Ciao everyone here it's Marchettino and today we find out together 5 mods to make the Abarth 500 more spicy!
After having published the running costs video of my Abarth 500 - if you haven't seen it yet, click above -
many Abarth owners and enthusiasts have asked me to make a new video and discuss deeply about the mods of the Abarth because as already explained in the other video,
one of the best things about this car are the mods, it opens up a whole new world if you want to mod your Abarth 500 and today I wanna tell you
what are the 5 most important mods to do if you want to make your Abarth 500 even faster and enjoiable!
Let's start from the first, we won't be talking immediately about increasing the power because even though the Abarth 500 being turbo
you can increase the power easily but that's not the first mod I would do to this car but the brakes
because the Abarth 500 comes stock with a braking system that I find rather undersized,
the new Abarths have packages that already offer bigger brakes but if your Abarth or the one you want to buy has these brakes,
well you have to know it's a braking system I don't like at all.
When I bought my Abarth it had those brakes I kept very shortly because
since the beginning I noticed those brakes were too tiny and too weak for the performance of the car.
And I'm not talking when my car already had 215hp but 135.
In multiple occasions I noticed the brakes tend to get tired immediately and they didn't offer much breaking power,
in a few occasions I pushed on the brakes and felt the brake pedal kinda hard and the brakes with no power and there I realized I had to make an upgrade.
A first step to make the braking more powerful, I think as a good start you just need to replace the rotors, possibly drilled or grooved
and combining them with proper brake pads and also with brakes lines and hoses.
I did this as first step and I noticed immediately a big improvement, but then after having sensibly increased the power
I decided to make an even more important mod and replace the whole front braking system.
Damn these roads!
By fitting the Brembo brakes of the Grande Punto Abarth - after many years Abarth finally decided to offer it as option also on the Abarth 500.
I think it's a truly remarkable braking system, very powerful, big calipers that struggle to get tired.
Let's say the only defect when you increase the breaking power is the fact that by doing so you increase the breaking instability of the Abarth 500 because
it's a car rather unbalanced and if you try to slam the foot on the brakes you feel the rear that tends to be rather unstable and slidey.
See? This is what I'm talking about!
Oh well, at least you never get bored in this car!
After having improved the brakes, as second step I would improve the tires.
People tend to underestimate the importance of tires, if we think about it tires are the link between the car and the tarmac.
If we don't have good tires, we can't unleash the power and the car can't have a good handling,
with good tires we can sensibly improve not only the acceleration but also the handling and breaking.
Honestly, the stock tires of the Abarth 500 are not good to me, in fact after having finished the first set I did go for other brands
like Bridgestone and now Michelin and I'm fine with it.
I have street tires so I can easily do 30.000km with a set but if you want you can go for sportier tires like semislick that
have a shorter life but trust me, they offer remarkable performance so my tip is
don't buy cheap tires and even if you keep the car stock but you fit really good tires the difference will be huge anyway!
And guys at the end of the video once the list will be complete I will tell you also the average cost you have to run into to make all these mods to the Abarth.
So after having improved the brakes and fitted proper tires to the Abarth, it's time to pump a little the engine!
The Abarth 500 is turbo, which means with little mods you can increase the power very much!
If you don't want to make invasive mods, an ECU reflash is enough.
To all those who have the stock Abarth 500 with 135, 140 or 160hp
with a simple ECU reflash you can reach up to 170-175hp, let's say this is the limit of the original turbo.
As first step I tuned my Abarth to 175hp and I was very satisfied.
The positive side of the stock turbo is that it's small, which means it has a little turbo lag.
If you feel like 175hp is not enough for you anymore, the next step is replacing the turbo!
There's plenty of choice if you want to change the turbo of the Abarth, I did go for the Garrett1446 which is the turbo of the Tributo Ferrari.
I like the way it delivers the power, the power it offers, I like also the whistle in the acceleration and lift off!
With this configuration I have about 215hp, I remind you the chassis of the Abarth 500 is the same as the Panda so don't overdo,
don't fit turbos bigger than your house, I think 215hp is its limit, if you dare more your car will be undrivable!
If I find myself with an engine that pulls at more than 7000rpm and offers lots of power and torque,
the negative side is that obviously the turbo lag has increased.
If with the stock turbo I was able to have good power at low rpm, let's say I feel turbo lag below 2500-2800rpm
but let's say once the turbo kicks in, you forgive her everything!
Honestly I'm very satisfied of my Abarth 500 and its performance and I miss trackdays, I think I should do again trackdays with it!
If you tend to go often on trackdays or drive the Abarth in a rather sporty way,
another important modification to do is about the suspensions because
the stock suspensions I think they're terrible, to say the least!
The ride is high, too soft, the rear is too slidey, basically they are the kind of suspensions I wouldn't want on a sports car!
By replacing the spring by making it lower and stiffer you can feel the difference but if optimize the performance of this car, you would need to change completely the suspensions.
So let's make a recap of the costs, obviously the figures are indicative as I did a quick search on the internet.
Let's start from the brakes, if you want bigger Brembo brakes like mine the cost is about 1400€,
if you want to start with the first step (front disks, pads and hoses) the cost is about 370€.
Regarding the tires, it depends pretty much about the kind of tire (street or semi slick) and the cost is between 100 to 180€ per tire.
First step of power, the ECU. If you want to reflash your ECU, the average cost is between 400 to 600€.
If you want to exaggerate and change the turbo to have more power, the average cost is between 800 to 900€.
Last modification, the suspensions, if you want to change completely the suspensions the average cost is between 400 to 600€.
Abarth owners and enthusiasts, I hope to have cleared up your mind with this video,
make sure to Like it if you enjoy it, subscribe to my YouTube if you haven't yet and as always thanks for watching, ciao!