Fiat : Other 2 door targa (doors pinned w/ Zeus fasteners)

 This the The Fastest X1/9 in the USA!

Everyone in the Fiat community knows this car. Many of you have seen it. ridden in it or driven it (more than one of you have even beaten me in my own car but I am blocking that out).

The car is in the Los Angeles area and I'd dance and sing if I got back half of what I put in it -- see that calculation below because I'm afraid to put a number in the beginning of the ad.

I've literally done everything you can do to an X1/9 with an unlimited budget and unlimited time. [ Sadly I don't have either of those last 2 anymore and soon won't have the car either. ]




Here are some OLD videos that I found on YouTube:
'06 in yellow (Fiat motor) -

'07 in red (Fiat motor) -
'07 Fiato (Honda Powered X1/9) -

I can deliver it installed with a fully built Fiat motor. ready to run in the Solo2 GP class OR with a Honda motor ready to run in Solo2 XP or as a road-race car.   You could hook up the lights and take it to an all-motor drag with the K20 (AND kick butt) - find a power to weight ratio for 250 HP and 1500 lbs.

1500 FIAT Motor (almost a guaranteed national champion in SCCA Solo2 for G-Prepared) :



(Fiat Motor: fuel injected. 15:1 compression motor (requires 110 octane leaded race gas). S2 cam. small valves (as per rules) that have been lightened. polished and excess material removed from the bottom. all titanium parts in the head with trimmed buckets and overhead shims. electric water pump. no alternator. MegaSquit (dyno'd and tuned). Colotti dog-ring gear box and new ratios for where engine makes power. etc. ) This is everything you can do to a car under the SCCA rules for GP.

2. 4L Honda K20 ( a monster! ) :



(Honda setup: K20 head w/ K24 bottom = 2. 4L. aftermarket cams. Hondata tuned ECU. aftermarket plenum. rebuilt gearbox with gears in right spot for autocross in this wheel size. posi so that you can lay down the power without just spinning one wheel. etc. ) This setup made 240 HP which you can see on the dyno sheet.

The 3 most important things to making the fastest autocross car are essentially power. handling and grip (not necessarily in that order).

I bought this car in 2005 from Eric (fastx19) who bought it from another xweb guy. Everyone has added their own improvements. The car was a champion car when I bought it and held a number of course records up in the Northwest including the Fall Enduro for DP in Medford. OR and the record for DP at Bible Creek Hill climb.

I started running it in both San Diego and Los Angeles as an SCCA car in the new GP class. I am not trying to knock the NW but the competition in SoCal seems to be quite a bit higher – with dozens of current and past national champions running every weekend. Well. I went NUTS with the car and haven't added it up to the penny and minute but I put nearly $80. 00 and more than 1000 hours of time into this already winning car!!

In 2007 I ran both regions. often dragging the car nearly 100 miles from LA to San Diego to run multiple events in the same weekend and I won the season for both regions in different classes. It's won one season in the G-Prepared class with a Fiat motor and 16:1 compression FI motor running 110 octane race fuel and another year as an X-Prepared car with a 240 HP / 170 lb-ft Honda motor on pump gas.

Back in 2006. midway through the evolution of the car (actually the first time with raised pickup points. 20x9. 5 all the way around and the Penske trip-adjustable shocks). I brought it up to Oregon to run against the best in Fiats (Obert's EM Dallera) and won with TTOD (top time of day). I was still learning about spring rates. pickup points and shock settings at that time but it was still enough to beat the cars with bigger motors who didn't have the limits that I had in the GP class. Oh. and I was just starting to learn to drive then too!

Obviously having 3x the power with the Honda motor isn't going to slow it down but it takes much more than just power to have a fast autocross car – more on that later.

I haven't run it much since my divorce in 2008 and now I don't even live in the US so I can't keep paying the $12k per year that I've been spending to store this car.

This car needs to be out kicking butt and making people happy!




How would you like to beat this field?




Going commando!




Some classes let me run the front splitter and some did not.







Dash view



Added the super comfortable Sparco seat for the driver -- I think that begin held tighter in the seat actually gave me another half second.




5 gallon fuel cell in the front trunk. fully adjustable camber plates and the reserve canisters for the triple adjustable Penske shocks.




The MINILITE wheels:




A great trailer is included too!

It feels custom built for this car and you can't even tell it's behind you.

- - - - - - - -

Comedy (for JJ)…



More pictures:



Some history…
(previous owners)
http://www. wmclub. org/images/04event1/pages/autox0304_nk_003. htm
http://www. mirafiori. com/oregon2004/. s/DSCF0042. htm
http://www. mirafiori. com/oregon2004/. s/DSCF0066. htm
http://www. mirafiori. com/oregon2004/. s/DSCN0583. htm

The doors were hollowed out to the skin and pinned on with Zeus fasteners. In my quest to drop weight I did trim off the metal fenders and put on some nice fiberglass fenders that I picked up from Dan Snow.




I also wasn't a big fan of yellow (no offense to Bumble Bee Mike) and wanted the car to last forever so I stripped everything. sand blasted and dipped it in paint stripper – that took 2 weeks! I then had it repainted with this amazing POR-15 rust preventative paint so that the metal parts would be protected forever. Finally I went with red.




The car pushed very badly when I first got it and I tried out everyone's theory on springs but eventually went with what my math/engineering calculations said and that was that I needed to raise the pickup points and go with a heavier rear spring.
[ I made countless engineering enhancements to the car. employing every trick in the book but I won't list them all here but they all added a little bit. For example. a quick ratio gearbox helps a lot in an autocross car that you're throwing around all over the place but who would think of that? ]

Top 3 modifications in order of importance… (my opinion)

#1. Colotti Gearbox – the Colotti (~$4k) gave the single biggest improvement in time for the Fiat motor because (a) you can't put down the power coming off the corner without some kind of LSD or posi as you'll get one wheel spinning; (b) the car is more controllable because you can reliably steer with the back; (c) the dog-ring gearbox (i. e. shifting without the clutch) allows you to have extra shifts that no one else can do; and (d) you have much better options of gears so that you can assemble ratios that put gears closer together so that you can always have the car in the power band.

I can't express how HUGE the impact this gearbox was to the car. I know they are incredibly rare but I'd make this my first buy if I were going to track one of these cars.




#2. FI & Megasquirt – face it. carburetors are like dial-up modems. I couldn't punt that thing down the street fast enough. I was one of the first. maybe the first. to put Megasquirt onto an X1/9 and I can say that it gave me a huge advantage in my class even though I had to run the stock plenum. There are no dead spots like you get with carbs. you don't flood it going through corners. it is a pleasure to tune. etc. Besides that it was nice to have a car that just started every time I pushed the button!

#3. Penske Shocks – I know that $6k for shocks ($1500 per corner) sounds excessive but being able to dial in the suspension made another HUGE difference. This allowed me to run way softer springs than anyone else and as a result I had way better grip. I remember that my car was pushing really bad during the testing of the Fiat Autocross Day so I called the Penske guy who suggested some adjustments and I was almost 2 seconds faster. I was amazed!

But I will stop there because I can't give away all the secrets!
The car is very versatile and can be adjusted with unlimited different setups. balanced for different motors and aligned for just about any different wheel/tire combination.

So then there is the Honda motor / XP class.

I was also one of the first to put a Honda motor into an X1/9. My setup is a lot different than others that I've seen but I was very focused on weight and was more concerned about the impact on COG (center of gravity) and handling. It took me a week to fabricate each mount and there were 3 of them but the end result was pretty good.
I've even got a fully built 300HP NA Honda motor that I never ran on eBay but the stroker crank. sleeved block. ceramic coated high compression pistons. lightened H-beam rods. ported head and other parts are probably worth more to a Honda guy – especially since I never ran the motor and it's brand new.

I am including a LOT of stuff (too much to list).
Trailer for towing 18 different wheels for any setup 2 different complete engine setups (GP Fiat or XP Honda) Carb. Setup for Fiat Extra Fiat transmission Extra Colotti gear sets and parts Other Honda gear set All kinds of different springs Etc.
Here are some more random pictures:







Fiat torque and Colotti gear calculations: (you will get an entire engineering notebook with all my calculations and discoveries)




Dyno from K20 that's included:




Momo steering wheel and interior – you'll need to ask Eric about the compass.




Approximately 16:1 compression – Eric said 14:1 but I've got a different head now and it's more than 15:1 from my recollection. BTW. I ran 53 degrees advance in this motor because the dyno said that 56 made less power!




Titanium parts in the head which take hours to file and get correct. Look at the little dots that you use instead of all the extra weight in the traditional buckets and heavy shims.




And I do have both deck lids and engine cover -- the one with the snorkle or a regular one with a plexiglass spoiler:




Let me know if you think your X1/9 is faster and you want to race for pink slips.

But no backing out if I slap on a turbo and show up with 1000HP alcohol motor because that's very doable in this rig.

Want to buy this car?