Alfa GT 3.2 V6, The little Jap and the Kit car.
Discussion
So what do you do if like most people on here you have a completely unreasonable requirement for a car?
I wanted a car with enough poke, that made a nice noise, that was interesting enough, that was good on fuel, that was reliable, had a big boot and ticked every other box which lets face it is hard to achieve with just one vehicle.
I had a diesel Alfa GT for a while, loved it, agricultural engine but a nice interior to be in, nice to look at and a comfy way to get around.
Found myself in a position where i could have something less fuel efficient and more interesting.. so i started looking, i considered a lot of cars, RX8's, Saab 9-3 V6 and Alfa GT V6 ended up becoming top of the list
The RX8? Hell of a car for the money nowdays but i like to tinker and even with a basic understanding of the rotary not a job i'll be tackling my self so it somewhat put me off.
The Saab 9-3 V6? I used to own a 2.0T Version i paid £400 for and it was a cracking car, really! I was more than happy to own a V6 Turbo one but i couldnt find one i was happy with for months of looking.
So this left me with the Alfa GT V6.. the 'Legendary' Busso engine. The 147 GTA was out of price range now and from what i could see the GT's have dropped as far as they are likely and at some point in the future no doubt they will rise like the GTA did. I was familiar with the GT having owned a diesel one, loved the boot space and the general size of the car, so a 240BHP Version with the lovely V6 Soundtrack was a no brainer right?
I set about searching, i had a criteria.. it had to be under £6K, Be either Black or Blue, and ideally have either the Wizard exhaust or the Q2/Quaife LSD.
My initial thought was it'd be a good investment i could use and overall gain money on..... Hold that thought.
After looking at a few i found one under 2 hours away, 82K Miles, very good service history including all belts recently replaced.. Had both the Wizard exhaust and the LSD.. And it was black.
So i went to look, overall a really nice example with a few minor issues, paintwork wise it wasnt perfect but its a 14/15 year old Alfa. the current owenr was the owner of Auto Sportivo in Bedford and had a lovely collection of Italian cars! Really nice chap to deal with, we ended up doing a deal and i paid £5.5k For it.
First few months of owning it i observed a few things..
The MPG Is god awful
The sound it makes it amazing, even more so with the Wizard exhaust if you arent familiar with how the Wizard exhaust makes the 3.2 V6 sound i suggest you Youtube it, its beautiful!
The diff makes a world of difference, a friend had an Astra VXR We took out at Castle combe a few times and it was dreadful being FWD with 240BHP with no LSD, this Alfa also 240BHP Feels so much better with the diff.
Depending on how you look at the word reliability.. its not overly reliable.. Its only ever left me stranded once (I will get onto that) But many little niggly things have gone wrong but if you're even slightly clue'd up most of it is easy cheap fixes.
Anyway, enough waffle.. onto pictures.
Took it up to Autosport International this Jan and noticed when i got up there this little Italian sat all alone so joined him, not quite in the same league but still!
So where does the 'Little Jap' come in?
Well after daily using the Alfa for a while it didnt seem fair to either the car, the petrol station employees for having to see my face so often or my wallet.
Just so happy a friend who owns a garage had a lady trade in her old Mk2.5 Mx5.. anyway he offered me it for a fair price and i took it off his hands
It's the 145Bhp Sport model with the 6 speed box and the leather interior, brilliantly fun little car to drive so ive been hooning to and from work daily in this and using the Alfa one day a week and weekends, ideal really. Both cars meet my entire list of requirements also!
The Alfas far from perfect but such a nice car to drive and own, the 3.2 V6 is a wonderful engine.
Shortly after buying it i gave Laurence down at Autolusso Bournemouth an email to introduce myself and ask a few questions regarding the V6 Engine as they specialize in it. All i can say is by far the nicest/most helpful person i have ever dealt with! After chatting over email for a bit he invited me down one Saturday to have a browse over the car and chat, so off i set to Bournemouth one Saturday morning.
Upon arrival we popped the GT up on the ramp and went over all the common problems and areas of concern for the GT 3.2's, we probably spent two hours looking around chatting identifying all the little faults that need sorting, this was time out of his working day he didnt charge a penny for and was greatly appreciated! Again i would highly recommend them to anyone with an Alfa of this era or older.
It has faults im slowly working through.
I found a nice set of second hand Eibach shocks and springs that were fitted.. in the process i ordered all new bolts/nuts/drop links/upper wishbones etc and gave the whole front suspension a revamp.
Glad i bought all the spare bits.. i dont think the suspension had ever been taken off before.. absolute arse to a job, and a big thank you to my best mate with the garage who let me take up his entire Saturday and borrow the Air chisel!
All sorted eventually and the car feels so much stiffer and better for it, plus the peace of mind in knowing all the front suspension components are new.
A week or two ago on the way home from the Classic car show over at the Bath and West show ground the car decided to die, no power to anything electrical but would attempt to crank? Bizarre. Got home and set about attacking it with the Multi meter... couldn't find anything so bit the bullet and had it recovered down the Laurence at Autolusso, firstly he got it recovered down from Wiltshire to Bournemouth for only £130, really cant thank him enough for that, very reasonable.. Got a text from him a few days later saying sorted, took a little bit of effort to find but it was a fuse.. Yep.
Turns out the fuse was reading continuity both when i checked at home and he checked down there but had stress fractures and wasnt passing current through, odd... typical Italians. but anyway sorted and all home, ideal!
Yesterday i took it over to my friends for an MOT and during the brake roller test the flexi hose popped! Not too bad but unfortunately hes away for a week now but we will sort it when hes back, glad it happened there rather than on the road, it didnt even look in too bad condition to be fair!
So im currently sat here writing this Alfaless! No worries itll be back soon and ill have a list of other little issues to get on with, on the bright side the suns been out so ive been enjoying the little Mazda.
I will do my best to update this as i go and at some point will list all the other little issues the Alfa has that i'll be attending too.
Oh as for the Kit car? I've had it a year now and made almost zero progress.. however i have now cleared the garage and im planning to have it transported over soon.. The current plans involve a V8.. I'll update as i go with that it may get its own thread when i can be bothered! It's going to be a long long term project as i keep finding other distractions.
Anyhow.. a few pictures.
I wanted a car with enough poke, that made a nice noise, that was interesting enough, that was good on fuel, that was reliable, had a big boot and ticked every other box which lets face it is hard to achieve with just one vehicle.
I had a diesel Alfa GT for a while, loved it, agricultural engine but a nice interior to be in, nice to look at and a comfy way to get around.
Found myself in a position where i could have something less fuel efficient and more interesting.. so i started looking, i considered a lot of cars, RX8's, Saab 9-3 V6 and Alfa GT V6 ended up becoming top of the list
The RX8? Hell of a car for the money nowdays but i like to tinker and even with a basic understanding of the rotary not a job i'll be tackling my self so it somewhat put me off.
The Saab 9-3 V6? I used to own a 2.0T Version i paid £400 for and it was a cracking car, really! I was more than happy to own a V6 Turbo one but i couldnt find one i was happy with for months of looking.
So this left me with the Alfa GT V6.. the 'Legendary' Busso engine. The 147 GTA was out of price range now and from what i could see the GT's have dropped as far as they are likely and at some point in the future no doubt they will rise like the GTA did. I was familiar with the GT having owned a diesel one, loved the boot space and the general size of the car, so a 240BHP Version with the lovely V6 Soundtrack was a no brainer right?
I set about searching, i had a criteria.. it had to be under £6K, Be either Black or Blue, and ideally have either the Wizard exhaust or the Q2/Quaife LSD.
My initial thought was it'd be a good investment i could use and overall gain money on..... Hold that thought.
After looking at a few i found one under 2 hours away, 82K Miles, very good service history including all belts recently replaced.. Had both the Wizard exhaust and the LSD.. And it was black.
So i went to look, overall a really nice example with a few minor issues, paintwork wise it wasnt perfect but its a 14/15 year old Alfa. the current owenr was the owner of Auto Sportivo in Bedford and had a lovely collection of Italian cars! Really nice chap to deal with, we ended up doing a deal and i paid £5.5k For it.
First few months of owning it i observed a few things..
The MPG Is god awful
The sound it makes it amazing, even more so with the Wizard exhaust if you arent familiar with how the Wizard exhaust makes the 3.2 V6 sound i suggest you Youtube it, its beautiful!
The diff makes a world of difference, a friend had an Astra VXR We took out at Castle combe a few times and it was dreadful being FWD with 240BHP with no LSD, this Alfa also 240BHP Feels so much better with the diff.
Depending on how you look at the word reliability.. its not overly reliable.. Its only ever left me stranded once (I will get onto that) But many little niggly things have gone wrong but if you're even slightly clue'd up most of it is easy cheap fixes.
Anyway, enough waffle.. onto pictures.
Took it up to Autosport International this Jan and noticed when i got up there this little Italian sat all alone so joined him, not quite in the same league but still!
So where does the 'Little Jap' come in?
Well after daily using the Alfa for a while it didnt seem fair to either the car, the petrol station employees for having to see my face so often or my wallet.
Just so happy a friend who owns a garage had a lady trade in her old Mk2.5 Mx5.. anyway he offered me it for a fair price and i took it off his hands
It's the 145Bhp Sport model with the 6 speed box and the leather interior, brilliantly fun little car to drive so ive been hooning to and from work daily in this and using the Alfa one day a week and weekends, ideal really. Both cars meet my entire list of requirements also!
The Alfas far from perfect but such a nice car to drive and own, the 3.2 V6 is a wonderful engine.
Shortly after buying it i gave Laurence down at Autolusso Bournemouth an email to introduce myself and ask a few questions regarding the V6 Engine as they specialize in it. All i can say is by far the nicest/most helpful person i have ever dealt with! After chatting over email for a bit he invited me down one Saturday to have a browse over the car and chat, so off i set to Bournemouth one Saturday morning.
Upon arrival we popped the GT up on the ramp and went over all the common problems and areas of concern for the GT 3.2's, we probably spent two hours looking around chatting identifying all the little faults that need sorting, this was time out of his working day he didnt charge a penny for and was greatly appreciated! Again i would highly recommend them to anyone with an Alfa of this era or older.
It has faults im slowly working through.
I found a nice set of second hand Eibach shocks and springs that were fitted.. in the process i ordered all new bolts/nuts/drop links/upper wishbones etc and gave the whole front suspension a revamp.
Glad i bought all the spare bits.. i dont think the suspension had ever been taken off before.. absolute arse to a job, and a big thank you to my best mate with the garage who let me take up his entire Saturday and borrow the Air chisel!
All sorted eventually and the car feels so much stiffer and better for it, plus the peace of mind in knowing all the front suspension components are new.
A week or two ago on the way home from the Classic car show over at the Bath and West show ground the car decided to die, no power to anything electrical but would attempt to crank? Bizarre. Got home and set about attacking it with the Multi meter... couldn't find anything so bit the bullet and had it recovered down the Laurence at Autolusso, firstly he got it recovered down from Wiltshire to Bournemouth for only £130, really cant thank him enough for that, very reasonable.. Got a text from him a few days later saying sorted, took a little bit of effort to find but it was a fuse.. Yep.
Turns out the fuse was reading continuity both when i checked at home and he checked down there but had stress fractures and wasnt passing current through, odd... typical Italians. but anyway sorted and all home, ideal!
Yesterday i took it over to my friends for an MOT and during the brake roller test the flexi hose popped! Not too bad but unfortunately hes away for a week now but we will sort it when hes back, glad it happened there rather than on the road, it didnt even look in too bad condition to be fair!
So im currently sat here writing this Alfaless! No worries itll be back soon and ill have a list of other little issues to get on with, on the bright side the suns been out so ive been enjoying the little Mazda.
I will do my best to update this as i go and at some point will list all the other little issues the Alfa has that i'll be attending too.
Oh as for the Kit car? I've had it a year now and made almost zero progress.. however i have now cleared the garage and im planning to have it transported over soon.. The current plans involve a V8.. I'll update as i go with that it may get its own thread when i can be bothered! It's going to be a long long term project as i keep finding other distractions.
Anyhow.. a few pictures.
That pic in the middle of the suspension bit is the fork pinch bolt, a well known problem for the Alfisti. Aluminium fork with a dirty great steel bolt through it. Did they grease it at the factory? Of course not. The worst one I have encountered was corroded so badly it took 12 tonnes of force to shove it out once I had cut the heads off.
Suspension refresh on these is well worth it, the bushes are made of chocolate. Only use TRW parts, or Birth if you are skint. Pretty much everything else is awful.
Check the rear engine mount - cheap, easy to fit, but will ruin your exhaust flexis if it has failed.
Rear transverse arms are virtually service items on these.
Suspension refresh on these is well worth it, the bushes are made of chocolate. Only use TRW parts, or Birth if you are skint. Pretty much everything else is awful.
Check the rear engine mount - cheap, easy to fit, but will ruin your exhaust flexis if it has failed.
Rear transverse arms are virtually service items on these.
So took the Alfa for its MOT, during the brake test the flexi hose cracked! Ideal..
Sorted that and on the way home, battery level low warning light.. ok odd, get home and check the voltage.. 12v.. While running. b
d.
Go and check it this morning, 14.2 while running, woohoo... Take it out for a quick test drive, 5 minutes down the road warning light and not charging again...
So either a loose wire or the Alternators ready to st the bed.
£5-600 Repair bill for the Alternator.. really dont fancy dropping the subframe etc on my drive
Sorted that and on the way home, battery level low warning light.. ok odd, get home and check the voltage.. 12v.. While running. b
d.Go and check it this morning, 14.2 while running, woohoo... Take it out for a quick test drive, 5 minutes down the road warning light and not charging again...
So either a loose wire or the Alternators ready to s
t the bed.£5-600 Repair bill for the Alternator.. really dont fancy dropping the subframe etc on my drive
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff