how to guide

HOW TO GUIDE

The following “How to guides” have been supplied by various enthusiasts of the Abarth Punto Collective. The author of this website or any person named in the following suggested guides are NOT liable for any failings / damage caused by following the guides bellow.

Where you see this logo, click on it for a full instructional video.

Videos provided by Mike George an active and enthusiastic member of the Abarth Punto Collective facebook group

HOW TO DISABLE THE TRACTION CONTROL - PUNTO EVO

Quick guide on how to do the esp (traction control) disable mod On APE. This allows you to switch on / off the traction control.

Remove the plastic cover around handbrake just clips off.

You will find wires underneath.

Look for the loom going into the white box.

Find the black wire.

Cut the black wire and fit a switch in between

Switch I got was from Halfords made it easier due to having wires already attached to it.

That simple

HOW TO FIT THE MULTIAIR FILTER

The multiair unit on the Punto Evo has always been regarded as the achilles heal of the engine due to its complicated design, with many owners having to replace the unit during the ownership

The cost of this is roughly £1000 including fitting !!

some units have been known to fail at low mileage. There doesnt seem to be a rational explanation to the failure but experience suggests that regular and correct grade oil is essential. Along with the oil change, it is recommended that the filter fitted within the multiair unit is replaced as well, at least on major services. This will not gaurantee a non unit failure but certainly it will help prevent any failure

Once the cover is removed you will need a 10mm hex socket to take out the oil gauze strainer. put a rag under it as you remove it to catch the loose oil (only a little bit dribbles out)

Step 1 remove the top bolt holding the timing belt cover on....

Step 2 remove the bottom bolt holding the timing belt cover on....

The filter is located on the left hand side of the cylinder head (circled) under the timing cover.

WATCH TUTORIAL

HOW TO FIT THE DV+ VALVE

The solenoid coil itself from the factory-fitted valve is great (the ECU opens it faster than any pneumatic valve so why replace it?), but the weak point however is the valve mechanism itself. So GFB’s DV+ solves this problem by replacing just the valve parts with an anodised billet aluminium housing fitted with a brass piston machined to exacting tolerances

Sharper throttle resonse

reduced lag between gear changes

more reliable than standard factory item

Remove the plastic cover

You'll need to get the air feed pipework out of the way to access the factory BOV.

To remove the clips, I ended up using a small pair of nail pliers

I removed the air filter box to get a bit more room

So there you'll see the factory BOV

Undo the bolts (obviously)

Unplug the cable. I did this after the later stages because I couldn't figure out how to get it off right away! The yellow part locks it in place. Get that to pull back and it should pop off

VERY GENTLY ease out the piston sleeve from the factory unit. This thing is ridiculously brittle! As you can see from the picture, I broke mine before I figured out the best way to get it out which turned out to be to gently lift from under the lip BELOW the blue seal. Breaking it will not prevent you from fitting the DV+ but it will mean you won't be able to retrofit it back to factory so best to be careful!

You will also need to remove the yellow 'O' ring from the factory unit to be used in the DV+. DON'T damage it! (I forgot to take a pic of that bit but it doesn't matter, it's obvious!)

Next, put everything back together as described in the instructions pictured below:

Bolt it all back together and it should look like this

BENEFITS

HOW TO READ ECU FAULT CODES

Each time a warning light appears on the dash, warning you of a problem, the ECU stores a fault code which in turn reveals the problem. light bulb problems, low oil, etc are all self explanatory but if you are unlucky enough to get the “check engine” symbol, followed by a loss of power (limp mode) then you will need to get your car to a garage and have the fault read and cleared. This can be quite costly, just to plug in a code reader and retrieve the fault (circa £45) Even if the fault disappears on its own and the car performs normally, the faul code will still be stored until it is cleared.

There is however, a cheap and easy way to read the fault yourself and (self diagnose) for just a few pounds using your android phone and an OBD2 reader and of course it can be used as many times as you like and covers most modern cars

1. Purchase a TORQUE ELM 327 pro from amazon £12.97 (at the time of writing) as below

2. Purchase the TORQUE Pro (OBD 2 & CAR) app on google play store for £2.95 as below

3. Locate the OBD port on your Abarth Punto which is located behind the right lower dash tray

4. After removing the tray, you will find the OBD port in front with a plastic cover over it here

5. Remove the plasic cover to reveal the yellow port.

6. Plug in the OBD reader and you should get a red light

7. Open the app on your phone and enable bluetooth, connect to OBD11 Once connected you will be prompted to enter a 4 digit code. Enter 1234 and click pair. You may have to do this twice but it will connect.

8. Once connected you can access various options including the code reader (yellow engine symbol)

9. You will then be prompted to scan for fault codes

10. If there is a fault it will be listed like this. It can then be cleared from the menu.

11. As well as fault codes this device is able to give readouts such as 0-60 times,engine data such as CO2 emissions readout and much more

E C U T U N I N G

5 selectable power settings

increased power throughout the entire rev range We design our maps to make power come in sooner, make great torque gains and hold them for as long as possible. Whilst we do make great peak power increases, for most vehicles this is not the primary focus of our tuning. We aim to get the best power possible across the whole rev range to make your vehicle perform best in real world driving conditions.

Our units considerably reduce turbo lag and will make your vehicle easier and more fun to drive.

Your vehicle should make very similar power and torque gains to those quoted, though small variances from vehicle to vehicle, and from dyno to dyno are to be expected.

W H E R E F R O M ? bluesparkautomotive.com £174.99

PUNTO EVO

Torque 250 nm

WITH BLUESPARK

Torque 280 nm

Power: 165 bhp

Power: 188 bhp

PUNTO EVO SUPERSPORT

Torque 270 nm

Power: 180 bhp

WITH BLUESPARK

Torque 317 nm

Power: 198 bhp

The T-Jet engine in the AGP is fairly simple to remap as its a conventional twin cam 16v and there are numerous tuners who willdo this. However the Multiair unit found in the evo is notoriously difficult to tune due to its design of how the multiair untit controls the inlet valves. The Bluespark box is a great way to extract more power safely and can be removed. its basicly a piggy-back unit to the standard ECU and takes no more that 10 minutes to fit.

M U L T I A I R U N I T S I G N S / S Y M P O M S O F F A I L U R E

The multiair engine was designed to produce 10% more power and 15% more low down torque than a conventinal engine of the same capacity

When maximum power is required an electronically-actuated solenoid valve remains shut and the oil pressure opens the inlet valves directly according to the inlet-cam profiles, which are designed for high power at high speeds. Under partial load and/or throttle conditions the solenoid valve can be used to infinitely vary the timing of each cylinder's inlet valves to improve efficiency.

For instance, at low engine speeds and full loads the inlet valves close early and minimise the problem of exhaust gas being pushed back into the inlet tract. At partial load conditions and idling, the inlet valves are partially opened to speed the inlet charge into the cylinders. In urban running, the inlet valves open twice during an intake stroke to get better swirl and combustion of the petrol/air mix. The system will also allow some exhaust gas recirculation in certain periods to further reduce exhaust pollutants.

Every Abarth Evo owners worst nightmare is the dreaded “Multiair failure” The Achilles heal of the Multiair engine. Despite Fiat winning “Best New Engine Award 2010” and this still being a strong and spectacular engine for a 1.4, it can suffer from the death of its own success. The Multiairunit itself.

Before I delve into the signs and symptoms lets first understand how this amazing technology works:

Conventional cam operates the exhaust valves (Right) while a Hydrologically operated series of actuators open and close the inlet valves according to demands. This is essentially a variable valve timing arrangement. Fuel is then injected directly into the inlet tract.

M U L T I A I R F A I L U R E S I G N S / S Y M P O M S

The multiair unit has a built in failsafe system in which if one of the actuators is faulty, the unit will close the valve in the corosponding cylinder preventing valve to piston contact and thus protecting the engine. It is this vey action that is the first tell tale sign of multiair failure which is felt as a “misfire” This is the deliberate action of the unit tripping the system into Limp Mode

A misfire on start up could indicate a problem with the multiair unit, this can sometimes go away after a few seconds or restarting the engine. The unit could go on for many miles before again experiencing a “misfire” eventually the misfire will could be permanant and the engine will still run but in Limp Mode.

I S I T D E F I N A T E L Y M U L T I A I R F A I L U R E ?

Dont panic! there are other reasons for a misfire and its always worth exporing the alternative before going down the costly route of replacing the multiair unit. Some owners have replaced the unit only to find out its still misfiring and is actually just a spark plug broken down.

In some cases the misfire is actually a coil pack, this is quite a common failure as this is responsible for delivering the spark to the plug, these can beakdown with age and the symptoms are the same, a misfire. To find out if it is a coilpack, identify which cylinder has the misfire, for example if cylinder one has the misfire then swap over the coilpack with cylinder two. If the misfire moves to cylinder two then its the coil pack, if the misfire doesn't move, try the same with the spark plugs, again if by moving the plugs to a different cylinder the misfire moves then its the plug. If after trying that the misfire remains in the same cylinder then its probably the multiair unit itself.

Advice is to get it plugged into a diognostic which will tell you the possible cause of the misfire (multiair unit / coilpack ) and which cylinder. Below are the relevent codes and what they mean..........

P0300 - Misfiring (Generic)

P0301 - Misfiring cylinder 1

P0302 - Misfiring cylinder 2

P0303 - Misfiring cylinder 3

P0304 - Misfiring cylinder 4

P1061 Signal for cylinder 1 UniAir / MultiAir module actuation solenoid valve

P1062 Signal for cylinder 2 UniAir / MultiAir module actuation solenoid valve

P1063 Signal for cylinder 3 UniAir / MultiAir module actuation solenoid valve

P1064 Signal for cylinder 4 UniAir / MultiAir module actuation solenoid valve

C A N F A I L U R E B E P R E V E N T E D ?

In a word No.....There are no 100% sure way to stop potential failure BUT there are ways to eliminate increasing the risk of failure and its important to follow these strictly.......

1. Most importantly it is imperative that the use of the correct oil 5w 40 Selenia be used. Due to the way the Multiair functions using oil as hydrolic pressure, the unit itself is very sensitive to the correct oil. Any other grade of oil is sure to cause iminant failure

2 Avoid very short stop starts ie: starting the car for a few seconds then stopping and starting again for a few seconds. This is because the unit needs to build pressure and shutting the engine off after a couple seconds can cause inadequate pressure in the solenoid and temperately cause a misfire.

3 Change/clean the multiair filter (see above guide)