Hi guys. After reading so many reviews about the wonder car, Cielo, I too came forward
to write one about my black pet. Its a 1998 GLX, fully loaded one.
Now the Daewoo’s technical unit is bought by the’chevrolet’ manufacturers. As u would
have seen the Matiz’s transformation to a bigger engine, Chevrolet’s spark and Earlier
Nexia and Nubria running today as a reformed Aveo and Optra.
Cielo is powered by a 1498 CC petrol driven engine, a Single OverHead Camshaft with
engine. A good conditioned vehicle would deliver 80bhp at around 3000 rpm and a respectable
torque of 13Kgm at 3250 rpm .
It may sound less when compared to today figures of 100 and more bhp figures produced by
Accent’s and ford cars. Its the actual power which is available at
the wheels, that pushes the four wheels like a monster.
Many a cars which boasts 100+ bhp actually delivers only 50 to 70 Whp(Wheel horsepower) in
reality. Thats why a 103 bhp powered Hyundai Verna eats the dust of only 78 Bhp powered Honday
City Exi. and doesnt even match the performance of 90 bhp powered Baleno.Cielo’s are provided with two overdrives. Overdrive is a gear where the gear ratio is less than 1.
Manufacturers provide a overdrive for the car to cruise at greater speeds with ease. Generally 5th gear or more is designed as over drive. But in Cielo both 4th and 5th gear are designed as overdrives. Its because of the power cielo can deliver even at 900 rpm engine rotations(few other cars with more than one overdrive are Verna CRDI, Skoda 1.9 TDI, chevy Optra Magnum Di etc., ) I added a KN Air filter to increase the pep of the engine a bit. To match the air filter I have advanced the ignition timing to burn the fuel better.
My car runs both in Petrol and LPG.
0 - 100 Km - 14 Sec.
40-100 Km- 18 sec(4th gear)
40 - 100 Km - 23 Sec(5th)
Mileage:
City driving - 9 - 10 Kmpl(AC on)
Highway - 16- 17 kmpl( Not crossing 90 kmph in 5th gear) in LPG. Driving in petrol would give an extra km only in city, because of lower octane rate in Petrol compared to gas.
Gas Savings Tip:
Use a neat and clean air filter.
Keep the valves and engine heads clean, if need give an engine overhaul(it would renew your cars engine that could run for another 50K kms without a problem)
Dont whip the engine to high rpms. Try to shift to 5th gear for speeds in excess of 40 km.
4.Porting and polishing of the cylinders could add more zip to the engine.
When I dyano tested the car in a workstation in Banglore, I got the performance results as follows.
Max Power: 86.8 bhp at 3500 rpm.
Max torque: 133 Nm( 13.4 Kgm) at 3400 rpm
To all the cielo owner, enjoy a pleasure driving.
Updated Sep 4, 2007:
*Dear All,
Thank to all of our mouthshut review writers, for those valuable comments.
As we all know Daewoo’s Cielo contains an MPFI engine. But the engine is not a contemporary one. It is an SOHC(Single OverHead camshaft) Engine with only 8 valves for breathing. Moreover when Cielo was launched in India High Octane petrol was not predominantly available in all petrol outlets like today. Hence the manufacturer has to set the
Cielo for an ‘ordinary’ driver, estimating average driving conditions. Now that, in India, we have
Petrol with different octane ranges, 87, 91, 97 etc., I would like to clarify it by explaining a term called ‘ignition in the engine’. The Main criteria which decides the power generated in the internal combustion engines is the ignition occurring the engine between the fuel(petrol or Lpg) with the spark from the spark plug. Since the engine was developed to average Indian conditions it could generate only 80bhp of maximum power. Remember, it has 1500cc of engine. Nowadays, even a Swift with 1300 cc engine develops 88bhp. In the later days Daewoo too released a car called “Nexia” which produced 92bhp from the same 1500cc mill. Don’t feel that the engine is of older model with lower efficiency. Similarly 1100 cc engine in a Santro develops 63bhp, but the same engine in the Getz prime produces 66bhp. All these engines are tuned differently as per the requirements. But the Cielo’s engine deserves more power. It’s a class engine developed by German Engineering in Korean Depot that can rev up to 6900 rpm. Many of the modern engines
Of Verna’s, Fiesta’s, Honda’s stops at 6200 rpm.
Tuning a Cielo for Increased Performance:
The distributor controls the ignition timing. The timing can be advanced or retarded based on the required performance standards. Since the launch of Cielo was in a time of Unleaded Petrol(87 octane), the ignition time was retarded to 35 degrees. But the performance standards says that, for an engine with compression of ratio of 9.5:1(like Cielo) could have a ignition timing between 35-40 degrees. Since the company standards set to 35 degrees, at the higher rpm’s the spark produced In the engine could not withstand the speed of piston movement. Hence only 80bhp could be produced to the max. Increasing the ignition timing to 39(or)40 degrees could produces around 15 to 20% increase of power(which could total 92-100bhp). But the trade-off is that we must use only premium(or) power petrol(or) auto LPG(with 91 octane rate or more).
Adjusting the Distributor:
The distributor is a part in the engine which distributes the current produced from the alternator to 4 of the spark plugs. Its from where four cables go to the 4 different plugs over the cylinders. The distributor is provided with a nut, which can be loosened, to make adjustments. The distributor can be rotated clockwise/anticlockwise to forward/retard the ignition timing respectively. Rotating the Dist anticlockwise for a cm(measured angularly) would retard the timing by 2 degrees. This will help the engine develop power at low rpm’s. The idling would automatically get reduced to 700 rpm or so. The car could go even at 30 km in 5th gear. But when the engine is spun over 2500 rpm power drops. Hence high speed driving/racing is not possible.
Advancing the distributor:
In my Cielo, I have advanced distributor to 39 deg. I have added a performance chip that connects to the ECM and MAF sensor. Car can now pull from 1000 rpm. I haven’t dyno tested the engine after these mod’s. But I feel a huge increase in power after doing these. Results below:
0 - 100 Kmph - 12 Sec.
40-100 Kmph- 16 sec(4th gear)
40 - 100 Kmph - 23 Sec(5th).
20-80 kmph – 11 sec(3rd gear)
20 – 120 Kmph – 17 sec(3rd)
20 – 140 kmph - 25 sec(3rd) . Corolla takes 24 sec & Civic 25 sec.
I was able to reach 100Kmph in 2nd gear with ease. Tacho revvs up to 6800 rpm(earlier It went to only 6600) in 2nd gear showing 105+ km. Only few cars(Baleno, Corolla & Civic) could make thee digit figures in 2nd gear. In 3rd gear I went upto 140+ km showing 6500rpm. I couldn do the same in 4th and 5th because I ran out of road. I estimate the top speed to be over 185km if it could do in the same pace.