Track Lapping at Icar near Montreal

I've been sitting on the video for a while. Here's my hot lap with overlay from Harry's Lap Timer!

If you listen attentively you'll hear me screaming... not at the cars ahead of me, but the Blue & Me...

Driving the car on the track is fun. The only other car I've driven here so far was a 04 Mazda Rx-8 with some track inclined mods. The major differences... this car under steers. You really need to chuck it in the corners or reduce your speed and play more in the gears to come out of the turn roaring. That's something the Abarth does pretty well. If you're going at a corner around 50km/h and you're in 2nd, you'll be around the 4000 rpm range. Trust me, as soon as you set your foot down, the car GOES! Overall straight from the factory I would give the Abarth a 3 on 5 for the track. Its fun to drive, does decent in the corners and you have the sense you can feel you're way around a small circuit. BUT needs a stiffer roll bar to get the car to pull its back leg up and really take that corner well!

Neuf Short Shifter for Fiat 500 Abarth Review

Let me first say sorry. Sorry for not posting anything for quite some time. If I had to make up any excuses... well I bought a house and moved in with my GF. NOW with that said, on to what I just bought for my Abarth!

The first and ultra essential mod for any manual Fiat 500 Abarth or not. Obviously I don't have $300 ready to drop at a whims notice (although I wish I could) so I decided to go the inexpensive root. This beautiful Neu-F "by Neuspeed" short shifter adaptor.

In a nut shell, it bolts onto your stock shifter and reduces the throw by 25%. The install was very straight forward, and the instructions in the box were very easy to follow. The worst thing you'll have to do is clean up some edges on the vertical throw arm of the shifter so it sits in the adaptor snugly. Don't worry I didn't really file all that much, but I did file.

So what does the short shifter do, beside reduce the throw. Right off the bat, you feel the shifter pretty much pop into position telling you "hey I'm in gear, lets rock". When in gear you still have a bit of side to side play, so it doesn't solve horizontal movement but it really makes a clean PoP into gear motion when going into every gear.

The only negative I can find right now with this particular adaptor is that, once you finish the install, you'll notice the rod that was once connected to its original position is bending back to accommodate the new location of linkage. I cant compare it against different types of short shifters, but I can say by just observing the movement that it doesn't look detrimental to the rod. We'll see if it snaps off, if it does this post and the short shifter adaptor will disappear from existence and I'll call Fiat and claim a defect :D

Loving it so far. Definitely how the car should have been sold STOCK!!! Get on it Fiat!

His power level is over 10 000!!!

It finally happened to my poor Fiat 500 Abarth

First video post coming soon!

Hey all! You may not know it but I'm an avid video guy, person... thingie...

I actually always intended to start blogging and posting videos about my amore la Fiat 500 Abarth. So just a heads up to all you eager Abarth and Fiat 500 fans, a video is on its way and will take the world by storm... Okay probably not by storm, but it will be quite vigorous! Probably...

Ciao

Have no fear! Your shocks are now clear... Of problems

So if you recently bought any Fiat 500 of any type in Canada... But more importantly in the colder parts of Canada or the US for that matter, then you might have noticed that your suspension is making some funny noises now that it's cold out. Possibly something like a "plock plock plock..." In any case there's nothing wrong with your Mexican made Fiat, just the shock mounts... Or some type of bushing or something. Long story short because of the cold there is a rubber that contracts and moves around when hitting the smallest bump at even 25km/h. Fiat has finally engineered a fix that removes this sound from the front shocks by replacing this piece with a better piece. If your car is making this sound then bring her on in for them to fix it (covered by warrantee) I have yet any reports wether or not it impacts the performance and handling of the car, but it does feel a little smoother now. Go get yours fixed now if your here the plucking plock of your sadly noisy suspension of your brand new North American Fiat. Don't get me wrong, still love this sucker!

Blogging when drunk... After a long drive with my Abarth

So, this weekend we (one of my best friends) chose to go to toronto to see our other best friend with my Abarth. So this post is really, how does an Abarth handle long distances?

The answer is, good! These are things to look forward when driving for a long time. The exhaust becomes annoying after an hour. The good news is, if your a guy you'll probably end up drowning out the sound, so thank God. If your a girl, sorry all hope is lost unless your find a really good music station to blast it too.

Always put on a helmet before sex... I mean driving it in hard... Okay I give up.

Hey everyone, welcome back for my second post all things Abarth! I wanted to share with you all a really easy DIY for your racing helmet. I've decided to go with the Abarth name and the Scorpion... Obviously. It's pretty easy to do. I used 3M carbon fiber vinyl; printed out a big Abarth logo and cut to make my template. I then proceeded to cut the template apart. I Traced the outlines on the back of the 3M carbon fiber vinyl and assembled it to the helmet. Unfortunately I had to modify the pincers on the Abarth scorpion since I had a little air vent blocking them, but over all, I'm happy with the result.

 

For best results, use a really good blade and be super careful. I did this DIY a while back. Not bad after a good hour of hard work!

Here are links to where you can find this Dot approved helmet for track day racing and also for the 3M carbon fiber vinyl.

Helmet ->  http://bit.ly/XZSGms
CarbonFiber Vinyl ->  http://bit.ly/X9rcw3

Do be conscious about what size helmet you take. It's best to try one out at your local sporting goods store before buying.

And don't get me started on full face vs open face. Just know you can have either or. I like the open face though so you can see how big my smile is going round the track.

Welcome

Hello one and all! Welcome to my Fiat 500 Abarth blog. As you probably have figured out by now, I am an Abarth owner. My love for the rambunctious little thing has compelled me so much that I had to start talking about it. Lets start with the birth of Darth.

It started with watching some videos on YouTube. And obviously, after that I started to look into it more seriously. The unfortunate thing was that I didn't really have any good references to get a decent deal and service... Seeing that the Abarth is in such high demand, it was hard as Sh** to even get one!

I started looking in late June of 2012. My criteria was simple. Black with black leather interior, NO sun roof, the optional 17 inch mags, Bose sound system and that was it. No satellite radio, no sun roof, nothing else really.  I then placed my order in August 2012 for a 2012 black with black leather interior, no sun roof and with the Bose sound system. 

2 Months!

Two months it took to even get something close to what I had ordered. Now Fiat, I know it's not your fault for not having enough of these babies in stock, but 2 months and no word... C'mon! Apparently the online tracking had been removed for all of north america. I guess people didn't like sitting at their desks growing old from waiting to see a little dot move from Mexico to their dealership.

I almost died from the long wait. The only thing you can do if you really want your Fiat 500 Abarth is to be flexible. Instead of a 2012 Abarth, I had managed to squeeze the guys at the dealership to locate me a 2013 Abarth, Black with Black and Red leather interior. I had to make some trade offs though. No Bose (or even Beats Audio), it came with satellite radio, and they tried to include a bunch of other useless crap that I didn't need. A word to all who will purchase this car though, stick to what you want, don't flex on the extras. This car is meant to be built the way you want it. And don't buy any life insurance crap the dealership tries to push onto you. It's $4000 that you'll never see again. And they don't even tell you they include it in the price!

And finally it came...