This is the section where questions from site visitors will appear, and also the answers to them once they are found..........

1) Are there any Cinquecento fan clubs in the UK? - Don Bowers

Yes there is a Cinquecento and Seicento owners club called Clubcento. Please visit www.clubcento.co.uk for more details.

2) Anyone know how to change a broken clutch cable on a '96 Sporting? - Moira Hare

For the person wanting to know how to change a handbrake cable I suggst
they buy a workshopmanual; Haynes have released one and there is also a
FIAT approved manual by 'Porter' avaialable from dealers.  

Answer provided by Rob Whitney

I understand that the clutch cable for Cinq and Sei are the same. If this is the case, then the clutch cable on the '96 Sporting (Cinq) will be the same as my Seicento Suite (1100cc). Fiat appear to have used the same cable for both Left and Right-hand drive cars. This involves a strange linkage across the car for RH drive, to meet the cable mounted on the bulkhead in front of the passenger's feet.

First, remove the LH front wheel, making sure the car is supported safely. Don't rely just on the vehicle jack and never work under a car alone. Have someone nearby to keep an eye on you in case it all goes horribly wrong and falls onto you. Placing the removed wheel flat under the car can give a useful safety margin. Once the wheel is off you can "easily" undo the adjuster nut on the end of the cable at the gearbox clutch arm. With your third hand you will need to prevent the inner cable rotating. Try a lightly gripping Mole wrench, or pliers. Next, undo the two 10mm nuts at the bulkhead where the cable enters the car. As the cable is broken, it will now fall off. That's the easy bit done.

Inside the passenger footwell gets a bit cramped. On the Sei there is a metal cover over the linkage, secured by three small pozidrive screws. The bottom two you can see. The top one will make you explore that special vocabulary. You will need a short, dumpy or angled screwdriver and lots of patience. Try not to lose any of the screws, although you'll be glad to see the back of the top one! You'll probably need to pull back the carpet first, which necessitates removal of the trim panel on the door hinge pillar.(A-post) On the Seicento Suite there is an ECU below the clutch linkage cover. Ideally this will need removing to ease access, specially if you need to recover dropped screws. Four 10mm nuts and two multiplugs are easy, but a deep 10mm socket is needed, or again lots of patience. Once you have removed the cover, and decided not to replace the top screw, you can then see the cable end and linkage. The clutch pedal will have fallen to the floor, so lift it and put something under it to keep it up.
this keeps the linkage more accessible. I'm not familiar wiht the Cinq dash, but the Sei lower tray gets in the way and is not removable, although it appears to be, it is bonded to the rest of the dash. This makes access to the cable end a one-hand operation, where two would be nearly enough. Once your hand is there, you can't see any more. Try to keep you temper or
it will only get worse. The cable end is retained by a split pin and hopefully a washer. Pliers are needed to straighten the pin and remove it. Try to catch the washer. A magnet is useful for this and for the screws earlier.

In best Haynes tradition, 'replacement is the reverse of removal'. Feed the new cable up through the bulkhead and hang it into the linkage. If it tries to fall out, keep it held towards you using string, wire ties, or elastic and hooks, etc. Placing the washer on and keeping it there while you insert the new split pin is tricky. A small blob of grease or Vaseline will hold it there. Don't use too long a split pin, we don't want it snagging. Once secured, you can fix the outer cable to the bulkhead underneath. This will seem easy after the inside work. The cover plate inside must be replaced, although the top screw is optional. If the top screw is not to be used, add a small blob of Blu-tack to the screw hole to act partly as fixer but mostly as noise suppression. Mine tends to sing gently, so I need to get at it again. Feed the cable through the gearbox arm and add the adjuster nut. Before adjusting it, remove the prop from under the pedal. Normally the cable is adjusted to make the pedal sit level with or just below the brake pedal.

By now you will hate the little car, but you'll love it again next time you drive it!

Answer provided by Nigel Cox
 

3)  I am trying to find a supplier for a fiat exhaust part for a Tipo 16v,
      and am tired of paying fiat prices.  I would like to know if you can
      give me any contact names or numbers and any help would be appreciated - Mike Jukes

Since the FIAT club mentioned above caters for all FIATs the person wanting help/parts (I
cant remember what) would also benefit from joining as parts are advertised in the magazine

Answer provided by Rob Whitney
 

4) Anyone know where we can get hold of a Cinq Sporting gearbox, as ours has dropped 3rd gear? - Neil and Louise
   

One place that I would recommend is Desira in Norfolk, the number is 01379 650131. They do a discount if you are in the Fiat Motor Club too!

Answer provided by Simon Denton

5. Will 14inch Mille Miglia Chronos alloys fit the Cinq. Sporting, and what tyres should I go for? - Terry Watton

I am familiar with a number of people who have fitted 14" wheels to their cars and seem to have no problems, I also must note that these cars are lowered also. However, after seeing their cars i had to go one better and fit a set of 15" wheels, which look quite good. They are 6.5 x 15" Fox racing F1's, which are a 32mm offset, combined with 195/45/r15 fulda's.

Answer provided by Roger Bruce

The correct offset (the distance between the centrline of the rim and the hub face) for the Cinq Sporting is 29mm, any less and the rim will foul on the rear suspension arm. Much more and the tyre will
foul on the wheelarch. This offset is rare which, along with the bolt spacing of 98mm PCD
severly limits choice of wheels. 100+ wheel offer a range, as do Momo. Speedline and Cromodora supplied
wheels for the Cinquecento Trofeo and Martini Cup Europa - very cool but difficult to obtain. The other option of course are the official 'Abarth' accessories but they are expensive... So the answer is Yes if they are available with 29mm offset and 98mm PCD.

Answer provided by Rob Whitney

Fifteens do look good but remember the extra rolling radius of those tyres! (+8.8% over standard). Fourteens are still the optimal size in my opinion (I spent a LONG time researching this before spending my hard earned dosh). I have a set of Momo Ferrari Engineering wheels (29 offset), with 195/45 Toyo Proxes T1+. (+ 3.8% over standard) Previously I had 185/50 Yokohama A520's and these were absolute garbage - would not allow balance without loads of lead and tramlined like mad. In addition they were very unstable under braking. Great dry grip but very non progressive breakaway. In the wet they were positivly dangerous!. The Toyo's do not offer as much dry grip but are really good in the wet. In addition the straight line stability at speed is much better.

Fourteens also allow the car to be lowered significantly with the corresponding improvement in handling. Fifteens do require some body surgery to fit properly althogh this should not put you off as
Autodelta will take care of this side of things.

Biggest is not always best! Actually the standard thirteens look really good on a lowered car!

Answer provided by Tony Ward

6. Do you know of anyone who does performance parts for the cinq, e.g. camshafts, etc. - Roger Bruce

Check out the Novitec web site on : http://www.novitec.com. If there is a better conversion out there I can't find it on the Web, and believe me I have looked. Conversion price to English Pounds seems a bit steep, £2650 and to get it at that price its a long drive to Germany, or an expensive delivery.

The only other people in the same league as Novitec in the UK are:

R.G.S. Motorsport
Unit 72, Lawrence Road Ind Est,
Irthlingborough Road, Wellingborough,
Northants. NN8 1RA. U.K.
Tel: (+44) 01933 441451

They appear really good but I have found no-one that has been to them as of yet.

Answer provided by Karl Dawson

Autodelta for Novitec stuff, speak to Jano on 0181 - 8383535 - really nice guy.
Demon Tweeks for K&N, Jamex etc
Dont expect huge gains unless you go for one of Jano's insane turbo conversions!

Answer provided by Tony Ward

7. Anyone know which alloy dealers make wheels with 32mm offset?

8. Does anyone know the maximum wheel/tyre size you can have on a Cinq without modifications?

9. Anyone know what is the largest package you can have if you want to keep the same rolling radius?

Questions 7, 8 and 9 from Karl Dawson

Just been checking out wheel and tyre packages for the Cinq and have found a good page to check when it comes to checking rolling radius etc..... If you go to: http://www.powerdog.com/tiresize.cgi, you can put in the original tyre size and then the one you wish to change to to see the difference. The only package that comes close to the same rolling radius is a set of 14" alloys with 175/45/14 which are rare as the old rocky horse droppings. To put 15s on you increase the rolling radius by 8.8% using 195/45/15, thus decreasing acceleration and knocking your speedo out.

Answer, found later, from Karl Dawson

10. I have just started to modify my cinq sporting and so far have done the following, superchip, k&n induction, cat replacement pipe,lowering kit, i am fitting a full janspeed exaust including manifold( thus removing the cat, and the need for a cat pipe) but am a bit concerned about a flat spot i am experiencing around the 3 to 4 thou range, do you think that this is because i have removed the cat and will it get worse when the full exhaust system is fitted, i have been talking with well lane turbo centre who fitted the supership and they said that i should have no problems with the mods i have done to date but as every car is different they could reprogram the ecu to suit my car, this will cost me about £300 for my chip to be custom programmed on top of the £200 i originally paid for it, is their another way to get more juice through or do you think it should be ok? - Darren Sykes

In essence you are buying a new chip, from the sounds of things, these people are ripping you off, you might aswell just spend the £200 again. God knows where the extra £100 comes into play, My Local tuners RGS
Motorsport of Wellingborough told me this would cost about £40. If however this chip cannot be altered, speak to Racelogic about thier VSAM product (on sale soon) this is a reprogramable piggyback ecu, details can be found on thier website, I hope this was of some use to you.

Answer by Matt Jukes

What plugs are you using? The reason I ask is that I had both the K&N kit and SuperChip and found that when experimenting with SplitFire plugs (the ones most people rate as the best performance plugs) that the
power delivery became very erratic and that way be what he is feeling as a flat spot. The cure would be a swap to Bosch Super 4 plugs, these are less than £20. for a set and still give about a 1 bhp gain. Not much but better than nothing for the price and you get a much smoother power curve. It may certainly be a cheaper way of trying to cure the problem than a £300. chip re-map!

Answer by Simon Denton

11. Since I've had my cinq sporting it has had quite a bad flat spot around 3 to 4 thousand RPM. I took it to the garage where I had my exhaust fitted and the mechanic took it for a spin, he said he thought it needed a new air filter (but it looks pretty clean), a good set of plugs, and needs taking to Fiat for a tune up (which will probably be very costly). I sat in it on the drive and held the revs at 2000 rpm and every so often the car would chug for a second and the revs would drop down and then it would regain itself again and the revs would go up. It cannot be knackered it's only done 26000 miles. Is the mechanic was right and if so how much is it going to cost me? - Paul Marshall

Your Lambda sensor is stuffed. It is a common problem and about £180 to fix

Answer from Rob Whitney

12. I've got a Cinq Sporting, fine car but with a dose of the hot head. The thermostat is checked and OK, so is the temp guage. The fan works fine, and in traffic it the temp is stable. At speed the temp rises, to as much as 130 degrees in 10 mins from cold, slowing reduces the temperature, more gas = higher temp. Dodgy radiator? Can anyone help, swapping it for a new one is an expensive pain. Currently going slow is tedious. I'm sure you understand.... - Paul Wraith

I have worked for Fiat in the past and I feel his problem is related to "disappearing vanes" on the water pump. We once got a brand new Uno and it had this problem of overheating and after a lot of head scratching we took the water pump off and found it had no vanes so it wasn't pumping any water round the engine, I have also seen the vanes corrode on some engines so after a while the pump becomes ineffective.

Answer from Scott Jackson

I had similar, though less extreme, symptoms with my 95M Cinq Sporting. Fine in traffic but running hot above about 65mph.  Lived with it for a while - had got used to it with my previous car, an Alfasud which had pretty marginal cooling.  But recently i had a new radiator fitted (not sure if it's same spec as original) and that seemed to completely sort my problems, i haven't noticed the gauge above 90 since.

Answer from Steve Allenby

13. What is the best tyre size choice for 14" wheels on the Cinq? - Paul Marshall

195/45 seems to be the best choice here - less change to the rolling radius that 185/50's.

14. I have a 95 Cinquecento with 56,000 miles on the clock. It would not start yesterday and after 4 goes it is running very rough.
It is only running on 3 cylinders as there is no spark feeding cylinder no 1. I have checked the leads and they are all ok so it seems that there is no spark coming out of the HT coil. Do you think that this would need replacing or could it be more serious and be the ECU. I live a very long way from a Fiat dealers so I do not want to drive it there on only 3 cylinders. Any advise would be great. - Martin Pawsey

It cant be the ECU as one signal from it feeds one coil that feeds two sparks, it could be the HT coil as this is a known problem for the sporting
and I was told by a Fiat dealer that the same coil is used on all Chiq's so try moving both the HT leads and the LT (low voltage plugs) about and watch
the fault move, to pin the fault down. I was also told that all cylinders spark at the same time - four sparks per cycle so in theory, any plug lead
or low voltage plug can be connected any which way round ? !!. but it sounds like a coil @£45, its such a known problem most dealers have them in stock.

Answer from Andy C

15. I am currently running my Cinq on standard 165/55/13 Pirelli's, but find they lose grip when cornering.  What is the best tyre choice for me? - Hans

My boyfriend and I own a Cinq each and have found "Nankangs" to be a better tyre that the Pirelli.  Although still a 165/55/13, they give the impression that they are slightly wider than the Pirelli and therefore look better on the car as well.  In addition, they are approx. £20 per tyre cheaper too!!

Answer from Keren

16. Seicento Suite (1100) Clutch Cable. My clutch cable failed at 32000 miles due to a faulty clutch. (Replaced under waranty) 2500 miles later the cable is starting to make slight noises, suggesting it may break again soon. Has anyone had recurring problems with Cinq/Sei 1100 clutch cables, if so do they have a cure and what is the usual life expectancy of them anyway? - Nigel Cox

Answer from Richard Greenhalgh

17. Hi, I need help!!! I can't find a way to get my amp power leads through the bulkhead to my engine bay!!! I have no power for big boom boom base :( - Jamie

If this is a Seicento I have a possible answer.  If a Cinq, the answer may still be valid.  I had a similar problem trying to feed cables from the speed sensor and reverse switch into the car for the satnav system.  On the Sei, there is a grommet, about 20mm across, slightly above and to the right of the throttle pedal. From inside the car, get your head stuck under the dash, by the pedals.  Take a torch!  You should see the grommet as described.  Give it a good push until it falls through.  Then try to
find it under the car!  The other side of this hole (if holes have sides) is best accessed after removing the RH front wheel.  Don't work under the car without someone else nearby, just in case of accident. This hole is below the battery, so the route to power is not far.  It's all very tight under there, so good luck.  Alternatively, how many amps do you need?  Will a spur off the cigar lighter inside the car be enough?

Answer from Nigel Cox