Fiat Palio 1.6 vis-a-vis 1.2 (ELX): power matters

[trravindran]

Hi,
I am a newbie here, and this is my first post!
I am from Kalpakkam, near Chennai (70 km). (See Intro thread for a few more lines about me).
After 5.5 years of driving a Palio ELX I sold it when I went to the US on a Sabbatical (1 year). My ELX was in good condition, even though it had been affected by the Tsunami in Dec. 2004 (my apartment/car was ~200 meters from the beach in Kalpakkam township) and restored by TVS service. So when I returned to India I decided to buy a used, and a more powerful Palio (1.2 is slightly underpowered to pull the ~ 1 tonner); some months ago bought a Palio 1.6, ~1.5 years old. It was/is in good condition and I paid Rs.2.6 lakhs to a dealer in Chennai.
1. Now, I am a bit disappointed that 1.6 is does not feel more torquey at normal speeds (< 60-70 kmph). It is a different beast at higher speeds though: no dearth of power above 80 kmph; I touched 130 shortly on the East Coast Road (even with my ELX I had touched such speeds before, so it is no big deal; 1.6 can of course go higher). My question is: is this how a 1.6 feels to drive, not much different from 1.2 at normal speeds? From my 'reading experience' on GTX (earlier avatar of 1.6) I thought that 1.6 is much more powerful.
Any comments on this are welcome.
Perhaps the gear ratios were tweaked in 1.6 'to make it a bit more fuel efficient'?
By the way I got 14 kmpl with ac on highway driving soon after I bought the car, and am quite happy about this mileage.
2. After I chanced upon the atrocious 'terms & conditions' for service by Concorde Motors, I was looking for a better place to get my Palio serviced. I came to know on Team-BHP about the new car garage 'Ignite' on East Coast Road and its very Professional owner Mr. Raghav, decided to take my car to him for its 'first service' (the odo was 27 K when I bought, and I made another ~3 K in 4 months). Apart from regular service, Raghav recommended clutch plate assembly replacement ('though not urgent') since the clutch 'felt hard', and was apparently not transmitting power to the wheels though the engine was developing power on revving. I went ahead and got the clutch plate assembly replaced (~Rs.14,160 all inclusive). But even after this replacement I do not find any improvement in the overall power of my car. I am not knowledgeable in these matters; I haven't had time to research on this / discuss / ask for advice. For example, is clutch assembly related to power transmission?! I thought clutch mechanism is to engage/disengage gears smoothly while changing gears and nothing more than that. Please enlighten me on this, guys!
3. I bought a MapMyIndia navigator recently; so far I have not had a pleasant experience: the unit failed to work on the second day even while I was familiarizing myself with its functions; I have sent it for repairs back to New Delhi almost a month ago but not received it back. Anyway I will post a separate thread in the ICE section of this forum.

Cheeers,
Ravi.
Kalpakkam