After much reading and searching I see no option left but posting this question: What does it take to make 90-100 hp out of a Felicia or Fabia 1.3 or 1.4 OHV MPI engine? A camshaft, good exhaust so start with, of course, but can anyone tip on how to get this sort of power most economically? It is for a father-son project for the son's first car. So tight budget. Tips on suppliers? Czech ones who do international sales?

Many thanks in advance for any help here.

Erm well, easiest option is to forget the 1.3 and fit a 1.4 16v Polo engine. Teflon Tom is yer man to ask for advice on this I think

cam,decent headwork and port the inlet mani as much as possible, prob need a decent chip for the ecu too... also make sure you are starting with a 136(m) not a low compression 135

Erm well, easiest option is to forget the 1.3 and fit a 1.4 16v Polo engine. Teflon Tom is yer man to ask for advice on this I think

Thanks for the reply, fully appreciate your point. On our island in the Atlantic however, the excellent 100hp VAG 1.4s are not falling off fruit trees, the OHV Skodas are. Suzuki engines are readily available, for example, for transplants common for Minis.

We are, to be honest, after a "retro upgrade" for a Mini we are modifying considerably under the skin but would like to keep a "link to the past" engine-wise. The old all-ally Skodas are very light, very compact, fit excellently under the teensy hoodling of a Mini and have many similarities to the BMC A- series apart from ridiculous weight and deplorable engineering. Taken from a later Felicia or early Fabia the old OHV is, apart from output ,quite up-to-date. MPI injected including distributorless ignition etc. The Skoda OHV has decades of budget tuning expertise available that I just haven´t managed to access from here in Iceland.

I once made one on a 0 budget for my 130 RWD rallycrosser (porting by the eye, flywheel turned down, hand-me-down Simca carbs, home made manifold, nothing else), and it did a David on 2liter 16v Goliaths.

Hope this clears matters, and someone can points us in a nice direction.

cam,decent headwork and port the inlet mani as much as possible, prob need a decent chip for the ecu too... also make sure you are starting with a 136(m) not a low compression 135

Thanks for this, the inlet manifold seems well engineered for its daily purpose, but looooong runners. I have the capacity to make a new manifold, but would rather like to use the time for other things. So: Is the inlet manifold a restriction worth replacing? I.e. 10 hp+? The head will be skimmed and we aim for 10:1 compression, I used 11.5 for the rallycrosser Felicia carb engine on 100 octane fuel. This is a daily driver for 95 octane.

We have still not found a vendor for computer mods for a modified motor, or enough info on cams and where to buy them. Any tips on a dynoed engine giving 90-100 hp and what it took? Vendors? Independent tests? Threads on Briskoda I've missed? Thanks.

look up extrude honing (or abrasive flow machining) on wikipedia, that's a very good way of porting manifolds as it gets into all the impossible to reach areas, i'm going to be sending mine off to be done in a couple of weeks

look up extrude honing (or abrasive flow machining) on wikipedia, that's a very good way of porting manifolds as it gets into all the impossible to reach areas, i'm going to be sending mine off to be done in a couple of weeks

ThanksTom, it's known to me being available in the States at substantial cost. Making up my own will definitely be cheaper, still using the standard throttle body unit. Seems from your replies the inlet manifold is a bottleneck? What about the cam etc?

Seems from your replies the inlet manifold is a bottleneck? What about the cam etc?

sorry i don't know, i've never really worked on the 1300mpi engines. but there are people on here that know what they are doing with those engines :yes:

My car - www.skodarallyblog.com - has had the following:

• MPi "Mini Kit" manifold
  
• 1300 Kit Car tubular Exhaust
  
• 2" full system (single silencer)
  
• Cam whose origin I don't know but it's similar to an SK6
  
• larger inlet and exhaust valves
  
• Head work by Motor Excel in Czech
  
• DTA E48 management
  

I'm limited in what I can do because of FIA homologation issues, but it makes 99.8bhp. I'm sure it would make more power with a better bottom end as it would be able to rev more (I set the redline at 7k and the power was still climbing very quickly at this point), or with a different inlet setup (I have to use the mini kit one as it is homologated, although I've seen mini kit engines making more like 145bhp, so there's more to come anyway, the bottom end was tired).

HTH.

My car - www.skodarallyblog.com - has had the following:

• MPi "Mini Kit" manifold
  
• 1300 Kit Car tubular Exhaust
  
• 2" full system (single silencer)
  
• Cam whose origin I don't know but it's similar to an SK6
  
• larger inlet and exhaust valves
  
• Head work by Motor Excel in Czech
  
• DTA E48 management
  

I'm limited in what I can do because of FIA homologation issues, but it makes 99.8bhp. I'm sure it would make more power with a better bottom end as it would be able to rev more (I set the redline at 7k and the power was still climbing very quickly at this point), or with a different inlet setup (I have to use the mini kit one as it is homologated, although I've seen mini kit engines making more like 145bhp, so there's more to come anyway, the bottom end was tired).

HTH.

Thanks, this helps. Read your blog, very well written, nice work there. Monte Carlo or bust!

Re your 100 hp spec: Seems a lot of work and dosh for 30% over the 70 or so std horses of a measly 50 hp.pr.litre engine. Having a Czech specialist ported head is out for us except if found used, good, near, and at bargain price. Ditto DMS management. 100 horses are available from so many standard small engines (a friend will give me a Suzuki twincam+box for free).

Using the leads you and others have offered I gather the exquisitely formed std MPI inlet manifold is a bottleneck. The "Mini Kit" manifold seems to have a much larger throttle body. Any leads on more info on this manifold, where to get it, whether it's worth searching for and paying for?

I have not bought an engine yet. Is the 1,4 Fabia engine better than the 1.3 Felicia? It has 10:1 compression (1.3 has 9.8), but the same output of 68 hp at the same 5000 rpm. Why?

I found in my trawls of Briskodas forums that the MPI has a better head than SPI and looking at pictures the ports are excellent, should breathe a 100 hp motor. No?

Looking at my quest from the other end: What will a camshaft, exhaust manifold, open system, 11:1 compression and chipping give to an otherwise standard 68 hp MPI? On Motor Excel's site they show a dyno graph giving less than 90 hp to a 1,4 Fabia MPI with a cam, head work and control unit (googletranslated), costing close to GBP 500 without fitting. Ca. 80hp for a Felly 1.3 with cam and chip, which costs GBP 250+transport and duties from Prague.

So, on our budget I seem to have to settle for making more noise and little more. Rebuild a Felly or Fabia with hotter cam (Which? Where?), chip the std ECU (found something called UK Chip Tuning claiming Fabia 1.4 8 hp+ at GBP 250, Superchip say 4 hp for an exorbitant price) Any leads on a good ECU reprogrammer? Anybody using a bigger throttle body off other engines to good effect?

Thanks in advance!

Well, that was 98.8bhp at the wheels, so that's more than 30%. It would make a lot more power with a bottom end that can rev more; I kept to a conservative redline of 7k to get the car through Rally GB on what was a very tired bottom end (having now done Rally GB twice as well as having done at least 5 years in a Favorit rally car).

Yes, 100bhp engines are common, the Skoda 8v engine is ancient technology compared to many modern engines, all of which will outperform it, but it's fitting it with/to a gearbox reliably that's the issue...

Mini-Kit manifold - I got mine from Motor Excel, it was about £250 or so. The MiniKit one can work with either the standard throttle body or a larger one; Martin from Motor Excel says that you get no more top end with the larger one, and better throttle response with the smaller one. I have the larger TB here as well as the smaller (MPi) one.

1.4 Fabia engine does work OK - james (fruitbat) has one in his Felicia, it has a ported head, bike throttle bodies and Omex management (I think), and IIRC it made 122bhp at the flywheel, probably similar to my engine without the transmission losses. Why same output? No idea!

MPI head's advantages are overplayed, IMO - certainly Guy Croft reckons there's not that much difference between 8mm and 7mm stems in terms of flow, and the MPI head has single valve springs, a disadvantage to the earlier head's dual spring setup. Some of the MPi heads I've seen have had very small and badly finished ports.

Tuning-wise, not sure what you'd get if you use the standard MPi manifold - it really doesn't seem to work well, power-wise. I don't know of anyone who can tune using the Simos 2P ECU, and if you were to pay for the UK Chip Tuning chip, you may as well buy a Megasquirt, build it and use that to run the car - you could do the entire install for just a bit more than £250.

thing is darren, have you ever heard of anybody actually using a megasquirt with any kind of success? all the stories i hear are of people saying that it sort-of works sometimes

Yes, ran my Favorit on one for about a year, never had any problems with it - did the conversion in a day or so, and did Rallye Sunseeker with it at the end of that week, never missed a beat. I've got another one here which I will run the car on in the future - it has plenty of features on it and works 100%. If there are problems with doing it, I'd put it down to the people who've done it badly, either building the unit itself or the installation - I've seen some horror stories but no less than with any ECU installation (have you SEEN some of the looms people make up? Or read some of the things Dave Walker mentioned in his PPC column?)

yeah, i'm a long time ppc subscriber, i've seen some horific home-grown looms before now.. i suppose the age old saying that 'crap goes in, crap comes out' rings true with stuff like this... how much did your megasquirt unit cost fully assembled? i'm thinking about buying one on the strangth of your recommendation above

Well, that was 98.8bhp at the wheels, so that's more than 30%. It would make a lot more power with a bottom end that can rev more; I kept to a conservative redline of 7k to get the car through Rally GB on what was a very tired bottom end (having now done Rally GB twice as well as having done at least 5 years in a Favorit rally car).

Yes, 100bhp engines are common, the Skoda 8v engine is ancient technology compared to many modern engines, all of which will outperform it, but it's fitting it with/to a gearbox reliably that's the issue...

Mini-Kit manifold - I got mine from Motor Excel, it was about £250 or so. The MiniKit one can work with either the standard throttle body or a larger one; Martin from Motor Excel says that you get no more top end with the larger one, and better throttle response with the smaller one. I have the larger TB here as well as the smaller (MPi) one.

1.4 Fabia engine does work OK - james (fruitbat) has one in his Felicia, it has a ported head, bike throttle bodies and Omex management (I think), and IIRC it made 122bhp at the flywheel, probably similar to my engine without the transmission losses. Why same output? No idea!

MPI head's advantages are overplayed, IMO - certainly Guy Croft reckons there's not that much difference between 8mm and 7mm stems in terms of flow, and the MPI head has single valve springs, a disadvantage to the earlier head's dual spring setup. Some of the MPi heads I've seen have had very small and badly finished ports.

Tuning-wise, not sure what you'd get if you use the standard MPi manifold - it really doesn't seem to work well, power-wise. I don't know of anyone who can tune using the Simos 2P ECU, and if you were to pay for the UK Chip Tuning chip, you may as well buy a Megasquirt, build it and use that to run the car - you could do the entire install for just a bit more than £250.

Grateful for this, didn't realize 99.8 was at the wheels! That's really not bad at all. So possibly the Motor Excel dyno graphs are ATW too? (Got to remember to learn Czech tomorrow). So now I'm guessing that 90 flywheel hp are achievable with:

A standard bottom-end rebuild to safely rev to 7.500

DIY head port work

Skim for 11:1 compression

Good cam

Better intake & exhaust manifolds

Turned-down flywheel

Standard throttle body

Some other ECU than the standard one?

None of these are major expenditures apart from an ECU and its programming and fine-tuning. Other sources say the Megasquirt seems to set you back about GBP 400 when functional in a car unless you are good at hard- and software. One vendor of built Megasquirt charges GBP 490 for a unit. Assembled VEMS alone is EUR 460 bare from Hungary.

A main reason I am searching for a charming alternative to the characterful, lardy iron wheezer, the Mini A-series, is the ECU doesn't take mods. So, tunable ECU or carbs. Both expensive, and I've had it with carbs.

Could I ask if you think the Mini-Kit manifold is worth the cost? I can cook up my own short&straight runner one for a lot less than GBP 250

Also, what is the limit of the std ECU? Can it manage 90 hp with lambda loop compensation, temp fooling . . . something cheap?

Finally, can anybody point to vendors for non-VAG Skoda stuff? Is Motor Excel a good place f.ex?

Thanks to everybody for the help!

Tom: My first Megasquirt cost me about £120, it was a kit. The second one was about £150, again a kit, but a much later board with more functions on. The current one is newer hardware, I've not really kept up with it at all since 2007 when I bought the current DTA setup that I have, along with a bunch of other stuff (like the brand new shell I had, 40mm Weber Alpha Throttle bodies, etc).

Isjakar: Yeah, it's not too bad really, it goes well enough, and is a world away from the previous engine I had in the car, which was about 80bhp at the flywheel, and was running with a standard inlet manifold and a not very good ported head. Could well have been the same bottom end as I have in now though, I've lost count!

I reckon you'd be about right with your figures, if not a bit more. As you say, Carbs are out - I'd never have them again, aside from anything else, the power you can get with injection is way better on an identical engine - maybe not more peak power but you can get a lot more 'area under the graph' in terms of getting optimised settings at all load/speed sites; I had an engine which was on carbs when I got it in the Favorit and when it was resurrected and put in the Felicia with mapped ignition and fuelling it suddenly got all the bottom end power back it was missing before.

I don't know what the limits of the standard ECU are - certianly there were "trophy" cars running ECUs with raised rev limits and using bigger injectors that were rumoured to be about 90bhp, and I drove one once and it went a LOT better than standard, but I have no actual details of this, and no idea where anyone would get one now; they were like hen's teeth 5 years ago let alone now.

Mini-Kit manifold is massively better than the stock MPi one, but I only need to run it because I'm running a car in a homologated class (once a year in the WRC), so if you have no need to do this then there are probably better/cheaper alternatives, such as a home-made manifold (or possibly an extrude-honed MPi one as Tom has said) or one for 40mm throttle bodies which would be easy enough to build; in amongst all the stuff I got when I bought the DTA was a set of 40mm Weber Alpha throttle bodies and a fabricated inlet manifold which I still have and which made the car go well (it was rumoured to make 120bhp at the flywheel in this trim, and I have no reason to doubt it, it went very well, albeit only shortly!).

Motor Excel know their stuff, they really do - but of course they are a seller so they will probably want to sell you stuff, but they have been super-helpful to me, and worked AHEAD of the deadlines they promised. Impressive stuff, IMO.

Tom: My first Megasquirt cost me about £120, it was a kit. The second one was about £150, again a kit, but a much later board with more functions on. The current one is newer hardware, I've not really kept up with it at all since 2007 when I bought the current DTA setup that I have, along with a bunch of other stuff (like the brand new shell I had, 40mm Weber Alpha Throttle bodies, etc).

are those weber alpha's looking for a new home? somewhere quite exotic like a small archipelago on the south coast?

are those weber alpha's looking for a new home? somewhere quite exotic like a small archipelago on the south coast?

Might there be a used megasquirt lying around wanting a home on an exotic island in the Arctic?

Naah, sorry guys I think I'll keep hold - the Megasquirt will definitely be going on the car at some point as I'm a) not entirely keen on the DTA, mostly because the tuning software is AWFUL, plus it's worth more than the MS if I sell it (as E48s are rare so people will pay loads for no good reason!), and I'm not certain I'll use the TBs, but I'm not sure I want to part with them. But then looking at how much they are new (£650...), oh I don't know!!!

thing is darren, have you ever heard of anybody actually using a megasquirt with any kind of success? all the stories i hear are of people saying that it sort-of works sometimes

just got mine running... bit behind with cashflow but 100bhp is my aim still need to get monies to djaychela for a cam but had no spare cash of late...136 engine in an estelle

just got mine running... bit behind with cashflow but 100bhp is my aim still need to get monies to djaychela for a cam but had no spare cash of late...136 engine in an estelle

Wow - WRC noise and flames - any more must be too much!?!

Nice talks guys.

I speak czech, so i have better access to informations. For reaching about 100 HP at flywheel you need at least:

- CAM, i recommend from Motor Excel

- ported head, compression bout 10,6

- ECU program. In fact you cant flash ecu, u need to physically change the chip with new one

- well made exhaust 4-2-1

- working cold air intake/upgrading original one with better filter

- other minor changes round engine

Than you can get something like that:

http://felicia.zasah.cz/obrazky/vykon.jpg

Limits are set much further, the problem is ecu program and the fact that original crank doesnt like revving. Good is to change bottom end from Fabia 1.4 mpi engine after small mods. I know about 100-110hp 1.4 engine on A-carb with upper described mods and 110hp 1.5 engine using still Simos2P. Actually ecu is quite restrictive for that engine. None of them is using bike TB...

Edited 18 February, 201115 yr by RedmeX

This is the engine from my rally car - here before it was fully fitted into the new shell.

Fabia 1.4 motor, Kent Cam, ported/skimmed head, balanced bottom end. "Kit car" inlet and exhaust manifolds with twin injectors per port and Suzuki GSX-R throttle bodies. Kit car 2" exhaust system.

Made 116bhp at the flywheel on the rolling road, 95bhp at the wheels.

Nice talks guys.

I speak czech, so i have better access to informations. For reaching about 100 HP at flywheel you need at least:

- CAM, i recommend from Motor Excel

- ported head, compression bout 10,6

- ECU program. In fact you cant flash ecu, u need to physically change the chip with new one

- well made exhaust 4-2-1

- working cold air intake/upgrading original one with better filter

- other minor changes round engine

Than you can get something like that:

http://felicia.zasah.cz/obrazky/vykon.jpg

Limits are set much further, the problem is ecu program and the fact that original crank doesnt like revving. Good is to change bottom end from Fabia 1.4 mpi engine after small mods. I know about 100-110hp 1.4 engine on A-carb with upper described mods and 110hp 1.5 engine using still Simos2P. Actually ecu is quite restrictive for that engine. None of them is using bike TB...

Thanks RedmeX, getting close to the final word on this theme. For affordable 90-100 hp from an injected daily driver OHV I should start with a Fabia 1.4, you think? More cc, but are there any other benefits? The 1.3 is much easier to find.

A cam from Motor Excel, they sell direct?

My own porting of head, professional porting is out of budget.

Head skim for 10.6 compression.

4-2-1 exhaust manifold would be made by a friendly local specialist.

Inlet manifold: Can 90-100 hp be had with the standard MPI manifold on, is there a budget way of modifying it or do I need to make my own? I know about the Kit and other good, but too expensive manifolds, are there some available inexpensively? What about SPI?

Throttle body is okay for 100 hp, I gather from other posts, and feeding it filtered cool Icelandic air no problem.

So the ECU is the biggest issue. Special ones are simply too expensive, even Megasquirt. The hardware purchase is not the end of the expenses with such units. Is re-chipping the Simos available inexpensively somewhere (probably in Eastern Europe)?

Minor changes around the engine,you say, what would that be?

Many thanks for your help.

The SPI inlet does not flow any more than the MPi one from the rudimentary flow tests that I did - the TB itself is pretty small. Might be worth seeing if you get get the MPi one extrude honed, it should be easy enough to see some gains from it, and they are cheap enough to experiment with.

I still think you'll spend more on getting a Simos 2P chipped than you would on buying a megasquirt - what are the other costs you're worried about?

The 1.4 is a good starting point as you have an extra 100cc, so with similar changes you would expect to see more power from it (which is probably why Skoda homologated use of the Fabia crank for the Felicia which is why I'm building my next engine with one).

James - looks bloody great!