[KarthikK]

Wheel Alignment and Balancing Report #3 (15,500 km):

It was time for my third visit to Madhus for the routine 5000 km wheel alignment and Hunter road force balancing sessions, and to make sure the shoes and socks were in good shape. I paid a visit to the place this past Saturday morning, and was in and out in one hour flat thanks to the superb service by the super-efficient staff at Madhus.

Some pictures of the Punto's visit to Madhus:

Wheel alignment: I had no complaints after 5000 km (from my previous visit to Madhus), apart from a slight pull to the left at high speeds, barely noticeable. It was corrected and the steering dead position was centred properly too.





Wheel alignment report



Hunter road force balancing: no balancing related wobble complaints from me but I always get this check done every time since this machine also helps detect alloy wheel bends if any, etc.



The rest of the centipede-claw-alloy-shod tyres await their turn



Hunter Road Force Balancing report



The Red Rocket just hit the 16,000 mark this weekend. That's 700 km post-remap



TOT Update : Siddharth and Vivek have promised me their time this coming Saturday for the dyno runs and VBox tests. The dedicated thread (much awaited by me too) will be up and running next week, the long wait is over.

Interior makeover update: Meanwhile, the 'Abarth' Punto will soon be shedding away its fabric skins on the inside and going the full leather route . I met up with Sajith of Karlsson leather fame and struck up a deal to do up the Red Rocket with sporty black and red themed full leather interiors, without looking too loud. From the stable of one of the best leather gurus in town, I've opted for complete 1.5mm Scandinavian leather (Black) with some tasteful, minimalistic elements of Red thrown in to complete the Abarth MultiJet's sporty stance.

Karlsson it is !! Photo belongs to another site (got it from image search)


The advance payment has been made, and the Karlsson-ification will happen on the 5th of November. The interior makeover completes a full one year of iteration of modifications for me, since the Punto happens to complete one full year of ownership next month.

Countdown begins for the next big thing - total makeover of the Punto's interiors! 15 days to go!! Stay tuned for more this week - I have a night-time timepass photoshoot with neon make-up, coming up - 'Red Devil Rocket'. Thanks for reading!

[tabrez]

Originally Posted by KarthikK

the 'Abarth' Punto will soon be shedding away its fabric skins on the inside and going the full leather route

Eagerly waiting for the Red Rocket's revamp of the interior. Just curious, did those folks at Karlsonn have some form of catalogue or rendering available to choose from ? Their website doesn't seem to enlist a lot of samples.

[NFS2024]

Originally Posted by tabrez

Eagerly waiting for the Red Rocket's revamp of the interior. Just curious, did those folks at Karlsonn have some form of catalogue or rendering available to choose from ? Their website doesn't seem to enlist a lot of samples.

Yes they do have and a visit to their shop will give a good picture of all available options. Their craftsmanship is pretty good. I have experienced it.

[KarthikK]

The Red Rocket hits the racetrack for a photoshoot!

He: "What!! Are you sure??!!!!" His eyes grew wide in amazement.
Me: "Sir its just for a photoshoot.. A few laps and a few photos, we should be getting outta here. Please sir, please"
He: "This is the first time I'm hearing such a request"
He (after a pause) : "But the track is narrow at places and the turns get tight for big cars. Will you be able to manage??"
Me : "That's ok sir, we're only doing a photoshoot and to have a little fun throwing the cars around corners. No heavy duty stuff intended"
He: "Okay, In that case, enjoy your track time!"
Me: "Thanks a lot! Can't thank you enough!"
He *winks*: "We shall even time your laps and tell you who clocks the best lap time anyway. We'll allow 2 cars at a time with sufficient gap and make sure you don't interfere with each other"
He <shouts to track marshalls>" : Boys, start the lap timing for these 4 cars, 2 at a time with sufficient gap!

Mr. Srininvas (owner of Speedway Karting track) ordered some track marshalls to move a section of the tyre walls and allow a group of us BHPians onto the go-karting track. I do frequently visit this place for karting, so he was only happy to oblige for a regular customer, especially since there were no other customers on this hot Sunday afternoon.

This was a different experience of a go-karting track. We weren't in karts. We were in our cars, on a go-karting track! This happened impromptu on September 27th after a Team-BHP meet, when a group of remaining (jobless on Sunday morning) BHPians spent time at Speedway karting zone on Mysore road instead of going back home. After the karting session, we did a 'trackday', capturing photos of a different kind which I present to you with this post. My partners in crime on the track that day, whose cars you'll find in some of the snaps - Rohittunga (Tuscan wine Linea), nkrishnap (white Linea), Sidhu_Bangalore (fluidic Verna), SunnyBoi (Palio S10). Giving us company / doing the photography were srinath34, black12rr and nitish.h who didn't bring their vehicles on the track.

Track Attack!! Cars on a go-kart track!!



We guys had a lot of fun on the track, here's hoping you'll like reading through this photoshoot post of my Punto. Thanks to nkrishnap, black12rr, srinath34 and nitish.h for clicking these awesome high resolution 'track day' snaps when I was driving the Abarth MultiJet EsseEsse.


The colorful pitlane with cars waiting for their turn to set off



Meanwhile Sidhu_bangalore's fluidic verna was having a gala time on the tarmac



SunnyBoi's Palio S10 in action



Rohittunga burning rubber, literally!





nkrishna's white Linea attacking a corner. He clocked the fastest time for the day



Soon, it was time for the Red Rocket to hit the track for a photoshoot



And this is what came out of the BHPians' lenses while I was having fun on the track:







GlossMania!





Abarth Punto Evo EsseEsse MultiJet with centipede-claw alloys and panorama sunroof, spotted at the Silverstone race track! Yeah right! *grins*







Yours truly, steering the Punto





Abarth in motion!






Curious spectators crop up to see what's going on



A departing snap of the Red Rocket on track



The mega dyno update is pending and should be out on Sunday. Stay tuned for more. Thanks for reading!

[KarthikK]

Originally Posted by tabrez

Eagerly waiting for the Red Rocket's revamp of the interior. Just curious, did those folks at Karlsonn have some form of catalogue or rendering available to choose from ? Their website doesn't seem to enlist a lot of samples.

Thanks tabrez!
They don't have a formal catalogue of designs, but they have tons of photos both on their facebook page (organized car-wise in albums) and on their office desktop in case you visit them in person. You can browse through all their albums here to see what design you like.
https://www.facebook.com/Karlssonleather/photos_albums


The choice of designs and customizations was so much that I took quite a long time to decide, on what I finally ended up choosing. They are open to mix and match of different elements, so I was a happy customer in the end.

[rohittunga]

Fantastic pictures Karthik

That day just couldn't have been more better. Getting to meet BHPians in the morning and trackday in the afternoon.

A big shout out to Mr. Srininvas of Speedway Karting track for providing us permissions to drive.

[tabrez]

Originally Posted by KarthikK

You can browse through all their albums here to see what design you like https://www.facebook.com/Karlssonleather/photos_albums

Thanks for the link Karthik - this is definitely better & more detailed when compared to their homepage. I don't have a facebook account & hence, had to request a colleague to login for me. He too is evaluating revamping interiors for his Fluidic Verna.

I have another request for you - could you kindly divulge the final quote you received from Karlsson & the extent of your work ? I'm referring to, say the inclusion of door panels, steering wheel, hand-brake lever & odd. I've a Punto Sports (Red Devil) lined for delivery few weeks down the line & the leather interior top's my list. I would've personally preferred sending in a PM but the forum rules prevent me from that (or may be I'm ignorant )

[Arch-Angel]

The red rocket finally gets to dorn her skirt and knock all men off their feet! . Waiting for the pictures from the leather makeover that you have planned for your ride Karthik! Souped up visuals + remapped engine + glorified internals = absolute nirvana. Can't go wrong there, with your taste .

[kailashnj]

Karthik waiting for you update from the Red Rooster Dyno run that you have with Crazy driver.

[KarthikK]

Originally Posted by tabrez

Thanks for the link Karthik - this is definitely better & more detailed when compared to their homepage. I don't have a facebook account & hence, had to request a colleague to login for me. He too is evaluating revamping interiors for his Fluidic Verna.

Glad you found it useful tabrez . I too don't have a facebook account anymore. I've just created a dummy account (without friends or my identity) to just be able to browse such content that I couldn't see without logging in.

I have another request for you - could you kindly divulge the final quote you received from Karlsson & the extent of your work ? I'm referring to, say the inclusion of door panels, steering wheel, hand-brake lever & odd. I've a Punto Sports (Red Devil) lined for delivery few weeks down the line & the leather interior top's my list. I would've personally preferred sending in a PM but the forum rules prevent me from that (or may be I'm ignorant )

Definitely will divulge the quote received. The quote may be useful for other readers too, plus I don't think there is anything confidential in it. I was quoted 42k for the full work - all seats, door trims, steering cover, gear knob and handbrake lever. This is for 1.5mm Scandinavian leather all around.

Napa leather will go to 60k+ (I don't remember the exact number) and art leather will come to ~15k. They also do a mix and match with art leather for the back portion of the seats and full leather for the front and contact portions. This reduces the cost to 32k or something, but I opted out of this since I'd prefer a clean, no-cost-cutting approach.

Originally Posted by Arch-Angel

The red rocket finally gets to dorn her skirt and knock all men off their feet! . Waiting for the pictures from the leather makeover that you have planned for your ride Karthik! Souped up visuals + remapped engine + glorified internals = absolute nirvana. Can't go wrong there, with your taste .

Thanks a lot Arch-Angel! The leather makeover should be happening after Diwali holidays. Just another week to go now.

Originally Posted by kailashnj

Karthik waiting for you update from the Red Rooster Dyno run that you have with Crazy driver.

Thanks kailashnj. I'll be posting the details in some time now, just received the pdf from them yesterday evening.

[TheHkrish]

Originally Posted by KarthikK

The Red Rocket hits the racetrack for a photoshoot!

Red Rocket on Fire ... Great to see the bunch of Italians and Siddhu's Verna of course on a track.

Waiting for the interior mods now ..

[KarthikK]

1000 km remap report (16500 km):

There have been some superb changes after I remapped the car, notable ones being :

- Refinement levels have catapulted upwards, much to my amazement. The NVH levels are very low compared to the stock form. Sid tells me the remapped tune is making sure the fuel is burning very efficiently. The clatter is almost not audible at all and when in motion, the car feels just like a turbo-petrol, not a turbo-diesel. Take my word for this - even if there were no power gains from a remap, I'd have to admit the improvement in refinement levels are unbelievably good - reason enough for me to like the remapped version (thanks to a 4-5 hour stint everyday in the diesel car cabin).

- Acceleration is now blisteringly fast compared to the stock form. This is exactly the kind of tune I was looking for. The 1500-2000 rpm range is very linear in acceleration now, and there is almost no lag seen in 3rd gear and upwards. The pull is almost like a turbo petrol; it just keeps pulling and pulling and pulling all the way upto 5000 rpm, this for a turbo-diesel!! What makes it better is the typically diesel NVH levels don't make it feel as strained as stock while the revs go higher and higher. The remapped MultiJet can give some serious competition to its stock elder sibling at home for acceleration, plus it will surely blow most hatches and sedans into oblivion.

- In gear roll-on acceleration runs I have not been able to do yet, but I'm guessing this is where all the difference will be seen with the current map. 30-80 in 3rd gear and 40-100 in 4th will be a massive improvement from my drive experience. Numbers will speak for themselves when I do these runs, so I'll hold my tongue until then. The car feels like it is always in the power band and a gentle tap on the throttle pedal banishes your (to be overtaken) victims into the rear view mirror in seconds. The rear view mirror should now read 'Objects in the mirror are Disappearing' instead of 'Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear'.

- On a 0-100 dash, what ruins the party is the cursed 1st/2nd gear ratios which slows the car down initially and chops off ~2 seconds from the 0-100 time thanks to the short improperly matched ratios and frequent shifts needed. 3rd gear and upwards, this beast is a rocket! If not for this 1,2 gear ratio problem, the 0-100 time would be in the upper 9 second territory I'm guessing. Heck, Fiat just needed to give the same gear ratios of the T-Jet (which I didn't have any issue with at all) on this car to complete the 'Sport' picture they claimed.

- Fuel Efficiency has more or less remained the same as before. In fact, when driven sedately, there's oodles of torque coming in early in the rev range so the car effortless darts forward without much prodding of the throttle pedal. With sane driving in the city, the remap returned up to ~1 kmpl more than the stock version!! Of course, when the throttle is floored and car driven hard, the FE drops by 1-1.5 kmpl, understandable since the extra power cannot be produced out of thin air *winks*

- I am super happy that Siddharth (of TOT fame) personally followed up with me post the remap and made sure I was satisfied with the map. He accompanied me for the vBox runs and helped me take some superb readings on the device. He was with us the entire first half of Saturday through the dyno runs too. While I was mighty impressed with the first remap, he promised to tweak some parts of the graph and improve it some more for me. I'm yet to try out the revised map, probably will be doing that today evening. Overall, I'm extremely satisfied with Tune-O-Tronics and glad I went with them after reading their reviews here on team-BHP from Kryptonite and others.

This past Saturday, we headed out to do the litmus test for the remap. Siddharth was with me at 6.30AM in the morning, soon nkrishnap joined the vbox runs to assist us.

Meeting up with tuning guru Sid on a foggy Saturday morning.


Anyone can fish out the 0-100 run of the stock Punto 90HP from the web. It is 15.8 seconds to the triple digit.

0-100 run on the VBox for the remapped Red Rocket = 11.9 seconds . A whopping 4 seconds shaved off!





Post-vbox runs, we headed out to Red Rooster Performance for Dyno sessions of the remapped Punto and CrazyDriver's Punto 90HP fitted with the RaceDynamics dual channel tuning box.

The Red Rocket getting ready to be Dyno'ed


The setup minus the tyres


Cooling off after the multiple dyno runs



An unlikely and legendary companion for the Red Rocket in the parking lot *winks*



I'll create another thread exclusively for these remap figures and comparos, but for now here's the Dyno session reading for the remapped Red Rocket. RRP has sent me a random reading among the 20 odd runs that we did (not the maximum), so the peak power and torque in this graph is not the maximum figure we got. I'm hounding them to fish out those logs and send me the mail today. I'll post them here later.



Assuming 10-12% transmission losses from crank to wheel, the Remapped Red Rocket v/s Stock Red Rocket will read something like this:

Peak Power:

Stock Punto 90HP (mine): 90HP at crank, ~79-80HP at wheel @ 4000 rpm (claimed)
Remapped Punto 90HP (Red Rocket): ~110HP at crank, ~97HP at wheel @ 3200 rpm (average reading)
Remapped Punto 90HP (Red Rocket): ~114HP at crank, ~101.2HP at wheel @ 3200 rpm (highest reading - will upload the graph for this soon)


Peak Torque:

Stock Punto 90HP: 209 Nm at crank, ~190 Nm at wheel (claimed)
Remapped Punto 90HP (mine): ~245 Nm at crank, ~218 Nm at wheel (average reading)
Remapped Punto 90HP (mine): ~250 Nm at crank, ~222 Nm at wheel (best reading)

I was already satisfied with the first map (was done within tolerance limits) and the improved driveability. Any improvement over this is a bonus for me. Sid wanted to make some changes in the first map and refine it further to aid reduced lag and more linear behaviour (within limits of course).
Today in the wee hours of the morning a WhatsApp notification beeped at around 3:30AM, and I saw it was Sid again, probably working through the night on my revised map.

Sid: Dude, are you awake??
Sid: Listen.. I've made a cracker of a tune for you after refining the previous one. We can try it out tomorrow if you're free
Me: You bet!

To be continued....

[motomaverick]

Way to go sir an average of 97 hp at wheel is too good, thats almost 17-20hp jump. So whats the figures for the new map this time?

[KarthikK]

Originally Posted by motomaverick

Way to go sir an average of 97 hp at wheel is too good, thats almost 17-20hp jump. So whats the figures for the new map this time?

Thanks sirji! Not sure what the new figures will be, but it could be a max of 1-2HP increase from last time. As far as I know, he is concentrating mainly on tweaking the power and torque curve to come in slightly earlier than what is the current state, so peak power may not get altered too much I guess. It might reduce the lag a bit more and make the 1500-2500 rev range acceleration more linear though. I'll see what he has done when I visit there later today, or tomorrow morning.

[motomaverick]

Originally Posted by KarthikK

Thanks sirji! Not sure what the new figures will be, but it could be a max of 1-2HP increase from last time. As far as I know, he is concentrating mainly on tweaking the power and torque curve to come in slightly earlier than what is the current state, so peak power may not get altered too much I guess. It might reduce the lag a bit more and make the 1500-2500 rev range acceleration more linear though. I'll see what he has done when I visit there later today, or tomorrow morning.

Yeah what I am assuming is he is aiming at 260NM at crank. But looking at the Dyno graph between 1500 to 2500 the torque actually goes down and stays flat, while the bhp increases slightly, is there a possibility that the drop for the torque is reduced with a slight increase rather than flat. Or maybe it can linearly go up instead of a drop. That would for sure eliminate the lag. Do check with him, I have not been able to find time to meet him these days with all the family obligations