Abarth SS kit

[minime911]

Hi everyone,

I'm planning now to order my SS kit by the end of this month but I would like to know if anyone in this forum has made a comparison test drive already.

There should be really good technical reasons because styling wise I think that my original wheels look better but that's a matter of taste.

I believe that the brake discs drilled or not are not stopping any better than the original ones especially on road usage and I am not too fancy about lowering the car by another 1.5 cm as I already stayed trapped a few days ago with my front bumper behind parking spot limitation that was however at the normal height.

Actually the only thing left would be the power increase that comes with the kit. There is never too much power and some additional torque is always welcome on such small charged engines. Is it really going like hell with the 160 HP or is it just a little better than the normal Abarth?

The price for the provided material I think is ok but is it really needed??:confused:

Greetings:

minime911

[.Lefteris.]

Here you go! :)
http://www.500fans.com/showthread.php?t=542

[minime911]

Here you go! :)http://www.500fans.com/showthread.php?t=542Hi Lefteris,

Thanks a lot for that really objective comment.

It's what I thought but for me I'm still planning to take it for a few reasons that are slightly different to what the kit's purpose is.
I need winter wheels as this is my daily driver.

Although I could buy steel wheels for the winter that are much cheaper than the alloy ones, it spoils the look of the car and I will drive it from All Saints till March which makes more than 4 month of time on ugly wheels.
Any good alloy's cost money, so the ones from the kit that are also for my opinion not looking as good as both type of original ones, will make the winter ones.

This is a value of about 800 to 1000 euro from the 3000 that the kit costs.
I will have a set of 4 new tires left as spares for my summer wheels as I will buy a set of winter ones. This is also about 600 euro of value.
For the brake disks I will try to convince them just not to fit them as well as the springs I prefer to keep them in the box.
The suspension is hard enough and I will not accept anything harder.
If they insist on fitting them, I will remove them again.
This leaves me either way a full set of original brake disks which I will sooner or later need for replacement when the original ones are worn.
This also costs easily 300 euro's once you buy them at the original dealership.
If you add the remap of the ecu there is not that much left to the 3000 the kit costs.
But as said, it makes not a lot of sense if you don't need a second wheel set.
There is still that feeling that Fiat tries to put their customers under pressure to buy the kit by just making it accessible only during the first year, making you believe that you missed the chance to upgrade your car to the real thing.
Fiat knows well that probably people will not fit it anymore if they find out that it gives no real advantages to the original Abarth.
The Punto SS power however could be great.

Greetings:

minime911

[.Lefteris.]

Yes, Punto SS have the right power and the 500 have the right look!
If you need the wheels , then yes, its a go, if not, then go for after market coilovers and ECU with 170hp or more with the right exhaust and filter! or larger turbo for 200+hp with the same exhaust, I may make my own SS with the right stuff with less then the 3.000euros they ask and one is for sure, it will be much better then the OEM one!
One more thing is that the St. wheel is too heavy on the sport mode and the power is to low on the standard mode.... that is the first mod that I need to do asap!

Regards

[minime911]

Hi,

Today I was at the Abarth dealer and I took an appointment to make a test drive on their SS on Monday.
As there are quite discouraging comments on the forum about the pro's and contra's of the kit, I prefer to try if I like it or not.
So, I will know better on Monday afternoon.

Greetings:

minime911

[.Lefteris.]

Hi,

Today I was at the Abarth dealer and I took an appointment to make a test drive on their SS on Monday.
As there are quite discouraging comments on the forum about the pro's and contra's of the kit, I prefer to try if I like it or not.
So, I will know better on Monday afternoon.

Greetings:

minime911
:icon_thumright:

[carolos]

:icon_thumleft:

[minime911]

Hi,

I drove the Abarth SS from the dealer this Saturday in order to evaluate if it's worth the 3000 Euro investment.
Actually the dealer had no Abarth SS but the 0 to 100 limited edition which has the same specification than the SS.

To make it short, yes, I will go for it.(With grey wheels):)

I anyway need a second set of wheels to fit winter tires.
On the short, about 20 km test drive I couldn't find any negative impact of the lowered suspension. It doesn't feel any harder than original and at a first impression it seems to behave better adjusted.
The double bump of the Abarth suspension on bad roads seems gone.
The engine is much more responsive and acceleration in mid range is really feeling better.
The maximum boost pressure is about 1.2 bars compared to the original 1.0 bar. The power increase is maybe not that much on paper but feeling wise it's a huge difference. The engine power and torque curve is exactly what it needs and it pushes from low RPM to red without hesitation.

Concerning the brakes I couldn't feel a difference as I was testing it on open road and the sales lady was sitting on the passenger seat but as I heard they should also be a little better than original.biggrin2

This week I will have the necessary data collected from my car and the kit will be ordered.
They will check the ECU storage data to see if the engine hasn't been above RPM red limit for more than one minute since engine lifetime otherwise they will refuse the SS kit. Seems that there are people out there that run on a regular base into the red limit.:eek:

The delivery of the kit might be quite fast as there is still one on stock at the dealership from a black Abarth that met a truck short after delivery and now is a write off. It didn't live long enough to get the kit installed.:(

Greetings:

minime911

[.Lefteris.]

:good_post:
Thanks for the info, mine is here for more then a month now and I only need to find the time to go and put it on, now, and after your post, I will try to fit it on asap! :icon_thumleft:

[5OO]

Hi,

I drove the Abarth SS from the dealer this Saturday in order to evaluate if it's worth the 3000 Euro investment.
Actually the dealer had no Abarth SS but the 0 to 100 limited edition which has the same specification than the SS.

To make it short, yes, I will go for it.(With grey wheels):)

I anyway need a second set of wheels to fit winter tires.
On the short, about 20 km test drive I couldn't find any negative impact of the lowered suspension. It doesn't feel any harder than original and at a first impression it seems to behave better adjusted.
The double bump of the Abarth suspension on bad roads seems gone.
The engine is much more responsive and acceleration in mid range is really feeling better.
The maximum boost pressure is about 1.2 bars compared to the original 1.0 bar. The power increase is maybe not that much on paper but feeling wise it's a huge difference. The engine power and torque curve is exactly what it needs and it pushes from low RPM to red without hesitation.

Concerning the brakes I couldn't feel a difference as I was testing it on open road and the sales lady was sitting on the passenger seat but as I heard they should also be a little better than original.biggrin2

This week I will have the necessary data collected from my car and the kit will be ordered.
They will check the ECU storage data to see if the engine hasn't been above RPM red limit for more than one minute since engine lifetime otherwise they will refuse the SS kit. Seems that there are people out there that run on a regular base into the red limit.:eek:

The delivery of the kit might be quite fast as there is still one on stock at the dealership from a black Abarth that met a truck short after delivery and now is a write off. It didn't live long enough to get the kit installed.:(

Greetings:

minime911

The fact that you need a second set of wheels makes the essesse kit a no brainer!

That's interesting to know about them refusing the kit. Good to know.

[minime911]

Hi all,

I have ordered the kit today.
They took a picture of the chassis number and the speedo milage and they also read out the memory (screenshot of the engine RPM Max exceeded data).

There was no RPM over limit, anyway I am the only one to drive this car and you could only exceed the max limit by shifting down too fast or by shifting into the wrong gear by accident.
Now I am waiting for the approval from Fiat as well as for the delivery of the kit.:icon_thumright:

Greetings:

minime911

[wreckmaster]

:congrats: :icon_thumleft:

[5OO]

Exciting!

[.Lefteris.]

:super: esseesse all the way! biggrin2

[Kertallica]

:icon_thumleft: I wish I went for that, but alas I do not have the money

[minime911]

Hi,

25th of July and still waiting for my ss kit.:mad:
Initially they promised that it will arrive pretty fast, which for my feeling would be something around one week.
After 2 weeks I called and the said that usually it takes up to 3 weeks, now after more than one month it's still not there.
Apparently they got already the bill but the 3 kits they ordered are somewhere but not there where they should.

Nothing has improved in the way Fiat treats their customers.
When I ordered the car it arrived 1 month later than initially expected.
They still had the excuse that it's all new, the brand and the distribution network as well as the cars.

But now, 9 months later you get the feeling that there are no sales crisis, at least not for Abarth and customers get served as they were in the golden years when,(except some Fiat fanatics), most of them just changed to another brand as they felt left alone.

It's not the failure of the dealership but it's the way Fiat runs the business. :hair-raising::hair-raising:

Greetings:

minime911

[.Lefteris.]

I like to see how they will do business in US with Abarths.....

[5OO]

I like to see how they will do business in US with Abarths.....

I'll let you know when the day comes.

[minime911]

Wonder why they are not on the market in the US since a long time.biggrin2

minime911

[.Lefteris.]

Wonder why they are not on the market in the US since a long time.biggrin2

minime911
:icon_thumright:

[minime911]

Hi,

I have been at the dealer today to see where my SS kit stays.
To the initial promised 2 weeks I have been waiting now additional 3 weeks.:mad: (relaxed Italian way of handling customers)

I went to see the friendly sales lady and she had the good news that there were 5 SS kits that arrived this week but the reason why they haven't called me is that all of the kits had white wheels but I ordered the grey ones.

It seems that it's a kind of lottery when they receive the ordered parts.
Sometimes it's what they ordered and sometimes it isn't.

In my case it wasn't. (As usually)lol

They expect now the arrival of my kit (Express delivery from Italy) for next Tuesday and the installation should happen on Thursday. If there are not once more white wheels in the crate....:eek:

Will see....

Greetings:

minime911

[.Lefteris.]

Tell them to put the rest of the kit on your car, they keep the white wheels and you keep yours on the car till a grey kit comes and then you take the wheels only, you have the 17'' option already! ;)

[minime911]

Hi,

Confirmed by the dealership, it's gonna be this Thursday.
Just a shame that I will only have one week left to test it before I leave for 3 weeks of summer holiday to south of Portugal, as every year since 18 years.

3 weeks of sunshine (burn), sangria and beach with wife and son. (No sangria for him but ice cream as much as he wants).

But those British singing karaoke :_ubriachi_::hair-raising::hair-raising::hair-raising:

Greetings:

minime911 in holiday mood....:yahoo:

[.Lefteris.]

lol :icon_thumright:

[wreckmaster]

Hi,

Confirmed by the dealership, it's gonna be this Thursday.
Just a shame that I will only have one week left to test it before I leave for 3 weeks of summer holiday to south of Portugal, as every year since 18 years.

3 weeks of sunshine (burn), sangria and beach with wife and son. (No sangria for him but ice cream as much as he wants).

But those British singing karaoke :_ubriachi_::hair-raising::hair-raising::hair-raising:

Greetings:

minime911 in holiday mood....:yahoo:



Sound nice with 3 weeks in Portugal:icon_thumleft: Why dont you just drive it to Portugal, then you can test it every daylol And I know exactly what you mean by those british karaoke singerslol But the finish ones ain`t any better:roflmfao:

[Kertallica]

But those British singing karaoke :_ubriachi_::hair-raising::hair-raising::hair-raising:

I can only apologise for those people lol They do sound awful!!! :eek: Someone should hit them over the head as they CAN NOT SING lol

[minime911]

Hi,

Well, it's holiday and people want to do what they can't for the rest of the year.:rolleyes:

Probably Finnish or even Luxembourgish singers are not any better but they don't show up un such large groups.lol

The 500 is too small to drive down with 3 persons and all that luggage.

We will use my wife's BMW 330D Touring for the holiday drive and even that one will be packed till the roof.:eek:

Greetings:

minime911

[VilleV]

:ahah:Well well Wrecks, you norwegians win once the eurovision song contest and immediately it starts...lol Dont mess with us or we´ll send Lordi over there and they will eat your winner for breakfast!:D Thanks Minime911 for standing up for us finns! To be honest finnish karaoke singer are usually quite bad!

Have great holiday Minime, I will definitely have one when I go to Kalymnos and Kos for three weeks on 28th!!:cool:

[.Lefteris.]

lol lol lol

[wreckmaster]

:ahah:Well well Wrecks, you norwegians win once the eurovision song contest and immediately it starts...lol Dont mess with us or we´ll send Lordi over there and they will eat your winner for breakfast!:D Thanks Minime911 for standing up for us finns! To be honest finnish karaoke singer are usually quite bad!

Have great holiday Minime, I will definitely have one when I go to Kalymnos and Kos for three weeks on 28th!!:cool:

Has nothing to do with eurovision Villelol There is a couple of things that make SOME finish people and SOME british people stand out from the rest of the crowd at the karaoke bars..... For the finish: They always choose finish songs.......which noone else understands:D For the brits: Well to be honest....they usually stand out from the rest because they get so loud and drunk......I am sorry you british people in here, but I had to be honest.... But offcourse the majority of them are very nice people, it`s the few who ruins the reputation for the rest... But I belive we Norwegians ain`t far behind when it comes to getting drunk:(:( Many of us go crazy when you suddenly are able to buy a pint of beer for 2 euros, when it in Norway costs 10 euros...sometimes even 11 and 12...

And Ville! Please dont send Lordi here to have Alexander for brekfastlollol

BTW Norway has won the eurovision three times :)

[VilleV]

:thread_jacked:Hmm, makes me wonder how you know so much about karaoke Thomas...:thinking::roflmfao:

[wreckmaster]

:thread_jacked:Hmm, makes me wonder how you know so much about karaoke Thomas...:thinking::roflmfao:

:shhhhh::_ubriachi_::eeeeek:

[.Lefteris.]

:rocker: :roflmfao:

[Kertallica]

:roflmfao: When Lordi won, I was actually amazed :eek: Not the best metal band in the world I have to say.... lol

But yes, have a good holiday minime911! :icon_thumleft:

[VilleV]

Not the best metal band in the world I have to say.... lol



You think...lol I dont think they have anything to do with metal! Pure pop for the masses.

[minime911]

Hi again,

Sorry to interrupt this discussion but its just to let you know that the kit is installed and I'll take some pictures on Saturday.
By the way, it wasn't my intention to launch a war on holiday habits of British, Scottish, Irish, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish or even Swedish tourists.biggrin2

Strange enough there are nearly no Britons commenting this, so either it's true or they are all in south of Portugal already practicing their singing skills and they have no time to follow this thread.lollol

Now to the kit, it's just perfect.
The suspension is stiff but not really hard.
The wheels have the advantage that they are quite easy to clean.
The oil and oil filter change was included in the installation and it came well on time as my car has already 10000km. I usually change oil every 10000 as the 30000 km they suggest in the manual is too long for my taste.

I got the original Pirelli tires removed from my wheels and installed on the new SS rims. The new Michelin tires were handed unmounted so I keep them as spares when the Pirelli's are gone.
The tire pressure gauge is a gimmick and the air filter is like most of that sport filters more a kind of sound tuning than a real power booster.

The ECU swap is probably the best of all.
It's not only a simple boost pressure increase but the whole behavior is somewhat changed and although the outside temperature was about 32 deg C tonight which reduces the power output of the engine, it was really feeling much better than original.
For the brakes I can't say anything as original ones are excellent too and probably the drilled ones only have advantages on track usage.

Now as everything is done I will use it for the following week and after the holiday I'll change to my Classic Mini for a few weeks as that one hasn't been on the road since last year.
100 HP less than the Abarth, but similar fun to drive.biggrin2

Greetings:

minime911

[Cadbury]

Hi again,By the way, it wasn't my intention to launch a war on holiday habits of British, Scottish, Irish, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish or even Swedish tourists.biggrin2

Strange enough there are nearly no Britons commenting this, so either it's true or they are all in south of Portugal already practicing their singing skills and they have no time to follow this thread.lollol
minime911

Apologies for not commenting but know nothing on the subject... I go on more refined holidays! Besides, I am loving the rivalry between you guys lol

[.Lefteris.]

Hi again,

................. ........................

Now to the kit, it's just perfect.
The suspension is stiff but not really hard.
The wheels have the advantage that they are quite easy to clean.
The oil and oil filter change was included in the installation and it came well on time as my car has already 10000km. I usually change oil every 10000 as the 30000 km they suggest in the manual is too long for my taste.

I got the original Pirelli tires removed from my wheels and installed on the new SS rims. The new Michelin tires were handed unmounted so I keep them as spares when the Pirelli's are gone.
The tire pressure gauge is a gimmick and the air filter is like most of that sport filters more a kind of sound tuning than a real power booster.

The ECU swap is probably the best of all.
It's not only a simple boost pressure increase but the whole behavior is somewhat changed and although the outside temperature was about 32 deg C tonight which reduces the power output of the engine, it was really feeling much better than original.
For the brakes I can't say anything as original ones are excellent too and probably the drilled ones only have advantages on track usage.

Now as everything is done I will use it for the following week and after the holiday I'll change to my Classic Mini for a few weeks as that one hasn't been on the road since last year.
100 HP less than the Abarth, but similar fun to drive.biggrin2

Greetings:

minime911
How is the power on the standard (non sport) mode, is it close to the sport mode before the kit but without the heavy steering wheel?
:congrats: on the esseessse kit! :icon_thumleft:

[wreckmaster]

:congrats: on you new SS kit Minime911:icon_thumleft: And sorry for the:thread_jacked: . Have a nice vacation in Portugal:)

[VilleV]

Yeah, sorry about jacking the thread!:D SS sounds really nice then. All I can say is I´m green from envy!biggrin2

[minime911]

How is the power on the standard (non sport) mode, is it close to the sport mode before the kit but without the heavy steering wheel?
:congrats: on the esseessse kit! :icon_thumleft:

Hi,

Yes, the normal mode feels more or less like the non SS sport mode but steering seems not that soft as it was in normal mode before.

I don't know if this is also related to the lowered suspension but probably it is adapted to the also increased normal mode power.
The normal mode was too soft steering for my taste before and accelerator force was excessive too.

The SS normal mode is perfectly drivable now and it even happens that you just forget to switch to sports mode.:icon_thumleft:

I'm sure that these refinements are not possible if someone buys a so called chiptuning except if somebody manages to copy the whole programming from an SS controller.

Greetings:

minime911

[.Lefteris.]

Thats great because (like my brother) most people dont use the sport mode because of the very heavy st. wheel at the low speeds! :icon_thumleft:

[minime911]

Thats great because (like my brother) most people dont use the sport mode because of the very heavy st. wheel at the low speeds! :icon_thumleft:

It's a sports car after all, a small one but still able to have an impressive acceleration.
I guess that they have adapted the steering force to the delivered power in order to keep it controllable.
If you have to make city jam traffic driving all day long it might well be that steering in sports mode is too heavy.
The installation of the SS kit makes steering not any softer and I believe that your brother shouldn't install the kit if he likes the original city mode.
Also the suspension is becoming very sporty which is for my feeling a good compromise between track and normal road use but it might be painful if you use it all day long on bad roads.

The best thing you might do is, to ask the dealer to take you for a test ride once he has a modified car in, that's what I did.

In that case a Panda 4X4 is the better choice.lol

Greetings:

minime911

[.Lefteris.]

:thanks2: