Merry Christmas Everyone!
I have been guilty of not being active on here for a while, again. It's great to see so much activity, so I will begin to spend some time searching around to see what you've all be up to!
This will be a long update!
Personally, 2020 has had some challenges, with extreme highs and lows. On a positive front, Ive moved back to Sydney and started a new career in a non-flying role after successfully getting 3 years of leave without pay from Virgin Australia- basically, any Captaincy is likely to be at least another 10 years away, so I thought I should try my hand at something else... its very exciting! I'm hoping that it will lead to owning my own business, so that I can fly for fun and finally get myself racing.
The GTV is really coming along, thankfully!
We have border closures continually ruining my plans to get down to Melbourne and finish her off, or at least get her to a point I can bring it back up to Sydney and finish it.
I shied away from the Maserati trans conversion, reasoning that this is for a race car, where I can comfortably cut the rear floor out to make room for it. In the meantime, I've managed to accumulate more gearboxes than I know what to do with!
The 3.7 has Wossner Pistons and pauter rods, so if that happens, I'll go solid lifters and a cam selection that can take advantage of the more rigid valve train and try to build a screamer. Or I may do something else and sell it all. Not sure yet.
Engine... all work performed by Frank and Mike at Headspec in Melbourne. not wanting to go overboard on the engine (that is being saved for the 3.7 or a Turbo motor), it was decided to do a blueprinted re-build on the GTA engine.
Crank ground 10 thou/10thou on rod and main journals. I forgot what brand bearings they used
Front pulley with crank angle chopper pressed on, crank, rods, pistons, flywheel (lightened 1.5kg and a billet CNC coupler recessed in, which weighs about 1.2 kg), all balanced as one assembly with bolts etc.
5/6 liners in great condition. 1 had a slight groove from what appeared to be a blown headgasket and water pooling around the rings. a light hone fixed this.
Block drilled and tapped for a 3/4" fitting for a sandwich plate adaptor (oil cooler/filter).
Pistons had skirts ceramic coated. Another Auto brand ring was machined down to the correct gaps and used. Couldnt find any replacement ones easily.
18 of 24 Lifters had a groove in them. We cannabalised another GTA engine (he is going Solids), my junk yard heads and a 3.0 to scrape together a set of decent lifters. Mikey thinks it's a backlash issue. At this point, I was running out of money, so I scrimped .... and I hope it doesn't come back to bite me.
Valves and seats had a performance oriented radius machined in.
Inlet ports untouched, but the dividing walls were knife-edged.
2.5 sump mid section modified to take a windage tray (see Mikey's artwork - he is a Toyota turbo fan
) and a billet bottom plate from a guy in Melbourne fitted.
RWD thermostat housing modified to fit with some billet adaptors for the heads. Looks like I have found some hoses that will step down from T/Stat diameter to the head outlet.
I masked and painted the Rocker covers...the first pair I did didn't work, so I gifted them to Frank (engine builder) and did another set.
Jim K 10.4 cams and his exhaust manifold.
AHM Jenvey throttles with extended Carbon Trumpets for inlet.
Don't know how I'm going to filter them yet
In order to run the booster, I have an EPMan billet vacuum block with six ports (really cheap!), so we tapped the AHM runners for AN fittings (1/8" NPT to -6). This will feed the booster and give an ECU map signal to aid tuning part throttle and transient load changes.
I have a Motec M84 and harness but may sell it and go to a Haltech so I can run Flex Fuel (lots of E10 and E85 for sale in Australia) and dual wideband (one in each collector).... I can expand the Motec to do dual wideband. Not sure yet.
I have a Mishimoto carbon catch can and their thermostatic sandwich plate and oil cooler.
I'm hoping for around 270-280 rwhp / 200rwkw.
I've got a 90 box with an LSD centre that needs to be modified to fit, a 75 3.0 Box and I've now got a TS box in the car.
I've had it completely rebuilt with the LSD shimmed out and a stock replacement clutch with increased clamping pressure and a lightened flywheel that still needs to be fitted.
I sent my old Iso. linkage over to Alex Jupe to have the pivot ball pressed further up the selector shaft and the linkage shortened to match the new pivot.
Brakes: front are 147 GTA series 2 Brembos (330mm) I thought I would go down the path of using 147 GTA 305mm discs, but these are a different arrangement to the Alfetta and mount from the outside. This loses a lot of wheel well space, so I bit the bullet and went with some Tarox 330mm floating discs. After much stuffing around, I've gotten them on, but I fear they may be too large. I have some AP 4 spots with floating discs as well and will see if these are more suitable when I get down there next.
Rear are vented EB Spares with new calipers.
I cleaned all brake lines on a wire wheel and painted them clear. tried to straighten them out using a proper line bending tool, but so many people have had their way with them over the years, it was a real PITA.
Suspension completely dismantled. New LCA bushes, new poly UCA bushes and EB spares extended pin UCA ball joint for roll centre correction. cleaned and prepped then painted all the arms and the T Bars, reassembled with the RS coilovers, fitted the RS front and rear sway bars with uniball drop links and the RS rose jointed watts link.
Dedion- ground it right back to bare metal in spots and prepped and painted it bush was still great, so avoided using the EB spherical bearing I have. Matching RS rear set up with the shocks and height adjustable springs and perches installed.
Wheels are Work Meister S1R 17x8 (ET 25) front and 17x9 Rear (ET13- very deep dish!!!!! incidentally, I still needed a 15mm spacer to clear the front Brembos. ouch.This will keep the front track wider than the rear, so good for handling. The calipers are just too big for a multi-piece barrel. They fit a one piece 147 GTA wheel. In hindsight, I should have asked for the steps in the barrel to be in a different position. This is why I will test fit the AP and their floating discs when I get a chance. Im not sold on the colour of the wheel centres and may have them painted in a similar gold to the speedline 3 piece mesh wheel raced on GTVs in the 80s.
Body was stripped.
I hit all the rusty spots in the engine bay with a wire wheel on a drill and rust converted them to make the panel beating simpler.
A jig was created using a very straight GTV6 with the engine out. I then cut my old V6 mounts out, as I suspected these may have caused issues with driveline alignment . Also, I was just being a bit anal
New mounts welded in.
Some bog was found underneath the Windscreen scuttle, so the Panel beater drilled the spot welds out and fixed the whole panel, and created a clearer passageway for water to flow out of. The Tabs that prop up the front nose cone were re-made from wider pieces of metal.
I found a quick rack through some guys over here and installed that. Just over 2 turns lock to lock. Had wiper motor bracket sand blasted and powder coated black. New Windscreen wiper motor fitted.
I ummed and Ahhed about the stupid RHD crossover bar to the Brake booster. Not sure if I would just fabricate a pedal box out of some Tilton stuff... but for registration, I wanted to keep the Booster....
So, I got a 75 TS booster, and just prepped and painted the crossover bar and put it all back in. Thank god for the master spline. Getting that stuff in with the wiper motor and wiper linkage is very, very hard with a freshly painted engine bay! NO SCRATCHES!!!!
Beautiful Melbourne made SA 3.0 bonnet replica with Aerolatch catches, which is hinged. Didn't want pins again.
There is no easy way to say it- I cut the guards! The wheels were too wide. I don't care, though- the GP arches will cover it.
The GP Kit arches were horrible and we needed to section and lengthen them. Ive got a 75 EVO bumper as well as the GP bumper to go on.
lots of fiddling making new brackets... I folded them up out of 3mm plate steel. Used Rivnuts on the side mounts, front and rear.
Rivnuts to mount the Side skirts. Just going to Urethane the arch flares on and pray that they don't fall off.... Should be fine hahahaha
Colour is 80s Ferrari Rosso Corsa. Of-bloody-course!
DItched the factory heater box and have a 12 volt electric heater mounted under the dash with some brackets I folded up.
Had the centre section of the dash, which was recessed for the heater, completely straightened out to mimick a Porsche dash... no stereo, just an old school anaolgue graphic equaliser which will have a blue tooth receiver.
Gauges are just under 4"... forgot the size. Brand is Speed hut. Did the Alfa 155 DTM symbol on the Tacho. Looks freaking unreal! There is a combo gauge with fuel level and voltage, an optimistic 250km/h speedo and had a friend re-design the centre gauge cluster .... just mounting 3 2.25" gauges in the centre- Engine Oil temp, pressure and water temp. Relocated the Hazard, rear de-mist and fog light switches to the centre console and fitted a USB port where the cigarette lighter lived.
Lastly, I have a Toyota Yaris electric power steering column which we will splice with the Alfa one so I can keep the stock indicator stalk and switches.
The whole car will be re-wired with relays and nothing to do with the factory wiring harness.
At which point, I'm never doing anything to this car again!!!!!!!!!!!
Re-sizing all the pics... they'll follow soon!
sumpcock is a nice touch