Eurocompulsion Performance Intakes Official Thread

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Greg

Discussion Starter · Sep 29, 2016

2

Eurocompulsion is releasing THREE new performance intake systems for the Fiat 124 and Abarth 124. I'll go over all of them in detail in this thread. Here is a brief overview:

Greg

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ameridan

· #21 · Sep 30, 2016

In the V4 pic, the plastic engine cover is off. Is that required / suggested as part of the mod?

Just curious as to what is mounted on the washer bottle. Is that the EDL, or part of your monitoring setup?

[email protected]

· #22 · Sep 30, 2016

ameridan said:
In the V4 pic, the plastic engine cover is off. Is that required / suggested as part of the mod?

Just curious as to what is mounted on the washer bottle. Is that the EDL, or part of your monitoring setup?

Yes, that is the EDL mounted on the washer reservoir.

The engine cover just happened to be off at the time of these photos. It fits while the intake is installed with no problem, and it will have no effect on the intake or installation of the intake.

Greg

Discussion Starter · #23 · Sep 30, 2016

PureAdrenaline said:
Just ordered the V4 in black. Thanks for all the info Greg.

Thanks for ordering, you are the very first!

Greg

Reactions: 2

Sonny Burnett

· #24 · Oct 6, 2016 (Edited)

I am curious to know how your intakes are showing gains, adding CAI's to forced induction usually show little if any gains at all as input temps are irrelevant as the turbo itself is powered by exhaust gases.

Greg

Discussion Starter · #25 · Oct 6, 2016 (Edited)

Sonny Burnett said:
I am curious to know how your intakes are showing gains,

Hi Sonny. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have.

Sonny Burnett said:
adding CAI's to forced induction usually show little if any gains at all as input temps are irrelevant as the turbo itself is powered by exhaust gases.

Temps are absolutely not irrelevant. Let's think this through, every single manufacturer of turbocharged vehicles ducts cold air to the turbo inlet. This includes not only Fiat, but Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Maserati, Porsche, Ford, Dodge, Hyundai and all the others. There is a pretty good reason they are all doing that. As a more directly relevent example, look at the Fiat factory Rally 124. It uses a cold air intake that's quite similar to our V4, the factory's 500 Abarth rally car does as well. Just about all the race cars in the major leagues duct cold air to the intakes, including Nascar, Indy cars, WRC cars and so on.

So why do all the manufacturers do it this way. It's not because I told them too. It's because they know that relatively cool air to the turbo is an advantage. The turbo adds a lot of heat to the air. Adding a certain amount of heat to 80F air is going to results in lower temperatures that adding that same amount to 120F air. Cooler air is more dense and keeps the engine further from the knock threshold allowing for more aggressive timing.

The other factor, and it's an even bigger one is pressure. Low pressure at the turbo inlet means relatively low density and the turbo has to spin faster to make up for it. It's harder for the turbo to generate a given amount of pressure in the intake manifold if it's starts with a lower amount. In other words, it's a little easier to raise manifold pressure to 35.7psi with 21 pounds of turbo boost when you start with 14.7psi at the inlet. If you start with 14.2 the turbo has to spin faster to get you up to the same value because it starts with less. When the turbo spins slower to generate the same amount of manifold pressure it's generally more efficient resulting in lower discharge temps and lower exhaust backpressure.

So the answer to your question of how our intakes make more power is this. I'll use the V4 in this example. It takes cool air from the same spot as the factory intake, but keeps it cooler by minimizing it's exposure to engine bay heat in two ways. First the air takes a more direct path to the turbo, thus is in the intake for less time, second silicone insulates the air from the engine compartment very well and we use silicone that's thicker than the factory rubber and plastic. Third, the pressure losses through the factory intake are significant. It's designed that way largely in the interest of noise reduction (that's pretty typical in modern cars). The pressure losses through our intakes, and especially through the V4 are much lower.

Greg

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Greg

Discussion Starter · #26 · Oct 6, 2016

Oh, one more thing. I also want to point out that the actual pressure and temperature values for all of our intakes and for the stock intake are on our site. Just go to https://shopeurocompulsion.net/collections/fiat-124 and click on any of the intakes you see there and you will find the charts.

Greg

Abarth124

· #27 · Oct 6, 2016

looking good!

PureAdrenaline

· #28 · Oct 6, 2016

5

Greg said:
Thanks for ordering, you are the very first!

Greg

Here are some pics of the first V4 install. First pic is what you remove from the car. Once I got it sorted out with Greg it was no big deal to install. First impressions are the fit and finish are excellent. Getting ready to go for a drive . I will follow up shortly.

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Greg

Discussion Starter · #29 · Oct 6, 2016 (Edited)

Thanks! That's the first Black V4 ever on a 124! I think it looks great.

The only anomaly I see is that you have the ram-air tube shoved pretty far onto the factor's fresh air duct. It will line up a little more nicely if it's not on quite that far. No big deal though, it will work fine either way. I'll post pictures of that in the instructions soon.

Greg

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PureAdrenaline

· #30 · Oct 6, 2016 (Edited)

Greg said:
Thanks! That's the first Black V4 ever on a 124! I think it looks great.

The only anomaly I see is that you have the ram-air tube shoved pretty far onto the factor's fresh air duct. It will line up a little more nicely if it's not on quite that far. No big deal though, it will work fine either way. I'll post pictures of that in the instructions soon.

Greg

Thanks Greg...I thought it was up a little farther than what you said but it seemed to like it there so I left it so I could get out and drive it. I'll pull it back to match the instructions when you get them up.

First drive impressions...

Turbo seems to spool up a little quicker as the power comes on a little stronger. Throttle response seems to be better also. Seat of the pants HP/Torque of 10 or less are always hard to tell but I would say it is there. Important for me is spool up and throttle response plus the cooler charge air meaning you loose less Hp/Torque when it gets hot and the computer starts to pull fuel/timing/boost to protect the engine from detonation. A winner all around.

As far as sound...

I do hear the turbo now when you could not before. You get the typical whine/whistle when the turbo really starts to wind it up. Mostly in the upper rpms. I like it...now I know its not a normally aspirated engine. Not too loud just enough to let you know its there. If you don't like that kind of sound I would go with the V1 and keep the stock air box as it does a fine job of muffling the sound.

Now I can't wait to get the euro-drive lite...should be here tomorrow

.

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AirCavHokie

· #31 · Oct 6, 2016

So about $35 per additional HP and $30 per addition ft-lb of torque. Is that typical for intake mods?

Greg

Discussion Starter · #32 · Oct 6, 2016

AirCavHokie said:
So about $35 per additional HP and $30 per addition ft-lb of torque. Is that typical for intake mods?

You really have to look at it on a percentage basis. For example adding 10hp to a 160-170hp engine is a lot more meaningful than adding 10hp to a 400hp engine. I do think the gains are pretty good, but look around and form your own conclusions. There are plenty of fair comparisons in the 500 Abarth world because it has essentially the same engine.

Greg

AirCavHokie

· #33 · Oct 6, 2016

Greg said:
You really have to look at it on a percentage basis. For example adding 10hp to a 160-170hp engine is a lot more meaningful than adding 10hp to a 400hp engine. I do think the gains are pretty good, but look around and form your own conclusions. There are plenty of fair comparisons in the 500 Abarth world because it has essentially the same engine.

Greg

Agree on the percentages. It looks like your V1, V2, and V4 offer 6%, 9%, and 13% HP increases respectively. 3%, 4%, and 7% increases in Torque (TQ [ft-lb]). So perhaps dollars per percent increase would be a better measure.

V1: $45.13/%HP; $56.87/%TQ
V2: $48.81/%HP; $66.78/%TQ
V4: $39.53/%HP; $50.09/%TQ

Good stuff.

Greg

Discussion Starter · #34 · Oct 7, 2016

That's not a bad way to look at it. It makes the V4 look like the best deal.

Greg

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Greg

Discussion Starter · #35 · Oct 7, 2016

PureAdrenaline said:
First drive impressions...

Turbo seems to spool up a little quicker as the power comes on a little stronger. Throttle response seems to be better also. Seat of the pants HP/Torque of 10 or less are always hard to tell but I would say it is there. Important for me is spool up and throttle response plus the cooler charge air meaning you loose less Hp/Torque when it gets hot and the computer starts to pull fuel/timing/boost to protect the engine from detonation. A winner all around.

As far as sound...

I do hear the turbo now when you could not before. You get the typical whine/whistle when the turbo really starts to wind it up. Mostly in the upper rpms. I like it...now I know its not a normally aspirated engine. Not too loud just enough to let you know its there. If you don't like that kind of sound I would go with the V1 and keep the stock air box as it does a fine job of muffling the sound.

Thanks for that review. I'm glad you noticed improved turbo spool up and throttle response.

Greg

JFernald

· #36 · Oct 7, 2016

Greg said:
Thanks for ordering, you are the very first!

Greg

I ordered the black V1 yesterday. I'm thinking it will work nicely with my Euro-Drive Lite - Dynamic. I'm also considering a mild exhaust modification. I'm not a racer, just want it to be a bit sportier. Any thoughts?

Sonny Burnett

· #37 · Oct 7, 2016

Greg said:
Hi Sonny. I'll be happy to answer any questions you have.

Temps are absolutely not irrelevant. Let's think this through, every single manufacturer of turbocharged vehicles ducts cold air to the turbo inlet. This includes not only Fiat, but Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Maserati, Porsche, Ford, Dodge, Hyundai and all the others. There is a pretty good reason they are all doing that. As a more directly relevent example, look at the Fiat factory Rally 124. It uses a cold air intake that's quite similar to our V4, the factory's 500 Abarth rally car does as well. Just about all the race cars in the major leagues duct cold air to the intakes, including Nascar, Indy cars, WRC cars and so on.

So why do all the manufacturers do it this way. It's not because I told them too. It's because they know that relatively cool air to the turbo is an advantage. The turbo adds a lot of heat to the air. Adding a certain amount of heat to 80F air is going to results in lower temperatures that adding that same amount to 120F air. Cooler air is more dense and keeps the engine further from the knock threshold allowing for more aggressive timing.

The other factor, and it's an even bigger one is pressure. Low pressure at the turbo inlet means relatively low density and the turbo has to spin faster to make up for it. It's harder for the turbo to generate a given amount of pressure in the intake manifold if it's starts with a lower amount. In other words, it's a little easier to raise manifold pressure to 35.7psi with 21 pounds of turbo boost when you start with 14.7psi at the inlet. If you start with 14.2 the turbo has to spin faster to get you up to the same value because it starts with less. When the turbo spins slower to generate the same amount of manifold pressure it's generally more efficient resulting in lower discharge temps and lower exhaust backpressure.

So the answer to your question of how our intakes make more power is this. I'll use the V4 in this example. It takes cool air from the same spot as the factory intake, but keeps it cooler by minimizing it's exposure to engine bay heat in two ways. First the air takes a more direct path to the turbo, thus is in the intake for less time, second silicone insulates the air from the engine compartment very well and we use silicone that's thicker than the factory rubber and plastic. Third, the pressure losses through the factory intake are significant. It's designed that way largely in the interest of noise reduction (that's pretty typical in modern cars). The pressure losses through our intakes, and especially through the V4 are much lower.

Greg

I will give you that your product more than likely flows better than the OEM piece it doesn't look to be the greatest. I'm still sticking to my statement that inlet temps are irrelevant, unless of course you're feeding your intake with a dyno fan lol.

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JFernald

· #38 · Oct 7, 2016

Sonny Burnett said:
I will give you that your product more than likely flows better than the OEM piece it doesn't look to be the greatest. I'm still sticking to my statement that inlet temps are irrelevant, unless of course you're feeding your intake with a dyno fan lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCi2yo4UqPI

To keep it simple, intake temperatures do matter. The object of turbocharging is to cram more fuel and oxygen into the combustion chamber, resulting in more power per stroke. It is fact that cooler air has more oxygen molecules per cubic inch than warmer air. It is that simple.

Sonny Burnett

· #39 · Oct 7, 2016 (Edited)

JFernald said:
To keep it simple, intake temperatures do matter. The object of turbocharging is to cram more fuel and oxygen into the combustion chamber, resulting in more power per stroke. It is fact that cooler air has more oxygen molecules per cubic inch than warmer air. It is that simple.

Exactly, at the throttle body, not at the inlet of the turbo.....Which the video more or less shows. This is why we have intercoolers.

JFernald

· #40 · Oct 7, 2016

The guys at Mighty Car Mods probably messed up the air flow by using corrugated tubing.

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