1250 fiat engine question?

[haircutmike]

Help needed.

My son killed his Punto engine and box!

It is the 8 valve carburetor 1250 engine.

We have a later fuel injected 1250 engine and box, I think that is a 16 valve unit.

Can we swap the heads to retain the carb etc or are there other diferences?

If not, does anyone know of an available earlier unit?

Peter.

[Andoo]

If I'm honest I haven't done the swap, but I should think that aside from the odd tiny upgrade, FIAT will likely be like any other manufacturer and continue to use the same short motor with the 16v head as they did with the 8v head.

My advice would be to remove the broken engine and sit it side by side with the other one and compare....it's what I do if I am faced with that situation.

Good luck and keep PH informed

[Mr2Mike]

8v and 16v engines almost always use different pistons.

[haircutmike]

Am I right in thinking I can't swap the heads then?

[stevieturbo]

how did he manage to kill the engine and box ?

Surely its one or the other that has failed in some way ?

[haircutmike]

No, not really.

You have to hit a high kerb, head on and break the bottom of the engine and box casing!!!!!!!!

Heavy rain, dark, manhole cover and he had the car 3 days, get the picture!

[Andoo]

I hate it when that happens

I had a Renault 5 Gordini turbo and lowered it (waaaaaayyyyyy before it became popular ).

Then the council thought it would be great fun to piss me off by building a bloody great hump in the road.

I clipped it at around 10mph and jammed the box in 5th gear.

Luckily it was a case of, get home, jack the car up, remove the 5th gear end plate housing and free the fork.

I had it down to a fine art after the 15 or 16th time

[Mr2Mike]

haircutmike said:

Am I right in thinking I can't swap the heads then?

I think it's unlikely, but you'd be much better off asking in a forum specialising in Fiats, e.g. http://www.fiatforum.com/

[haircutmike]

haircutmike said:

No, not really.

You have to hit a high kerb, head on and break the bottom of the engine and box casing!!!!!!!!

Heavy rain, dark, manhole cover and he had the car 3 days, get the picture!

Punto engine is in a cinqui sporting!

[Pumaracing]

Andoo said:

If I'm honest I haven't done the swap, but I should think that aside from the odd tiny upgrade, FIAT will likely be like any other manufacturer and continue to use the same short motor with the 16v head as they did with the 8v head.

My advice would be to remove the broken engine and sit it side by side with the other one and compare....it's what I do if I am faced with that situation.

Good luck and keep PH informed

There's no engine on God's green earth that uses the same short motor for 8v and 16v variants, or at least none that I've seen. The basic block might be the same but pistons will always be different as will compression ratio and usually the cam belt tensioner arrangement is different because the 16v has two cams and the 8v has one. These problems might not be insuperable if you have the requisite machine shop facilities but as for just bolting a 16v head onto an 8v bottom end or vice versa - nah.

[haircutmike]

I didn't think it would be straight forward.

We will look out for an 8v motor and box, easiest solution!

Cheers.

[wildoliver]

Actually a lot of the Audi and Porsche and I assume many of the VW engines tend to use very similar bottom ends, to the degree that heads, blocks, pistons, rods and cranks are generally interchangeable for different applications due to the twin cam heads using a secondary chain to drive the second cam off the first which utilises the same drive system (even down to same belt etc.) as the single cam version (pointless using the 8v/16v monikers as some of these engines are 10 and 20v.)

However sods law does indeed dictate that it won't be so easy as a simple head swap, it may be easier to butcher the carb on to the FI engine (assuming the ignition sides are compatible).

[wildoliver]

One thought I have had is truth be told is it not easier just to get the correct engine to start with? I assume it's the fire engine? They were fitted to a wide range of Fiats.

Or failing that and it is a free engine you could swap the blocks in the worse case scenario but it's a lot of work, then again it was painful lessons like that which taught me to calm down a bit!