ALFAGTV6.COM

Alfettish · Post by **Alfettish** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:41 pm

I lost my licence for six months when I first started driving.
I was in my first car (YELLOW PEUGEOT 504 SEDAN) and was driving side-by-side a friend in his Honda Prelude at 120km/h in an 80 zone. The cops pulled us over in a WRX and fined us both $1000 and took our licences for 6 months.
There were no other cars on the road at that time (2am) and I didn't think it was that unsafe on a 4 3 lane motorway.

After that I've been very cautious driving any faster than the speed limit, so I just exploit the millions of roundabouts that are around here.
They are 2 lane so all the ricers and the racers try to overtake in the roundabout but don't really know what hits them.

The best time I had was racing a Fiat x/19 through a series of about 10 big roundabouts on about 2km of road, night, no other cars around.

He would always come in on the right and i'd stay on the left and obliterate him each time (I was in my first Alfa, a 2 litre Alfetta).

By the last roundabout i was powersliding right through them in 3rd gear, my dipstick had also fallen out and oil was spewing onto my headers causing smoke to bellow out everywhere.

I thought I'd blown my motor and at the time.

After that the fiat turned off and the 2 guys gave me a huge thumbs up as they peeled off.

I limped home and was pleasantly surprised when I found my motor wasn't blown.

I have very fond memories of that car.

Haven't had any real challenge in the GTV6 at all on the roundabout GP but still hoping.

Fernando · Post by **Fernando** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 11:40 pm

Scott,I feel the same way about the speed trapping that goes on here.It's just for revenue and I know this for a fact because a friend of mines brother is a Metro cop (Traffic Police) and he gets credit for x amount of speeding fines.In fact they get forced to work overtime if they don't bring in a certain quota that would be set for the day!

Road safety my rear end.

I have yet to see a camera trap or radar trap set up in a neighbourhood where kids are playing and people walk their dogs.That would be protecting the public from genuinly dangerous speeding.

Alfetish our traffic circles don't lend themselves to the kind of racing your speaking about as they are mostly narrow single lane affairs.Sounds like fun though.Do you do the odd track day ?

kevin · Post by **kevin** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 12:37 pm

Fernando, have you noticed over the past three months that some one gets caught way over 200km on our freeways every weekend. Fines range from R7000 for 257km for BEE dj Sibu to R100000 for the chap in his GTR at 260km.
You gonna bring your GTV to delta park on Sunday. Im going to take the race car so i can terrorise the neighbourhood early on Sunday morning with that straight through pipe over 100db of howling 24 valves at 7000rpm. I think when you own a GTV you never grow up unless its my mid life crisis taking over. My oldman told me he can hear me five blocks away in the early mornings when I head to the club. Thank goodness I only drive that car once a week and its normaly with a helmet on at the track otherwise i would be totally deaf by now.

Alfettish · Post by **Alfettish** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:37 pm

Fernando, yes I do trackdays and hillclimbs.
It's very fun, if we didn't have these roundabouts I'd surely go mad for lack of challenge and fun on the roads.

lucass81 · Post by **lucass81** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 5:00 pm

Here in Buenos Aires they are trying to control traffic but they cant. Police force is too corrupt and there is a lot of insecurity everywhere. The bad thing is that we have the world record of deaths in traffic accidents. Driving here is a total madness. Driving to work every day is a mix of a nascar race, a 1/4 race, a "destruction derby" and sometimes a "Paris-Dakar" (cause the conditions of the roads). Here you dont need to encounter a car fan at a stop light to have a race, almost every time it turns green it becomes a race.
Once I got involved in an 10 car race, there were turbo Civics, 145s, Evo Lancers, Scoobies and Golfs. Saddly I was driving my fathers VW Passat 1.8. At one moment we were at a stoplight in an 12 lane street so the 8 of us were side by side when it turned green, so much fun but too dangerous.

Rookie ROX · Post by **Rookie ROX** » Sat Apr 05, 2008 11:05 pm

12 lane street? Crazy!

Thankfully there's no such thing as quotas here in Oz (contrary to common belief), so it's not a huge issue. I've never been caught speeding (touch wood) and try to be sensible about what I do and where I do it. The problem is the other knuckleheads who think peak hour outside a school is a great place for some racing, or drifting around roundabouts when it rains because of the extra liquid horsepower.

I certainly enjoy driving my 75 every day though, and it's a blast on the track - I managed to hold on and pass a Falcon GT (from the performance tuned line, FPV) that was running a 290kw 5.4L V8! I hope to enjoy it even more when Greg is ready though!

ROCK ON
R~R

Fernando · Post by **Fernando** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:39 pm

Kevin sorry I couldn't join you at Delta Park on Sunday.I had already dropped my car off at Barry's place on Saturday evening for the brake upgrade...

Didn't stop me from giving a Porsche Carrera a run for his money on Saturday morning though.It was a 89/90 model.This time I saw him chasing up to me at a speed so I decided to let him come past me then chase him.Let's just say I was surprised that I could run with him so easily.

I had no need to even explore the redline to stay with this Porsche.Unfortunatly guy's the traffic then just made it impossible to continue and get a satisfactory verdict.Oh yes and if your thinking he wasn't trying, think again...

Rox I am with you 100% on the idiots who race near schools.That's where speed traps should be set up and then the cops can nail the bastards all they want.I see kids I crawl in my car.

Kevin I was thinking along the same lines,my GTV6 brings out the inner child in me.

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 10:33 am

Im working on F`s car today...Normally my children are all around me and under my feet..
But today Pluggy is missing ! I found her within a few seconds though...She loves your car F !!!!!

Fernando · Post by **Fernando** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 11:09 pm

Barry my Siamese is going to be very upset....that's his spot.

heavymetalalfa · Post by **heavymetalalfa** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 4:59 am

Hey Guys,
Yeah, I still love driving my GTV6 !! As a matter of fact, in the last 9 days I drove 4,400 miles in 2 different GTV6s across America !! { Almost !!] Whole story on the BB.
I got my first GTV6 over 12 years ago, and to this day, I get a serious thrill EVERY time I drive one. I'm lucky to have a bunch of them, so always one or two to drive. As a matter of fact, I love the car so much, I'm going full time with my Alfa biz, with GTV6 as our specialty !! I have a dozen or so always on hand to restore, won't run out of work.
My fave car is "Blacky", a slightly ratty 85 that I saved from the crusher some 5 years ago, fastest GTV6 I have ever driven. No plastic mouldings, lots-o repaired rust, nicks and dings every panel,,, Its beautiful to me !!!
Fortunately, we have lots of twisties and very few cops in Maine.My car gets DRIVEN !!,,,,

Greg Gordon · Post by **Greg Gordon** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 4:32 pm

Great Story Glenn!

Fernando: While bored in a Chicago hotel room, I figured out we can have a sort of virtual drag race between your 3.6 24 vavler and the supercharged intercooled 2.5 I recently built. You can watch the following two videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDuzCwfEM8s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZYwlyfGgAU

and time the second gear pull from 2500rpm to 6750rpm. I timed each one fives times and averaged them to minimize human stopwatch error. Of course this is not very accurate because it doesn't account for altitude, gearing, uphill/downhill issues, etc. So it's not a truly accurate picture. Not to mention the fact that in a real drag race once out of first gear the 4000rpm to 7000rpm range is what will count. Still, two cars on opposite sides of the world with totally different approaches and they are darn close to each other in these videos.

The car in my video is on a level road and it's a 1984 4.10 gear box. This video was taken after I tuned it, so it was running well. I suspect your car has taller gears which means that straight timing is not valid, we need to work out the speed in gears.

Greg

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:06 pm

Interesting Greg...Both links are the same though...
What gear was your video taken in ?

Fernando`s was a standing start pull off in SECOND gear..then the change into 3rd...
This is interesting....

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:08 pm

Ill do another in 1st and also second for you and put them up ..Xenithonman.

Greg Gordon · Post by **Greg Gordon** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 9:26 pm

Hi Barry,

I guess I screwed up that video link. I can't fix it until I get to Orlando later this morning, the company computers here in Ohio lock out youtube. In any case, both videos show second gear pulls.

Greg

Barry · Post by **Barry** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:11 pm

Greg,What gearbox you running ? Some impressive torque there...but then again that's how we know s/c work,huh ?

F`s car has the 10:41 final drive with the 0.78 5th gear..rolling stock is 205/55/15`s..