Last Year of Carburetor

C

Carl W

Daily Driver
What year did the X 1/9 begin with fuel injection? My 1980 has a carburetor and the mechanic thinks it may not be the original engine because of that. Any help appreciated.
 
FI was a mid-year change in 1980

Early 1980 build dates had carbs, late build dates got FI.
 
79 was a 1500 as well

that makes for 1.5 years. :)

Fiat tended to slap on what they had in inventory at the time they built each car. The planners missed by a bit and then one of two things occurred.

1) They had too many carbs on hand, so early 80s got carbs to use up the stock.

or more likely

2) They ran out of Xs for the 1980 model year and moved FI production forward because they ran out of carbs.

My 1980 was a carb back in the day. I never should have sold that car. Ah.. to be young and stupid again. Enjoy it Thai!!! :dance: :laugh: :woot:
 
Carl W said:
What year did the X 1/9 begin with fuel injection? My 1980 has a carburetor and the mechanic thinks it may not be the original engine because of that. Any help appreciated.
Click to expand...

Here in North America in order to meet California emissions standards for the 1980 model year Fiat had to fuel inject their cars. All other North American markets could be met with the 1979 California emissions package, so they used that.
When non California dealers discovered Fiat had fuel injected cars they started asking for them, and some dealers sold them as an option.
In 1981 all Fiat family cars in North America were fuel injected.

To review.
1979 California cars have the California emmissions package.
1979 non California cars have a different emmissions package.
1980 California cars are fuel injected.
1980 non California cars have the 1979 California emmissions package.

As an interesting side note, Lancia could not meet 1980 California emmissions standards, so they officially imported zero cars. There are 1979, 1981, & 1982 cars. But no 1980.
 
Since they stayed with carburetors for other markets it's presumable that they were in no hurry to move to injection, and only did so when emissions standards left them little choice. The injected cars were bound to have cost a lot more to build, forcing Fiat to raise the selling price and/or reduce their profit.

Would be nice if they had developed a Euro spec FI engine though. That would have been a nice motor.

///Mike
 
///Mike said:
Would be nice if they had developed a Euro spec FI engine though. That would have been a nice motor.
Click to expand...

There was a European spec injection 1500 X1/9. I believe it was labeled "IN" (i.e. INjection) in most European markets. With the exception of the UK which did get the IN model, but with a carb'.

UK market had carb's and mechanical-point all the way to the end in 89. But as those were the most powerful of all the X1/9 engines, I don't think we lost out ;)
 
My first X was a...

...1980 and it came with a carburetor. It was however, one of the last ones to do so (in the USA)... I remember all the '81 models (again, in the USA) as having fuel injection.

It is my understanding that non North American market cars stayed with the carb (ref. Phil Ward's X1/9 book)...
 
icsunonove said:
There was a European spec injection 1500 X1/9.
Click to expand...

Weren't the FI models sold in Europe just US market cars?

I have never heard of a European market FI car (with the higher compression, more aggressive cam profile, and better exhaust from the Euro carb cars).

Can anybody else shed any light on this?

///Mike
 
According to the parts manuals, '80 was the crossover year. Cars designated "31" were California cars and the parts manuals say they had the FI emblem on the back in '80. Other cars designated "40" (USA excl CA) had the FI emblem on the back in '81.
 
Another BIG issue in Italy was...

... the Labor Unions.

Fiat and the unions were going though some rough times beginning in '79 and there were many bastardized models leaving the plant. Bodies were completed, stacked up, and on hold at the Bertone Plant waiting to be shipped to FIAT for assembly. There were also some stories that alluded to sabotage.

So you not only had the transition to FI but lots of leftover '79s, even though '79 was one of the best years for FIAT relative to sales. I've seen '79s wih wiring looms going forward on both the left and right sides of the car, regardless of steering position and regardless of where it was shipped.

I still stand by what I've said for years... "that there are no two X1/9s alike, not even within a model year!"

Bottom line though, as Chris and Jim D and some others have said, generally speaking, you can find BOTH FI and Carb engines in 1980 cars. If anyone THINKS they have a carbed '81, its probably an '80 sold in '81.
 
I also heard that a lot of cars...

...came over only partially assembled, with the yet to be installed parts sitting inside the car only to be put together at the dealers.
 
X1/9 IN

This was essentially a US model that was sold in Europe. They were not moving fast enough in the US so they repackaged them for Euro. There was also a special edition called the X1/9 "Sunny". It was also a "left" over US spec car. The FI was the marketing push for the Sunny, it even had the US lighting with the side markers, most Euro cars didn't get that.
Brett
 
icsunonove said:
There was a European spec injection 1500 X1/9. I believe it was labeled "IN" (i.e. INjection) in most European markets. With the exception of the UK which did get the IN model, but with a carb'.

UK market had carb's and mechanical-point all the way to the end in 89. But as those were the most powerful of all the X1/9 engines, I don't think we lost out ;)
Click to expand...
No, there was no European spec injection. The few in Europe sold injected X1/9 have the same spec as they sold in the USA.
The "IN" model was always carb driven. The IN model is a special series where only 500 cars of it were produced. Like the LTD in UK and the rare "real" "VS" cars in USA (red seats etc.).
I believe that they started to produce fuel injected X1/9 in July 1980, so at the end of 1980 most of cars arrived in USA were fuel injected.
 
FIAT Strada/Ritmo were carb initially (1979-mid1980), then Bosch EFI at about the same time as the X1/9 in the USA. It's likely that once FIAT fedearlized the 1.5L for the USA via the Strada, Bertone got the EFI engines for the X1/9.

Bertone had no ability to produce the engine/transaxle or federalize it for the USA market.

Dierk said:
No, there was no European spec injection. The few in Europe sold injected X1/9 have the same spec as they sold in the USA.
The "IN" model was always carb driven. The IN model is a special series where only 500 cars of it were produced. Like the LTD in UK and the rare "real" "VS" cars in USA (red seats etc.).
I believe that they started to produce fuel injected X1/9 in July 1980, so at the end of 1980 most of cars arrived in USA were fuel injected.
Click to expand...
 
Where did you hear that one???

I worked at a dealership in '79 and the cars all came through fully assembled.

I hated prepping Spiders for sale because the chrome bumper rails were coated in cosmoline that had to be cleaned off. It was a pain to remove that stuff. In comparison X's were easy to prep for sale.
 
roadster27 said:
I worked at a dealership in '79 and the cars all came through fully assembled.

I hated prepping Spiders for sale because the chrome bumper rails were coated in cosmoline that had to be cleaned off. It was a pain to remove that stuff. In comparison X's were easy to prep for sale.
Click to expand...

I agree. I have never heard of X19s coming partially assembled. Lots of dealers did part out cars only to later put them back together when the parts flow caught up with the service demand.

In the late 50s & early 60s Fiat did import USA specification cars without the sealed beams mounted as they did not have sealed beam head lamps in Italy. I was told by the dealers that all of the mounting hardware was just laying on the right seat.
 
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