Fix It Again Tomorrow - Street Sleeper
Discussion
Small world, I have read and admired the work in this thread in the past and just happened to be flitting through again when I realised I now recognised the Sausage - I was in the blue & silver Ginetta on Saturday at Blyton (I'm the owner but not the crasher!). Good to speak to you and hopefully see you out again soon - hope the rest of the day went smoothly!
mattydoh said:
Small world, I have read and admired the work in this thread in the past and just happened to be flitting through again when I realised I now recognised the Sausage - I was in the blue & silver Ginetta on Saturday at Blyton (I'm the owner but not the crasher!). Good to speak to you and hopefully see you out again soon - hope the rest of the day went smoothly!
Have you sourced a rad yet? Should be an easy fix anyhow, just a shame it cut your day a bit short. Isn't Oulton a bit closer for you?
I was a bit miffed when I booked with Trackdays, but my order went to Mazdaontrack who refused to tell me who was going although I could guess. As you know we were on an MX5 trackday - they annoyed me on the bends, I annoyed them on the bends and the straights....
Then they changed the track in the afternoon to make it even tighter and twistier which was worse for us. I'll be more careful when booking next time and as per above some different tracks beckon.
Evoluzione said:
Oh one of the farmers
Have you sourced a rad yet? Should be an easy fix anyhow, just a shame it cut your day a bit short. Isn't Oulton a bit closer for you?
I was a bit miffed when I booked with Trackdays, but my order went to Mazdaontrack who refused to tell me who was going although I could guess. As you know we were on an MX5 trackday - they annoyed me on the bends, I annoyed them on the bends and the straights....
Then they changed the track in the afternoon to make it even tighter and twistier which was worse for us. I'll be more careful when booking next time and as per above some different tracks beckon.
Yep that's me! Think we've got all the mud out/off the car now. The rad is off a Polo of all things which took a bit of detective work but is a cheap & easy fix. Yep Oulton is quite a lot closer, this weekend was just a case of wanting to get out and going for anywhere that was available. Have you sourced a rad yet? Should be an easy fix anyhow, just a shame it cut your day a bit short. Isn't Oulton a bit closer for you?
I was a bit miffed when I booked with Trackdays, but my order went to Mazdaontrack who refused to tell me who was going although I could guess. As you know we were on an MX5 trackday - they annoyed me on the bends, I annoyed them on the bends and the straights....
Then they changed the track in the afternoon to make it even tighter and twistier which was worse for us. I'll be more careful when booking next time and as per above some different tracks beckon.
It's the first Mazdaontrack day I've done, some parts I thought were really well organised (drivers briefing was kept brief and to the point for a start) but I was a bit thrown by the surprise track change halfway through (not that it made any difference to us in the end!) and thought it was a bit busy on track.
The guy in the wicked looking Lotus was saying Lotus on Track are a similar setup but have very low entry numbers so much quieter tracks which might be worth a look but they do have stricter requirements for entries.
Edited by mattydoh on Wednesday 7th October 17:01
What an awesome thread - just sat and read the lot. You've got a nice way of writing - technical stuff and humour all thrown in together.
Coincidentally I was looking through the Retro Rides readers' cars threads and there's a lad in Bulgaria with a car I never heard of before - Dedra Integrale Estate!
He's used bits of a Fiat Coupe to turbo it - with varying degrees of success over the development of the car but he's doing a lot from home so fair play.
I thought you might be interested in his thread anyway, what with your thoughts of a 4x4 setup: http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/165106/lanc...
Coincidentally I was looking through the Retro Rides readers' cars threads and there's a lad in Bulgaria with a car I never heard of before - Dedra Integrale Estate!
He's used bits of a Fiat Coupe to turbo it - with varying degrees of success over the development of the car but he's doing a lot from home so fair play.
I thought you might be interested in his thread anyway, what with your thoughts of a 4x4 setup: http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/165106/lanc...
Steve_W said:
What an awesome thread - just sat and read the lot. You've got a nice way of writing - technical stuff and humour all thrown in together.
Coincidentally I was looking through the Retro Rides readers' cars threads and there's a lad in Bulgaria with a car I never heard of before - Dedra Integrale Estate!
He's used bits of a Fiat Coupe to turbo it - with varying degrees of success over the development of the car but he's doing a lot from home so fair play.
I thought you might be interested in his thread anyway, what with your thoughts of a 4x4 setup: http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/165106/lanc...
Thanks for the link, I had a read whilst I was having my lunch, horrible though it is, it must be one of the rarest cars around. He's got the right idea with a lot of things and made it work quite well on his tight budget, kind of makes you wonder how much damage he could have done with more money!Coincidentally I was looking through the Retro Rides readers' cars threads and there's a lad in Bulgaria with a car I never heard of before - Dedra Integrale Estate!
He's used bits of a Fiat Coupe to turbo it - with varying degrees of success over the development of the car but he's doing a lot from home so fair play.
I thought you might be interested in his thread anyway, what with your thoughts of a 4x4 setup: http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/165106/lanc...
Evoluzione said:
Thanks for the link, I had a read whilst I was having my lunch, horrible though it is, it must be one of the rarest cars around. He's got the right idea with a lot of things and made it work quite well on his tight budget, kind of makes you wonder how much damage he could have done with more money!
Can you help me get 600 bhp from my N54T? =To finish first, first you have to finish.=
Old Lampredis never die, they just get more powerful and move home.
If you were ever interested in buying a Coupe and for cheap money then act quick because those times are almost over, good ones are getting rarer and prices are on the up, gone is the day of the 16vt for £500 on Ebay as there aren't many left.
Many 16vts have been scrapped, but the engines often live on and what a life they are now leading in different cars:
It's all about exploiting the rules; in the Alfa Romeo Championship modified class you are allowed to use any engine which was ever used in an Alfa. The Lampredi 16v unit was used in the 155Q4 so the guys are allowed to put it in their Alfas which is when my phone rings. Whilst the 16v lump is relatively basic it's strong when built properly and has one of the best designed cylinder heads of its era so the racers love it. When Alfa announced the new 156 and 147 they claimed to have designed a completely new car, this was not so, the bodyshell has some surprising similarities and the engines fit right in there with little modification.
The silver 156 you see up there has been built from scratch by its owner Vincent, it's running about 450bhp with everything else uprated to match and generally runs near the front even though it's still under development, due to a certain GTV with a supercharged 3.8 V6 driven by a pro driver and an ex BTCC car first place has eluded him so far. He'll be back next year with more go faster bits to have another go.
The 147 is actually also an ex BTCC car which is a lovely thing to look at, only currently running about 270bhp, but very light and with a young, but capable James Nicholls at the wheel it's showing huge promise and again, if it gets some suitable mods over Winter will be one to watch next year. Both these cars took a second place each in Sunday's races at Donington.
Over in Sweden (and again at an attempt to exploit the rules to the max) is Michas 164, this has the earlier Lampredi 8v engine fitted from this:
Which goes to live in this:
As they did originally do a 164 turbo road car.
If you run a 2 valve per cylinder engine you can run less weight than a multivalve engined car, again he's been so close to a championship win for a while so i'm hoping to give it that little bit extra for next year this is as far as it's got so far:
From filthy to clean to rust free and painted in three stages, rebore and deck next.
Over in Japan they have a complete race series dedicated to the integrale, the orange Evo cutting through the field to win this years championship has a 2.2 fitted with the stroker crank and many other parts coming from here in the UK too.
I dunno what's going on here tbh, looks like some kind of Sprint circuit maybe and yes that's an S4 Stradale in the background
Japan has shed a lot of integrales over the years, it must run into hundreds, I don't think anyone knew they had so many of them and I guess a bit sad for their enthusiasts, but in places like New Zealand, Australia, Canada and America people have been able to get their dream car.
Old Lampredis never die, they just get more powerful and move home.
If you were ever interested in buying a Coupe and for cheap money then act quick because those times are almost over, good ones are getting rarer and prices are on the up, gone is the day of the 16vt for £500 on Ebay as there aren't many left.
Many 16vts have been scrapped, but the engines often live on and what a life they are now leading in different cars:
It's all about exploiting the rules; in the Alfa Romeo Championship modified class you are allowed to use any engine which was ever used in an Alfa. The Lampredi 16v unit was used in the 155Q4 so the guys are allowed to put it in their Alfas which is when my phone rings. Whilst the 16v lump is relatively basic it's strong when built properly and has one of the best designed cylinder heads of its era so the racers love it. When Alfa announced the new 156 and 147 they claimed to have designed a completely new car, this was not so, the bodyshell has some surprising similarities and the engines fit right in there with little modification.
The silver 156 you see up there has been built from scratch by its owner Vincent, it's running about 450bhp with everything else uprated to match and generally runs near the front even though it's still under development, due to a certain GTV with a supercharged 3.8 V6 driven by a pro driver and an ex BTCC car first place has eluded him so far. He'll be back next year with more go faster bits to have another go.
The 147 is actually also an ex BTCC car which is a lovely thing to look at, only currently running about 270bhp, but very light and with a young, but capable James Nicholls at the wheel it's showing huge promise and again, if it gets some suitable mods over Winter will be one to watch next year. Both these cars took a second place each in Sunday's races at Donington.
Over in Sweden (and again at an attempt to exploit the rules to the max) is Michas 164, this has the earlier Lampredi 8v engine fitted from this:
Which goes to live in this:
As they did originally do a 164 turbo road car.
If you run a 2 valve per cylinder engine you can run less weight than a multivalve engined car, again he's been so close to a championship win for a while so i'm hoping to give it that little bit extra for next year this is as far as it's got so far:
From filthy to clean to rust free and painted in three stages, rebore and deck next.
Over in Japan they have a complete race series dedicated to the integrale, the orange Evo cutting through the field to win this years championship has a 2.2 fitted with the stroker crank and many other parts coming from here in the UK too.
I dunno what's going on here tbh, looks like some kind of Sprint circuit maybe and yes that's an S4 Stradale in the background
Japan has shed a lot of integrales over the years, it must run into hundreds, I don't think anyone knew they had so many of them and I guess a bit sad for their enthusiasts, but in places like New Zealand, Australia, Canada and America people have been able to get their dream car.
Edited by Evoluzione on Saturday 5th December 18:58
A few pics from this Summers occasional day trips to North Yorks:
AutoGrass near York:
Tan Hill is the highest pub in the UK, it's normal to be snowed in completely for periods of time in Winter, a snowmobile and the front attachment from a snow plough are permanently parked outside.
And it was farewell to NATS today, the new owner took her down to a new home in Birmingham.
The tilt n slide sunroof in PJ was always too low in the car, when I had my helmet on I had to drive with my head on one side. A few nuts and a bit of trim removed and off it came:
A template made from MDF:
New panel cut and formed around the template bit by bit:
In the background there you can see my old slapper lurking I made it at college years ago from a cart spring with some tube welded on for a handle, it's a great tool for forming metal panels like this.
Fitted into place and ready for welding:
Because it's got two flanges butted together it's an easy weld to do without burning the lovely sun bleached pink paint
I primed it before fitting and sealing around it with PU before hitting it with some top coat.
A few more jobs will be done as & when over Winter, a speed related boost controller amongst one of them to curb its habit of spinning the wheels in first and second gear being the most important, I can generally regulate it with my foot, but the power delivery is comically vicious and any novices driving can't do it so this will help.
AutoGrass near York:
Tan Hill is the highest pub in the UK, it's normal to be snowed in completely for periods of time in Winter, a snowmobile and the front attachment from a snow plough are permanently parked outside.
And it was farewell to NATS today, the new owner took her down to a new home in Birmingham.
The tilt n slide sunroof in PJ was always too low in the car, when I had my helmet on I had to drive with my head on one side. A few nuts and a bit of trim removed and off it came:
A template made from MDF:
New panel cut and formed around the template bit by bit:
In the background there you can see my old slapper lurking
I made it at college years ago from a cart spring with some tube welded on for a handle, it's a great tool for forming metal panels like this.Fitted into place and ready for welding:
Because it's got two flanges butted together it's an easy weld to do without burning the lovely sun bleached pink paint
I primed it before fitting and sealing around it with PU before hitting it with some top coat.
A few more jobs will be done as & when over Winter, a speed related boost controller amongst one of them to curb its habit of spinning the wheels in first and second gear being the most important, I can generally regulate it with my foot, but the power delivery is comically vicious and any novices driving can't do it so this will help.
Edited by Evoluzione on Saturday 5th December 18:17
Yes I saw it on Ebay, It got taken off before the end so don't know if it sold or what it went for, presumably it did as I haven't seen it for sale since.
The black ones seem to do good money, i've just got another one in, don't know whether to sell as is, break or make it right and run it myself for a while as yet.
The black ones seem to do good money, i've just got another one in, don't know whether to sell as is, break or make it right and run it myself for a while as yet.
Thanks for the reminder, not a massive amount to report due to busy work and home life hence the silence.
The boost controller is coming along, just not finished yet. I'm using the defunct ABS to tell the ECU what road speed is, it will then know what gear i'm in and lower the boost pressure in first and second gear so it grips rather than spinning the wheels.
For those who don't know, the basics of ABS is a sensor on each hub which is sensing the teeth revolving in front of it, when they stop (wheel lock up) it signals to the ECU and pump to release the brakes on that wheel, it can also monitor wheel speed by counting the speed of the teeth.
The ABS on Sausage was binned years ago, mainly because it was in the way, but also for weight saving. The hubs are still there though, so I swapped the sender which counts the teeth for a more suitable one, did some wiring and programmed the ECU to read it. Amazingly it worked
I just had to tell the ECU what road speed was in the various gears which I could have done it on the road, but it was much easier in the workshop with the car on the lift.
It sounds here like i'm some kind of wiring ECU guru, but far from it, that's the advantage of having your ECUs made direct in the UK - you can ring them to guide you through this kind of stuff and any other problems.
I've plumbed & wired The Mac Daddy which will take the signal from the ECU and operate the wastegate actuator:
But that's as far as i've got and is as far as I can probably get too on my own as it's a bit more in depth and technical getting the Mac to work, I think it will end up going to the Dyno for final setting up.
Whilst out testing what i've done so far was working ok I had a new VXR bound up out of nowhere, swarming all over my behind making a right nuisance of himself, probably thinking haha, old shed of a Fiat.
Anyhow a long straight opened up, no cars in sight and he makes his move so I also dropped a cog, nailed it and coupled up Warpdrive, he got alongside then went backwards so fast I thought he'd found reverse. There was no danger, no side by side duelling, gripping the wheel, clenching teeth etc, just 2 seconds of instantaneous, hilarious, annihilation by some rusty old shed, which was one of the things I set out to do in the first place.
The car had a combined water/oil cooler fitted which has always worked well, although I think the rocking of the engine under load had put too much strain (via the stainless steel oil hoses) on the internal oil cooler fittings which ruptured internally. Luckily it happened just before I opened the bonnet so I spotted the oily water spewing out of the over pressurised expansion tank overflow, It could have been game over for the engine had it gone unnoticed. I pulled it off, cut the oil cooler out (it lived in the rad end tank), made up a blanking plate and had it welded up so it's just an engine water cooling rad now. I flushed the engine several times before adding a dishwasher tab and letting that do its stuff, flushed some more then filled with antifreeze & water.
I had a new larger than OE oil cooler sat on the shelf so pulled that down, got some hoses made up and put it where the original had been (you'll see pics and explanation on P1 and 2 about the history of all this). It's already got a duct which feeds air to it and some louvres in the wheel arch liner to pull the air out, but I felt it needed a bit more, so sourced some bumper end louvres and will be fitting those as well.
Speccing and building engines is likemaking love to a beautiful woman bringing kids up: You've laboured over them, done your best and know them intimately, but you've got to let go in the end and hope they go on to do well, they get in with the right crowd and someone else looks out for them like you did.
The engine I started a few posts up for the 164 ended up like this
It made around 485bhp and took a few wins, but wasn't installed very well, so sadly didn't take a championship win as it could have done as the chap is a good driver.
Just not a good mechanic.
It's coming back in for a stripdown, check and rebuild (Lord knows what delights i'm going to find in there after what i've heard), but hopefully now we've ironed out all the other issues it will be a stronger package next year.
Then this pile of old bits turned up:
It's a very early Thema turbo engine and an interesting build as it was Fiat/Lancias first attempt at a balancer shaft block with piston cooling oil jets, so whilst everything was there, it was done in a different way to what it was later on. This provided a bit of a challenge with a few specially made parts, I also noticed that at some point in its life someone had put Lancia Beta cams in there, so a bit of a bonus for the owner who had no idea.
It ended up in the back of a Montecarlo with a turbo strapped to it. Eventual output will be down to turbo size and it's starting off with a relatively small one so 250 ish to start off with. This doesn't sound a lot, but the car only weighs around a ton and that's double the original power output and the small turbo will spool good and early, especially the way i've set the cams up. A lot of engine outputs and behaviour are now done on the computer, cross referenced with real life dyno data I can accurately predict what is going to happen and when.
I think that's about it of anything of interest which fits into this thread!
The boost controller is coming along, just not finished yet. I'm using the defunct ABS to tell the ECU what road speed is, it will then know what gear i'm in and lower the boost pressure in first and second gear so it grips rather than spinning the wheels.
For those who don't know, the basics of ABS is a sensor on each hub which is sensing the teeth revolving in front of it, when they stop (wheel lock up) it signals to the ECU and pump to release the brakes on that wheel, it can also monitor wheel speed by counting the speed of the teeth.
The ABS on Sausage was binned years ago, mainly because it was in the way, but also for weight saving. The hubs are still there though, so I swapped the sender which counts the teeth for a more suitable one, did some wiring and programmed the ECU to read it. Amazingly it worked
I just had to tell the ECU what road speed was in the various gears which I could have done it on the road, but it was much easier in the workshop with the car on the lift.It sounds here like i'm some kind of wiring ECU guru, but far from it, that's the advantage of having your ECUs made direct in the UK - you can ring them to guide you through this kind of stuff and any other problems.
I've plumbed & wired The Mac Daddy which will take the signal from the ECU and operate the wastegate actuator:
But that's as far as i've got and is as far as I can probably get too on my own as it's a bit more in depth and technical getting the Mac to work, I think it will end up going to the Dyno for final setting up.
Whilst out testing what i've done so far was working ok I had a new VXR bound up out of nowhere, swarming all over my behind making a right nuisance of himself, probably thinking haha, old shed of a Fiat.
Anyhow a long straight opened up, no cars in sight and he makes his move so I also dropped a cog, nailed it and coupled up Warpdrive, he got alongside then went backwards so fast I thought he'd found reverse. There was no danger, no side by side duelling, gripping the wheel, clenching teeth etc, just 2 seconds of instantaneous, hilarious, annihilation by some rusty old shed, which was one of the things I set out to do in the first place.
The car had a combined water/oil cooler fitted which has always worked well, although I think the rocking of the engine under load had put too much strain (via the stainless steel oil hoses) on the internal oil cooler fittings which ruptured internally. Luckily it happened just before I opened the bonnet so I spotted the oily water spewing out of the over pressurised expansion tank overflow, It could have been game over for the engine had it gone unnoticed. I pulled it off, cut the oil cooler out (it lived in the rad end tank), made up a blanking plate and had it welded up so it's just an engine water cooling rad now. I flushed the engine several times before adding a dishwasher tab and letting that do its stuff, flushed some more then filled with antifreeze & water.
I had a new larger than OE oil cooler sat on the shelf so pulled that down, got some hoses made up and put it where the original had been (you'll see pics and explanation on P1 and 2 about the history of all this). It's already got a duct which feeds air to it and some louvres in the wheel arch liner to pull the air out, but I felt it needed a bit more, so sourced some bumper end louvres and will be fitting those as well.
Speccing and building engines is like
The engine I started a few posts up for the 164 ended up like this
It made around 485bhp and took a few wins, but wasn't installed very well, so sadly didn't take a championship win as it could have done as the chap is a good driver.
Just not a good mechanic.
It's coming back in for a stripdown, check and rebuild (Lord knows what delights i'm going to find in there after what i've heard), but hopefully now we've ironed out all the other issues it will be a stronger package next year.
Then this pile of old bits turned up:
It's a very early Thema turbo engine and an interesting build as it was Fiat/Lancias first attempt at a balancer shaft block with piston cooling oil jets, so whilst everything was there, it was done in a different way to what it was later on. This provided a bit of a challenge with a few specially made parts, I also noticed that at some point in its life someone had put Lancia Beta cams in there, so a bit of a bonus for the owner who had no idea.
It ended up in the back of a Montecarlo with a turbo strapped to it. Eventual output will be down to turbo size and it's starting off with a relatively small one so 250 ish to start off with. This doesn't sound a lot, but the car only weighs around a ton and that's double the original power output and the small turbo will spool good and early, especially the way i've set the cams up. A lot of engine outputs and behaviour are now done on the computer, cross referenced with real life dyno data I can accurately predict what is going to happen and when.
I think that's about it of anything of interest which fits into this thread!
Edited by Evoluzione on Friday 7th October 19:20
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