has changed his nozzle size from 0.7mm to 0.4mm - a large drop in delivery rate. In spite of this, he has made a significant gain - I think this was due to the factory engine management modifying it ignition map due to the absence of knock and inlet temperature drop and result in power and torque gain. This gain was obtained WITHOUT altering the previous "non-WI" tune.

Weeks on, there were much discussion and debate on what to do next for those who haven't yet decided how to maximise their aquamist investment. I offered my service on the forum to help tuning one of their car as an example will try my best to extract every ounce of power available with reasonble safety. Whittler volunteered and this is how the story of this thread begins.

I will post again soon as I gather together the exact details on the day when I went to PTS (performance Turbo System) to work with Paul and Dave on Whittler's car the week following his visit to our works.
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