Tuesday 8 May 2012

Heads & Rust





......... Is what has been taking up the vast majority of our time just lately.

One 8v and three 16v integrale heads, one Peugeot/Citroen 8v 1.6, one Toyota 1.8 16v and a Toyota 2ltr 16v turbo have either gone or are in the process of being improved.

The Toyota 2ltr head is going on a very high powered (circa 900bhp) engine powering a road legal drag racing MR2. I've had this head in the shop before when it was used on a lower spec engine, it got high lift cams, under-bucket shims and only very light porting work. The head needs relieving around where the cam lobes spin as there isn't enough clearance for 11+mm lift and the OE top mounted shims are known for jumping out to say hello at high RPMs with equally high lift cams.
The head flows well (read: They are totally OTT and fecking huge*) from a max CFM perspective straight out of the box, hence it only needing light shaping of the ports. Infact you could (as I proved) fill back up a large amount of these inlets and re-do them picking up both velocity and CFM on the way, but as usual it's down to (lack of) budget to go down this route.
Last time out the engine saw a rather frightening (in a mid engined RWD car) 740bhp before the block cracked as they are well known for doing so at this power level.
*The reason for this is the factory fitted, but now redundant 'T-VIS' system which blocks off one of the 8 separate inlet manifold tracts.

Now you would of thought the owner Dougy would have been quite relieved for this monster to die (I think his wife was), but no, he's back for more with a stronger 2.2 block and crank! We've also found out that there are 2 different generations of this head and the port shape and angle changed quite a bit, some careful scrutinising and measuring has been going on to decide which way to go, early head has bigger taller ports, but more downdraft, later has smaller fatter D shaped ports, but less down draft.....
The suitable head will then receive larger valves with seat and throat work to suit.
When it's done I won't be going out for a drive in it.

One 16v Fiat/Lancia head went to Bastiaan in the Netherlands for his Punto 2ltr conversion, another is going to the U.S. for Jorge on the top of a 2.2ltr engine we are building for him and the final staying in the UK to replace one in an integrale badly damaged by cambelt failure/slippage. Remember to keep your eye on your belts fellas, genuine Sodium filled exhaust valves are now around £80 each. Times that by 8 and you've got what is only the start of some hefty repair bill.


Picture221


Apart from the integrale heads my favourite from the above is the Saxo 8v VTR head, it responds so well when you re-shape it in all the right places that it is a joy to work on, check out the graph below, this little engine is going to fly, good in valve flow all the way up the scale from low lifts to high:



Saxo headflow graph


In these pics one port and one combustion chamber have been given the treatment in comparison to the one next to it, initially and visually the difference is minimal, as you can see no cowboy 'Opening out' 'hogging out' or stupid polishing of the ports has been going on, the outward differences are very subtle, but the figures aren't.

Saxo 1.6 8v

Saxo 1.6 8v

Up on the lift earlier in the year were too pretty rusty 16vs, obviously no rare sight, but both owners and us happy to see them given some more life. We don't plate over rust like many do:




It's cut out to as far back as discussed with the customer and replaced with new metal, fully welded, painted and wax injected from behind.


















I've also been working with a local CNC router genius on the Stage 2 gearbox strengthening so we can offer that as a service too. What we are finding on strip down of the gearbox is that the holes which hold the bearings for the two shafts of gears have gone oval, not just a bit, but quite a lot. Under power these are pushed further apart until the mesh on the gears is reduced and teeth begin to ping off:




You can see below how both the gearbox and the spectacle plate we are making are mounted side by side so the machine cuts one after the other for a perfect fit.


1st example of a new design of ex-manifold:



Despite instructions that it be made from smooth flowing mandrel bends it came like that so I put some EGT sensors in it, had it ceramic coated and mounted it on Project Sausage, at least we can use it as a test piece as PS had practically blown my old Evocars manifold to bits.


And finally.......

To finish off this chapter is a nice way someone has found to get a car to pass an MOT test when it fails on lack of rear braking effort. Strip down the bias valve, linkage, free it off and re-assemble? Nah, just throw money at it.

And hope it sticks in the right place!


Tuesday 17 January 2012

Paying by Paypal for free


At Deltaparts we don't mind taking Paypal payments as long as you can send them for free or you pay the fee, here is a guide on how to do it:

When you are in your account click on 'Send Money' at the top of the page, this opens another page.

Fill in our email address (the usual one)

Fill in the amount (if you want to give us a bit extra its ok)

This is the important bit:



Click on the box which reads 'Personal', then click 'Gift'.
After that click send and it is done.

Sometimes it asks if you want to pay the fee, please click this.

Thankyou.

Sunday 1 January 2012

Happy New Year

Seasonal Greetings and Happy New Year to all our friends, suppliers and customers.


It's been another busy year here and I really do sincerely wish a huge thanks and all the best to everyone who has supported us, shown patience where needed, shared chat, ideas and pictures etc. Without you the integrale community wouldn't be what it is and we wouldn't be here helping it continue either.

Anyhow, that's enough End Of Year/Seasonal schmuck, let's get down to biz:


About a month ago now we took Project Sausage by the scruff of the neck and bolted on some hardcore goodies, as you may have read earlier the engine was built strongly, but whilst quick hasn't been taxed much really.

Until now....

Into the mix went a pair of full race cams, a GT3076R, 76mm downpipe to match up to the existing system, a new intake manifold/plenum, bigger injectors and an uprated clutch to hold the power. That makes it sound simple, but many long hours were worked to make everything fit; Gone is the ABS, the brake and power steering reservoirs have moved, pipes re-routed, new throttle and cable fitted, more bits of bodywork hacked off here and there. Off it went to Darren for mapping and it came back like a snarling beast. It was a fast road car, now it's come of age and is a track/race car, gone are any road manners, given over in exchange for outright power and it's very loud even with two silencers.
The front suspension arms had the old worn mushy rubber bushes burned out and I turned up some self-lubricating nylon ones with bronze bushes and pressed them in, zero movement now! I knocked up a simple brace and bolted it across the lower subframe to help with the extreme pressure it was about to be under, these are ok for the track, but no good for the road as they are too low and easily hit.







So it was off to a trackday at Donington with a few other Coupes, the morning was pretty dire as the track surface was very slippery due to it being cold, damp and fuel drop out from the very close landing aircraft and I had my Nangkang Ditchfinders fitted, but once a bit of breeze picked up, clouds cleared and the sun came out the track soon dried and we were going ok and soon putting in steady 1.58 lap times.
We were black flagged by Donington staff and congratulated by fellow Coupe owners several times for excessive noise (it does sound bloody good at full chat!), I think the limit was 97 and we were at 105Db, after Roger put in a few slow laps in order for it to pass I figured that something had to be done so Josh and Rogers lads got busy with an old paint can, tin snips and a large hose clip. They cut out a section of the tin, wrapped it around the tail pipe and held it on with the clip. It directed most* of the noise downwards and did the trick, we passed every sound detector at full throttle and were soon matching a Corvette which had a 430bhp V8 in it.

*Most, um well some escaped upwards and melted a hole in the bumper, but never mind eh.

I wasn't very happy with the power output, it was lacking a bit, especially at the bottom end and very peaky so when we got back I altered the cam timing, it's much better and we still need to get the map tweaked, then get a power figure. With the current damp and slippery Winter road conditions it spins the wheels when it hits peak torque in every gear apart from 5th so it's pretty useless. If anyone wants to buy it they are welcome to it, otherwise it will probably be put into the integrale track car where the 4wd will do it more justice.
I'm currently building something a bit different for it with some more ground breaking trick head mods, this time we'll concentrate on large amounts of torque and a very road driveable engine.


As the car is running a re-ground crank I thought it interesting to take an oil sample for testing by our suppliers Millers. They scientifically test the oil and check the metal content, here are the results below;



Everything looks ok so far (very low metal content) as the oil had done 4000 road miles and one trackday, plenty at 8500rpm and with lots of power, time will tell more, but it's also a testament to their oil as this was pronounced as fine and could have stayed in the engine even longer - a big thanks to them too for showing me around their lab.






These quite sad pics could be the start of a rather ambitious project for Irishman Andrew, it was caught up in a house fire. Rather you than me and the best of luck with that one Andrew!








Nowt as queer as folk

Is a Yorkshire term and there are certainly plenty of odd people around in salubrious downtown Batley who will brighten up your day with their antics. One particular local lowlife parked his car outside whilst visiting my neighbour before annoying me.
He then realised said neighbour had locked up and gone home with his car keys in his workshop. "Why don't we ring him and he will come back and get your keys for you?" Says I.
"No, i'll just hotwire it" he says...

So he borrows some tools and sets about his ignition barrel and steering column for half an hour before firing it up and realising that he can only go forwards and backwards due to the steering lock. As he can't break it on his own he asks me to come and help him, so he gets behind the wheel and I get hold of it from the passenger seat. We get hold and start to turn, as neither of us are lightweights it starts to revolve surprisingly easily.


Until it snaps clean off in his hands.
The shocked look on his face was somehow made even better by the fact that the airbag light on the now completely disconnected wheel is still flashing as if to say "Help me!".
Laugh? Well this guy's a hot headed Eastern European criminal, so I tried not to for three seconds, but still my bottom lip began to tremble and I just couldn't stop, before long I was rolling on the floor laughing with aching sides and tears rolling down my cheeks, I don't think I've laughed so much in ages.
I was still chuckling as he borrowed even more tools, sharpened the steering column like a pencil and bashed the wheel on tight with a lump hammer before attempting to weld it on and driving off.
If there is a lesson to be learned here it's that old Renault 19s aren't very easy to steal...

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About Me

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Welcome to the Deltaparts Blog, here you will find, well, anything which is on my mind I guess, but mainly things to do with the Lancia Delta integrale and in particular anything to do with my business, Deltaparts. It will be a bit irregular as it's not every day (or even week) that something worth mentioning happens. I would like to try and make it interesting - at least to some people anyhow, but also hopefully accessible and readable for the average 'man on the street' so I won't bore you with loads of large words, bombastic overblown sentences or technical jargon. I will describe on here how lots of the parts that we sell came about as there isn't room on the website ( www.deltaparts.co.uk ) to explain. I hope you enjoy reading it as I do writing it, when something becomes a chore you know it's time to stop doing it....