Fiat 500 Abarth Brakes installed on X1/9

TonyK

TonyK

True Classic
As you may know I have been working on Bob Martin's Dallara doing an Abarth engine swap. As the project progresses, there are times when it appears that little is being accomplished. Many systems must be installed before the engine and transmission can be installed in the engine bay, that coupled with body rot and making and welding in patch panels was also an issue.

I have some pictures of the installation of the Fiat 500 Abarth Calipers and Fiat 500 Vented Rotors installed along with stock Abarth brake hoses. All of it seems to bolt up once the mounting holes are enlarged from 10MM to 12MM. The issue now is the Circle racing magnesium rims that Bob has on the car and the brake holders will not clear the rims. So close to having this done, but unless spacers are installed this upgrade cannot happen.

I will post some pictures of the installation, I had such great hope for this to be successful, but it does not appear that it will work on this car with theses rims.

TonyK.

Grimsby Ontario Canada.
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Bummer that this won’t work with his rims. So the primary issue with the install of the parts was boring out the mounting holes?

So how much did the calipers interfere with the rims? Are the rims 13” or were they larger in diameter?

Thanks
 
Rims are 15" looks like I need a 5/8" spacer to allow for clearance. Just a reminder here, this is not my car. Will have to wait for Bob Martin to chime in with what he wants done, if anything.

TonyK.

Grimsby Ontario Canada.
 
Nice that the brake conversion worked out. Not so nice about the wheels not clearing. It might work with other 15" rims depending on the design. For example I have a set of 15's that are a 4X100 bolt pattern conversion from a front wheel drive car. So they required some serious spacer/adapters to mount. But that also gives a ton of room behind them for brakes. I guess that means I could use those Abarth brakes if Bob decides against them. :D
 
Is it possible to do some relieving of the caliper assembly but taking off some metal at the point of interference? I had to do some very light filing of the Wilwood calipers to fit the rims on my spider.
 
The top of the Hat is just to low I would have to remove the link of the casting between the upper and lower sections. I would think this would cause a failure of the brake pad carrier/holder. My car uses Fiat 500 15" rims with 1" spacers (.970") and there would not be an issue with interference. Bob will be here on the 18th of May and we will look into this a bit deeper.

Thanks for the questions and comments.

TonyK.
 
Solution found.

A bit of grinding on the pad holder and adding the stock Fiat X1/9 spacer and we have set of upgraded brakes that appear that they will work on this car.

Please see Pictures.

TonyK.

With Bob Martin in Grimsby Ontario.

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Based on where the material was removed, I'm guessing the center hub of the wheel itself is larger diameter than the car's hub?
 
Dr.Jeff said:
Based on where the material was removed, I'm guessing the center hub of the wheel itself is larger diameter than the car's hub?
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Bob has the Circle magnesium wheels on his car, they have a stamped hub, not cast. So the rim hub is larger than the brake hub.

TonyK.

Grimsby Ontario Canada
 
240mm was also the diameter of the Fiat Uno turbo front rotors that were fitting on 13" wheels. So there maybe a possibility these brakes would fit Under the 13" wheels? Or the calipers maybe too much outside?
 
Daniel Forest said:
So there maybe a possibility these brakes would fit Under the 13" wheels?
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I believe the difference is these calipers are physically larger overall than the UT ones. They may also be mounted in a slightly different position relative to the UT ones, but I do not know about that.

Daniel, this size of rotor may allow the Punto GT calipers to fit inside of smaller size wheels...as you discussed in the other thread about bigger brakes. But the mounting brackets would need to be shorter to move the caliper closer to the smaller diameter rotor, so really not worth it I think.
 
No I don't have a number, but I purchased the rotors from Car Quest. 2011 Fiat 500 Pop. $50 CND each.

TonyK.

Grimsby Ontario Canada.
 
It is my understanding the 500's sold in the US have a different spec brakes than those for Europe and much of the world. I do not recall if that applies only to the Abarth spec or all 500's. And I do not know if Canada is the same as the US or the rest of the world. So the rotors may or may not be a little different. Unfortunately I do not have any details on exactly what is different, just that they are. I'm sure if a online search is done it will provide more details.
 
240mm sounds good!
What is the piston diameter on those calipers? Sorry if that has been posted before.
Do I understand correctly that the caliper bolts to the stock X1/9 hub without a custom caliper holding bracket?

If someone could post the part numbers for the Rotors and calipers, I can check if they are also used in Europe.
 
Ulix, the combination that Tony found to work best for his application was a combination of Abarth calipers and Pop rotors. So I assume that is what you are referring to. And it is my understanding the calipers do bolt directly to the X1/9 spindles (uprights) without adapter brackets, but the holes in the X1/9 spindle need to be enlarged to match the bolt size for the Abarth calipers.

One listing shows these OEM part numbers for Pop (240mm) rotors: 424973, 424974, 4249L2, 46401356, 46542383, 46831041, 5154237AA, 901084, 19298584. [5154237AA seems to come up most often]

For the calipers it is a little more uncertain. The listings I looked at were not clear between Pop, Abarth, and other options (eg. electric with regenerative brakes). Furthermore there are different numbers depending on the color (eg. silver, red, etc), but the color does not necessarily dictate the application (Abarths are typically red, but you can get red Pop calipers and silver Abarth ones). And the only part numbers I saw were Mopar replacement numbers, which might be different from the generic OEM part numbers. Plus some include the carrier brackets (i.e. rebuilt units) but most do not (i.e. new) - which means two numbers are needed (one for the bracket and one for the caliper). This was a US source so I assume they are for the US spec components. Here are some of the Mopar numbers they showed:

Abarth carrier bracket (left or right): 68174160AB.
Abarth caliper w/o bracket: 68165985AB (left), 68165984AB (right).

And as if that wasn't already vague enough, I seem to recall there are different calipers for the early models vs later ones ??? The ones I posted were for 2017.

Hopefully someone can offer better data on this.
 
I wonder if these are the same. If so, maybe the part number can be cross referenced.
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Ulix said:
240mm sounds good!
What is the piston diameter on those calipers? Sorry if that has been posted before.
Do I understand correctly that the caliper bolts to the stock X1/9 hub without a custom caliper holding bracket?

If someone could post the part numbers for the Rotors and calipers, I can check if they are also used in Europe.
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