Advice on Modifications

ive read through numerous threads regarding autodelta modifications, in particular to my 147 gta, and i am looking at getting the

stainless steel quad tailbox
sport carbon intake upgrade
group n chip programme

i notice people have had different experiences, both successful and not, can i have everyones opinions without getting too technical, with a yes or no, pro's or con's?

many thanks

matt

Sport intake : yes
quad exhausts : No dual instead
group N remap : Maybe - depends on your future plans

A lot depend on what you are looking for

To be honest If your budget is fixed, I would swop the exhaust and remap for a set of coilovers instead, you would cover ground cross country way faster than any power mods would allow you to.

Anyway Dual AD GTA exhaust is cheaper and slightly more performant than the quad.
For either the exhaust noise will be more overtly sporty than the standard GTA, and even more so for the quad.

If you reckon you will be keeping the car for a while and think you would want to upgrade it significantly you would be wasting money on a remap now IMHO, although if you are only planning a minor tweak then it makes sense.

If you really want to improve the perfromance The best thing you can do for performance is high performance cams (includes remapping).

After the suspension the next thing on my list would be an LSD, which radically changes how the GTA puts down its power.

Cheers,
TB

cheers TB

to the rescue again, now may i just enquire........ what are you talking about?

1. what is a coilover?
2. the dual exhaust is just a sportier version of the standard one on the GTA? am i right here?
3. inlight that i plan to keep the car for a while this is just the first stage (though i may have to wait until the warranty is up before going too far) can you explain this 'cam' malarchy!! is this very costly?

i do have an 'other half and baby on the way' budget but then again what she doesnt know wont hurt her (just me if she finds out!)

thanks for your reply and hope you can enlighten me further!!

ta

matt

Coilovers are basically a height adjustable spring and damper combination that control the cars movement.
They allow even mechanically talentless gits like myself to lower or raise the car with about an hours work.
The main point of them though is to improve on the standard Alfa GTA springs and dampers which give a slightly sloppy feel to the GTAs handling and made it easy to "bottom out" on bad roads.
Also the standard ride is a little crashy.
The GTAs handling is very good I'm sure you would agree, but a good coilover set would bring it to the next level.
Some coil overs allow you to adjust the harshness or softness of the dampers in various ways, but unless you are a real enthusiast you would not make use of this.

The quad Autodelta exhaust you were referring to gives 5 bhp increase, the dual one gives 6bhp.
The dual exhaust sounds sportier than the standard one, but will look "much" the same as standard dual exhaust, except the twin bores are a little bigger and the material looks to be of better quality.

Yes a cam upgrade is costly, about 2K sterling including remap.
The AD one would be compatible with the 3.7 engine upgrade, but there could be lots of other cams that would be cheaper for all I know

Hope this helped a bit.

Originally Posted by mattireland

cheers TB

to the rescue again, now may i just enquire........ what are you talking about?

1. what is a coilover?
2. the dual exhaust is just a sportier version of the standard one on the GTA? am i right here?
3. inlight that i plan to keep the car for a while this is just the first stage (though i may have to wait until the warranty is up before going too far) can you explain this 'cam' malarchy!! is this very costly?

i do have an 'other half and baby on the way' budget but then again what she doesnt know wont hurt her (just me if she finds out!)

thanks for your reply and hope you can enlighten me further!!

ta

matt

Originally Posted by Trailbraker

Coilovers are basically a height adjustable spring and damper combination that control the cars movement.
They allow even mechanically talentless gits like myself to lower or raise the car with about an hours work.
The main point of them though is to improve on the standard Alfa GTA springs and dampers which give a slightly sloppy feel to the GTAs handling and made it easy to "bottom out" on bad roads.
Also the standard ride is a little crashy.
The GTAs handling is very good I'm sure you would agree, but a good coilover set would bring it to the next level.
Some coil overs allow you to adjust the harshness or softness of the dampers in various ways, but unless you are a real enthusiast you would not make use of this.

The quad Autodelta exhaust you were referring to gives 5 bhp increase, the dual one gives 5bhp.
The dual exhaust sounds sportier than the standard one, but will look "much" the same as standard dual exhaust, except the twin bores are a little bigger and the material looks to be of better quality.

Yes a cam upgrade is costly, about 2K sterling including remap.
The AD one would be compatible with the 3.7 engine upgrade, but there could be lots of other cams that would be cheaper for all I know

Hope this helped a bit.

thanks tb

you have sold the dual exhaust over the quad, job done!!

i shall enquire further with the alfa dealer and see what they can offer

as for the cam upgrade that equates to €3k and divorce!!!! serious brownie points would need to be earned!!

what sort of price would you expect for the coilovers?

thanks once again

matt

I note that you are in based in Cork.

Bmoferrall recently used Grandons in cork for some similar mods:
Grandons have some sort of affiliation with Autodelta.

http://www.alfaowner.com/Forum/showt...1&page=1&pp=20 (Autodelta Mods - impressions)

Maybe you could PM him for an impression of Grandons if you were considering this sort of work, although if you go to the UK regularly I would personally just get it done in Autodelta London.

The price of the coilovers themselves would be on the Autodelta website, but there are other manufacturers too.

Cheers,
TB

Originally Posted by mattireland

what sort of price would you expect for the coilovers?

Originally Posted by Trailbraker

I note that you are in based in Cork.

Bmoferrall recently used Grandons in cork for some similar mods:
Grandons have some sort of affiliation with Autodelta.

http://www.alfaowner.com/Forum/showt...1&page=1&pp=20 (Autodelta Mods - impressions)

Maybe you could PM him for an impression of Grandons if you were considering this sort of work, although if you go to the UK regularly I would personally just get it done in Autodelta London.

The price of the coilovers themselves would be on the Autodelta website, but there are other manufacturers too.

Cheers,
TB

thanks tb

ive pm'd him and see how he got on

it would seem from the thread you indicated that he's very happy with both the mod and the service

would be interested in how they would affect the 147 as they do seem to ride/handle slightly differently


cheers

matt

Hi Matt
I think you mentioned you were from the Cork area.
I had various Autodelta mods installed by Grandons back in September (the coilover kit that Trailbraker refers to, ecu remap and induction kit); there's a thread somewhere below on the subject. I didn't want the hassle and extra expense of going to London. Grandons are the official Irish agent for Autodelta; they still had to send the ecu to London for a remap which surprised me (thought they could have downloaded the software for themselves).
All in all, they did the job as well as could be expected. However, they were a little shifty on price - possibly explained by the fact that it was their first time fitting Autodelta mods. Anyway, I agreed a price in advance (~3000) and made them stick to it.
I would guess that the 147 has a higher center of gravity than the 156 so it would probably benefit greatly from an adjustable suspension kit. The kit I chose (sportline) is more comfort-oriented and has dramatically improved the ride on some of the rougher Dublin roads. At the same time it has reduced roll and grip levels have increased (wheels stay in contact with the ground more of the time). Turn in is sharper so I can attack corners more aggressively. I haven't got around to lowering the car yet so I'm expecting further improvements in handling.
The engine sound is more intense than before. From reading other threads it seems this has as much to do with the removal of an intake component on the standard GTA that was muffling the intensity. Either way I love it. With the remap and induction kit the engine is much more flexible and torquey. If anything, economy has improved slightly.

It seems there are plenty of choices on the market for these kind of mods. All I can say is that I'm very happy with the Autodelta stuff.
I think I'll enjoy these mods for a year, or maybe two, before thinking about raiding the piggy bank again.
Brendan

By the way, if I had the money I would have gone the whole hog and got the full Autodelta 3.7L conversion done. Maybe sometime in the future if I get the finger out and start working a bit harder.
I think the three mods I had done are a sensible intermediate step - dramatic improvement for a reasonable outlay.

brendan

thanks for the reply

as this is the first time ever modifying a car im taking things a little tentatively

i was speaking with ray in parts at grandons today and strangely enough they had suggested contacting you and asking whether you were happy to be put in contact with me. i think he wanted ken grandon to return before doing so.

they were honest enough to tell me it was the first time they had done AD modifications and were quite keen to expand that part of their operations

i have requested prices on the items i am looking at from AD and am waiting for them to come back to me with an agreed price

TB has convinced me to go with the dual box and i shall probably get this and the induction kit initially

do you mind asking how much they quoted for the suspension kit? including labour?

cheers

matt

As I said, they kept trying to move the goalposts on price.
My advice would be to order the parts yourself and have Grandons do the installation part only. You can check the prices online and convert to euros (after adding VAT of course). Get estimates from Autodelta London on estimated labour times. The suspension kit takes approx. 6.5 hours to install (I think Grandons charge e65/h). The induction kit is a simple job, around 0.5 hours. Since they send the ecu to London you should only have to pay courier costs for that really (I'm no mechanic but I'd imagine removing and replacing an ecu is basic stuff). Don't know about the exhaust mod.

If you spend time in Dublin at all, Alasta autos would be another option. Moreover, I think they'd be able to do the ecu work in situ.
There was a problem with my suspension initially. As I live in Dublin I checked it in with Alasta. They diagnosed and replaced a faulty shock absorber (not the fault of Grandon's). I was very impressed with them; the main guy there, Stanley Faulkner, lives and breathes this kind of stuff.

I'll probably also get the dual exhaust mentioned above when the existing one starts to wear. Personally, I would find the quad pipe a but too showy; a big part of the GTA's appeal for me is its sleeper looks.