I know there are a couple of very old threads on this topic, but does anyone have any info or experience on tuning the 1.7 puma engine?

I have one in a mk5 fiesta, people have said it’s possible to reach 180bhp with head work only??

any ideas what exactly would be needed to get to this?

or any guesstimates what bhp would be made with cams, induction kit, 4 branch and a remap?

 

when i had my 1.7 puma I fitted a 2ltr mondeo throttle body and bored the inlet manfold out. I also had a cone filter which sat in a box to stop heat soak.

Put it this way rather my puma wasn't a fast one or the mods did fook all cause i had a play against a standard (well i think it was) and it flew past me ha ha ha.

I fitted st170 brake discs and trimmed down mk3 mondeo brake calipers. The best handling mods I did was 20mm axle/hub spacers on the rear and a strut brace which fits between the sub frame.


You could do the same mods cause the mk5 fiesta is just a puma.

 

Well the FRP has those differences over a std Puma (as well as that porsche designed inlet manifold) and that reaches 155PS... on a good day.. with a tail wind. So 180 is hoping for quite a bit.

If you're trying to get ultimate power then the 1.7se engine isn't really the one for you. The nikasil linings are grumpy at the best of times in my experience and need the correct oil at all times. The 1.6 is a much stronger engine if you want to start going for big power and revs like slapping a turbo on it.

But then if you're robbing a Puma for it's 1.7 and putting it in a Fiesta then may hell have mercy on your soul

 

180bhp from a Puma would take higher compression and throttle bodies I would have thought. The FRP, with wilder cams, different intake and exhaust didn't make the claimed 155PS, so I imagine it would take a reasonable amount of work to get to 180bhp.

 

projectpuma or the puma owners group on facebook would be good places to ask. I'd imagine it'd take throttle bodies, cams and headwork at least though.

 

My old puma engine made 150bhp on sitechs rollers with a full decat exhaust, cold air intake & frp cams but don’t know how accurate they’re rollers are. After that I got the frp map loaded onto the tape ecu that had also been adjusted for 99ron fuel and fitted a 2.0 zetec throttle body but sold it so didn’t get a power figure afterwards.

with the 4.25 final drive it was a fast little car not far behind my mates 300hp sti ra surprisingly and also remember coming home from ford fair with 3 of us in the car and luggage and had a pop with a series mcrae Impreza and pulled away from it lol.

from what I remember they cost a bomb to make more than 150hp as not many off the shelf parts and the crank isnt keyed ect, personally fit a better engine like a k20.

 

The problem with a lot of cars is that they're only as tuneable as they are popular. Because the 1.7 was only used in the Puma, it wasn't that popular, so it never got the attention that some other engines did. The regular, iron-block Zetec was fitted into everything, so got loads of attention from tuners, so there was much more stuff about for it.

I think it depends what you want. If you want to find a few more horses but keep the character of the engine, I would probably try to find some FRP cams, fit a different exhaust manifold and intake, put an FRP map on it and enjoy it as it is. If you want really big power, I would consider an engine swap. The 2.0-litre Duratec from the Fiesta ST MK6 fits into the MK4/5 Fiesta. It's all-alloy so still light, but you'd have 145bhp out of the box. With cams and exhaust manifold, you'd be around 185bhp. With ITBs, you'd be just over 200bhp. The 2.0-litre would give you more torque than the 1.7, and there are loads of tuning parts out there because it was used in loads of cars.

 

I have a puma engined fiesta, but in totally standard form. I will be hoping to do a few mods to it eventuaeventually, so will be keeping an eye on this thread.

project puma is a good place to look, there's some people doing some decent stuff on there with the pumas,
There's turbo'd and supercharged 1.7 engines. The 1.6 eco boost is being used more now also.

The problem with FRP parts is that they are very rare and when they become available they are ridiculous money.
Like £1k for an inlet! No thankyou