Since the harassment my gearbox is giving me at the moment, I was looking around for some other cars, the 1.3 felicia looks tasty enough (more bhp (well in theory... more on that later) and less 0-60 too) but I have a fair few questions

1. There are two versions of 1.3 ? 54 and 68 bhp as far as I can work out, and have worked out that the former is the spi and the second the mpi or hpi or dvla or somesuch Is there a way to tell what heat a car is packing either from the model (lxi glx etc) or from the year of manufacture?

2. How easy would it be to, erm, "improve" the performance a wee bit? I do believe the 1.3 is a skoda engine (not VW as per the 1.6 and 1.9D), and as such tuning parts may be a bit more difficult to find? However I have heard tales of 100bhp+ being achieved (throttlebodies anyone?). How realisitic is this or would I be spending a vast amount of dollar to get this done?

3. Tow bars. Not sexy, but damn practical, especially for carting big and shiny bikes about the country (worth anywhere from 1.5 to 3x the cost of the car usually ) I have one on my diseasel, can I carry this across (assuming the mountings are present on all chassis?) wiring is the main issue with this I can see...

right, well thats a fair few brain teasers muchas graciâs to all the kinda boys and girls who put up with my incessant asking of questions, as ever!

peace & love... peace & love... :hug:

I think pre 98 cars have the 67BHP 1.3 in SPI guise

Facelift cars have the L 54BHP 1.3

and the LXi above has the 68BHP Both are MPI engines.

there's a member on here called fruitbat who is the best person to talk to about putting throttle bodies on a 1300, but tbh it's prohibitively expensive

and the LXi above has the 68BHP Both are MPI engines.

The LXi is the one to have then?

tbh it's prohibitively expensive

Ahh that's not what I wanted to here Still... asking is free... I might have to chase him up...

there is a site two sites that i found in the internet that talk about improving the 136-136 skoda engines.

Tuning Skoda Estelles and other wastes of time...

(cant find the other one)

mi engine (135 w/ carburetor no cat) is suposed to have 1:8.8 ratio on the compresion, i think (dont know how sure i am on this one) that by doing a head skim or replacing the pistons one can bring the compresion to 1:9.6 or een 1:10 without changin the octane thus improving the performance of the engine.

setting the valve clearance to 0.25mm all arround provide a small boost in FE and power since there is more back presure generated by the retarded valve timing, i guess if you reduce the intake to 0.20mm (that would be invert from stock on cars with alloy rods) you would gain more hp by intake scavenging thou you would have to increase the idle to 900 or 1000rpm.

putting 4 bike carbs can give you a boots, a lot of people do that here but that means that you would have to fabricate your manifold

polishing the intake / exhaust and incresing the valve diameter also might help (with some stiffer springs)

but anyways, i'm not a mechanic, and those are thing out of the top of my head