Deltaparts

Paying by Paypal for free

2012-01-17T08:14:00.000-08:00

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.

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T14:35:00.001-08:00

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...

Stuff

2011-11-25T00:50:00.000-08:00

The UK integrale community has taken a big hit in recent years due to the recession, sadly a lot of cars (mainly the Evo model) have gone back to Europe. Over 75% of our sales have been abroad and it's always great to chat with people around the globe. According to the statistics 116 different countries have visited the site and we have sent parts to many far away places such as Tahiti, Reunion Island, Cuba, Hong kong, Japan, Istanbul and even Wigan - amazing where integrales turn up!

Put yourself on the map here: http://mapservices.org/myguestmap/map/turbodelta
Thanks to Turbodelta (Sandro) for setting this up.

Vote here: http://motornaut.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/audi-quattro-vs-lancia-delta-integrale-vem-var-vast/

A few dramatic pics here sent by F16 pilot Niko, his family is originally from Greece, he lived in America, but is now residing with his highly modified 16v in Japan (which is more top secret and Highly Classified than these aircraft).

In an earlier chapter of the Blog I mentioned Eriks racing Evo after we sent him one of our uprated rear ARBs, he emailed recently to say the handling & grip was much improved, so much so he won all 4 of his recent races - well done to him! It's good to see an integrale still winning, other competitors included an Alfa GTV, BMW M3, 4 Ferrari 348 Challenge cars amongst many others, although the closest car to him was another Lampredi powered Lancia - a naturally aspirated Thema.

We recently had another Evo in for chassis strengthening, it had no less than 5 stress cracks within a 1m square area which was around the usual O/S door frame. You might want to know how we strengthen them without putting a cage in (you might not, but I'm gonna tell you anyway) - for ultimate strength you can't beat a cage, but in a road going car most people want something a bit more subtle so we weld in hidden strengthening plates. I worked out some while back how to test which one did which and by how much it affected the car. I loosened the door striker plate and shut the door, this allowed the door the freedom to move up and down as it wanted. I then put a strip of masking tape on either side of the front and rear door gap and drew a straight line across the two. Jacking the car up in certain places causes the door to move and this can now be measured, the worst cars can have 6mm of movement here.

Then the plates are welded in, every time a new one is fitted the same test is done and the result recorded, bit by bit the movement gets less and less - as you can see in the pic it goes from 5.5 to 4, then to 2. Small numbers, but consider that alone is nearly a 60% improvement from three plates and a bar. Some plates do more than others and in different areas, but combined they all make a big difference. This is only a very simple static test and the car is treated quite gently, can you imagine the amount of movement which goes on when you chuck the car into a corner or over some bumps? Quite frightening.

New in recently (and on a similar note) are these front strengthening bars:

The idea originates from Japan, but I wasn't happy with the design as owners of these had reported problems with them hitting 3" exhausts, also wherever there is a bend you are going to have flex, so I redesigned them to avoid both of these issues. These are a one-size-fits-all to send out, we have on occasion made and fitted bespoke ones to cars with modified suspension here in the workshop, you can them make the clearances much tighter especially the one between them and the road! I tested them similarly to the procedure mentioned earlier and they do help the door aperture movement, but moreover they stop the chassis rail flex which leads to this crack here:

How do they work? The engine which is quite far out front bounces up and down on the chassis, this is allowed to move because of the rubber bushes in the suspension, these compress and expand, the chassis rail flexes on its weakest point and eventually cracks. The extra width, weight and grip of an Evo just makes things worse.
If you wanted to add something to your car purely for comedy value then you could get one of these:

To hang your washing from whilst driving to work, or to keep that loose headlining from dropping on your head? Who knows, but what a quality item. Well that's all from me folks till Christmas I reckon, unless I get immobilised by something I don't think I'll find time to publish much till then, but the next issue will have pics of a new ready to fit chassis strengthening plate kit, more readers pics, restoration work and the latest on Project Sausage,
TTFN.

Recession bites deep

2011-07-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

So there I was doing the shopping at Tescos when I noticed large amounts of Sunflower oil on special offer at £1 per litre.

Cheaper than diesel.....

And the Deltaparts van has seen better days, but still plods along so I bought a trolley full of the stuff and tipped it into the fuel tank. Apart from it now smelling like the chimney round the back of the local takeaway it goes great!
High in Polyunsaturated fats you know, very healthy....

July Snapshot

2011-07-02T00:29:00.000-07:00

To start with I would like to say thankyou to the people who tell me they enjoy reading this blog, i'm glad I'm not talking to myself. :-)
Apologies too to all who don't get mentioned here, sometimes we get snowed under and I quite often don't get chance to photograph and write up everything.
Also it's good to see more customers from the South of England this year, I know the time spent and the cost of petrol is a killer, but we aren't far from the M1 and have always got a good stock of Jaffa cakes.

Secondly I have some bad news and it's about our Fiat Coupe.

We lent it to a customer

and he decided to clean and polish it.

This kind of behaviour will not be tolerated, I mean, we were supposed to be going for the street-sleeper Rat-look! All those years of muck and er, patina gone down the drain. Dammit, now I'm sorely tempted to bring it in the workshop and do some cutting out of rust and bodywork (now I can see it), I've already got some better rear light cups sprayed up and a carbon fibre bonnet made for it....

This maybe of interest to someone, probably of no use whatsoever, but nonetheless interesting.....

It is a four cylinder, Lampredi based, block with piston oil squirters, no balancer shafts, and a total CC of 1700. The crank seems to be cast and is 5kg lighter than an integrale item which fits too. The bore and stroke are both smaller, although the bore could be machined out to make a square engine if needed (although down on torque, it would rev very well), a 16v head fits and it is already bored & tapped for M12 bolts/studs.
Piston height, rod length and gudgeon pin are different to integrale and as I mentioned earlier probably of no use, the only possible one I could think of is if you race in a series where a turbocharged 1700 - 1800 cc is the maximum allowed. If you want it it's yours for what I paid for it - with my inquisitive nature I just couldn't resist opening it up it to find out what it was all about!

No Sooner had we got Steve's engine built, fitted and fired up, but Gabriel brought his 8v in for a thorough suspension overhaul and some other jobs. Nice timing! I really enjoy building engines and it is even better when on occasion we get to fit them and get them mapped too, to follow the job through from start to finish is most satisfying and ensures 100% customer satisfaction.

Gabriel took the Coupe and treated his wife to a weekend touring the Yorkshire Dales while we treated his car to a full set of coilovers, Poly bushes, complete oil changes and a few other bits and pieces.

The uprated rear anti-roll bars were back from heat treatment and powder coating, one immediately went to Erik in Norway for his track and competition Evo:

Also now in stock are the rear lateral suspension arms, I decided to go for bright Zinc plate for a finish as they are very exposed on the car and pick up stone chips quite easily - you (or we) can then paint or powder coat them any colour you wish.

A couple of pics of Steves Evo1, they didn't make many in 'Giallo Ferrari', it is a very slightly lighter shade of yellow compared to the Evo2 'Ginestra' which I must say I do prefer as it looks less sickly golden. It has just had a full engine build, massive brakes and coilover suspension fitted, he is now running it in.

The sharp eyed Brits reading this will have noted the 'N' plate, it's a strange one this as it is older than an Evo 2, but the plate suggests it is newer - this causes some discussion and raised eyebrows at MOT time as the cut off point for CAT equipped cars is before this registration pre-fix here in the UK (it doesn't and shouldn't have a Cat) - it was originally imported from Italy where it had work done on it by an outfit called 'Carboni Tuning' and did have originally a strange looking aftermarket 'Home-made' ECU and other various bits of odd wiring, hidden switches, relays, fuses and something weird bolted to the fuel filter. Sadly Carboni didn't seem interested in any communication so most of it was taken off many years ago by someone else who couldn't work it out when it started to malfunction.

This is one of the many things which makes these cars interesting to work on, the aformentioned 8v of Gabriels had been factory fitted with a full pleated(?) grey leather interior and small bucket style seats bearing what looked like the Maserati crown on them, all this (and more) was specced by the original first owner, it would be great to reunite original owners with their cars, I bet there would be some smiles and great tales to tell.

Recommended listening here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfeyUGZt8nk

Bonkers, but Swede Mason has got some talent. ;-)

If you think that is bad don't try Cyriaks 'Cows, cows, cows'.....

Free counters

June 2011

2011-06-25T01:42:00.000-07:00

More flowbench stuff, K-Sport brakes, visiting customer cars, Coupe and other various ramblings

I don't know if there is much new or out of the ordinary to report just recently so here is a mix of old and new, many happy customers have come and gone.

Some days it is difficult to shut our small workshops door, on this particular evening Steves Evo which was in for its new engine fitted was inches from it and above it another local fella Anthonys pristine 16v. When I say pristine I really mean p r i s t i n e, on top, underneath, inside and out this is one of, if not the most superb unmolested examples in the country, not a restoration, but a superbly well looked after original car. It lives in the garage while the M5 and Bentley are outside in daily use as they are more disposable, I dunno what the fellow Brits or directors of the Bavarian Motor Works would say to that, but it made perfect sense to us when we were working on it as it was a joy, If you are looking for the best and this ever comes up for sale trust me it will be worth it - at any price.

New products we are working on just recently are uprated rear anti-roll bars and rear lateral arms, I have run and tested these for some years on the 16v track car so it was time to make some for others to buy.

I've been working on four 16v heads, (albeit one was for myself!) two were for (shock) British race cars and one for a Swedish track car. All feature our trojan valve guides, nimonic valves, underbucket shims and the latest innovative port work which sees 170 BPF on the Inlet etc.

You might wonder how we get to know so much about these heads, well it's not from guessing. Below is a pic of three generations of Fiat/Lancia ports from 8v, through 16v to 20vt and in the background a slice of a 16v cylinder head, see how the downdraught angle of the multivalve heads is much greater than that of the early 8v and the skinny looking 20vt ports when compared to the 16v - understandably so as the same total literage (2ltrs) is had shared by more cylinders, velocity is all important and there is a threshold as to how far you can go before the low down performance becomes noticeably lazy.
The smaller the cross sectional area the higher the velocity will be.

So much is learned from doing this it is well worth the effort, you notice a lot more when looking at the ports from a different perspective. Measurements and calculations all have their place, but for me you just can't beat taking a good old (gander)look at something to see how it works, there are those who need a rule book and those who just do it naturally.
The head we sliced open shows amongst many other things the proximity of the water cooling galleries so you don't go through when porting for some of the extreme high end stuff we do sometimes.

I don't do a lot of 8v heads and they are pretty unresponsive and flow much less in comparison to their 16v brothers, this is due to the short port (floor), less downdraught angle and awkward very late and abrupt short side radius, none of which you can do much about without major re-engineering of the head.
When I looked at one of the port moulds we did for this head it was interesting to note how the port was biased to promote swirl in the combustion chamber, this is where a two valve per piston head has some advantage over a multivalve head.

Also of some interest could be this:

It is a clear copy and working model of a 16v head, it can be fitted with valves and put onto the flowbench with traces of string, smoke or even coloured dye drawn through it to examine exactly what does go on in there. It is 'Mk1' and we will create another with some better features and more clarity soon.

We have pulled smoke through 16v heads before and it is quite fascinating, you might note how we also use a solid radiused inlet piece for repeatable results as plasticene can be very unreliable - you can actually manipulate your figures with different shapes and sizes and it has been known to come loose at some of the higher test pressures we run at.

We have always used the correct Lancia tool to press in valve guides, but on heads with very high lift cams we like to push them in just a little more to prevent interference with the valve stem oil seal. This meant making a new tool.

I knew that length of old Merc ARB would come in useful for something! Harder than Hells doorstep, the swarf came off in unbreakable helical strings of bright blue steel - worth the effort though as the tool works very well and there is no distortion on the new guides at all.

The Coupe continues to prove itself quick and reliable, it is now fitted with a large front mounted intercooler and the huge rad which came from the US. The BC Racing suspension is proving to be excellent and was tested quite hard along some of North Yorkshires finest stretches of blacktop. The rear dampers have helped massively with the wheel spin problem and cut down on some of the torque steer, the FMIC painted black to protect it and add to the 'Stealth' look.

It is fitted with two accurate digital boost gauges, one at the turbo exit and one in the plenum, this is to monitor and record the amount of time it takes the air to make its way through the system and also shows how long the plenum is in a state of vacuum when the turbo is clearly making pressure.

More North Yorkshire scenery:

The rock type in North Yorkshire is predominantly Limestone which while adding to the dramatic and beautiful scenery also helps to create other oddities such as these waterfalls which have been coated in a build up of the deposits of Calcium Carbonate from the Limestone, it creates a material called 'Tufa' and the on waterfall to the left it has created a full wall of the stuff and there is a cave now behind it.
At Mother Shiptons cave they hang everyday items from a waterfall where they slowly become coated and look like they are made from stone.

Simons new K-Sport brakes fitted behind the standard wheels perfectly:

New 8 weight crank for a customers engine build:

Another local car which was formerly owned by the fella behind 'Betacar', hence the number plate, sadly not trading any more.

Really the plate should read 'Lucky' as the cam belt had slipped several teeth (so many that the owner couldn't start it), but the valves had not hit the pistons, so all in all a good result.

I recently went to see the film 'Senna', I say 'film', although really more of a documentary and whilst everyone knows the outcome it was still a good watch with some quite chilling footage, especially of Roland Ratzenberger coming to halt slumped dead in the cockpit of the remains of his car.
One of those films that when you get to the end and the lights are turned up no-one jumps up and makes for the door, but simply sits and watches the final snippets of footage and the end credits.

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Project Sausage*

2011-04-30T02:32:00.000-07:00

Fiat Coupe 16vt, Pros, cons, thoughts and other stuff

This one is mainly for fun, to see what we could achieve on the cheap**, test a few ideas. To build a company car which can be lent to customers when required and to not have to worry about where we leave it or how rusty it gets. A good motorway cruiser and a bit of a 'Street sleeper' I guess. Apart from being environmentally friendly It makes no sense whatsoever, it's hypocritical, worth bugger all and

but,

well,

I just couldn't resist having a go....

Fiat Coupes and I go way back. I still remember being in the back of fellow Yorkshireman, friend and Italian parts supplier Steve of well respected Alternative Autos 20vt many years ago, when they were new and immediately liking it. I've since had a 20vt and this is the second 16vt. I chose the 16vt because I am familiar with the engine and had all the parts in stock. It has everything I need:- Character (needs fixing every weekend), Italian flair, leather interior, leccy' windows and sunroof (which doesn't work) and is fast...

It also has Fiat's attempt at traction control, laughably known here as 'Discodrive', because when the old school turbo gets up and struts its stuff, the tyres light up and the front end dances all over the place. Proper LSD's are available, but cost 21 times the value of the car. As I pointed out earlier, making this FWD car more powerful makes no sense as the only place it is going to be able to use the power is on the motorway and even then only for about two seconds! There are a few cars running around with Lancias 4wd system fitted and these must be awesome beasts.

** Cheap to me means less than about £7k on an engine, it doesn't mean cutting corners or fitting crap parts, it includes taking a calculated and informed risk here and there or using something which does the job perfectly well, but doesn't look very shiny - something which you would do to your own car, but not a customers. People like to see new, clean and shiny things which is why they buy useless Chinese exhaust manifolds and 'Port n polish' cylinder heads etc, ignorance truly is a blissful place to be.
For this project,I am not concerned with what something looks like, I just want it to work, properly and for a long time.

Project Sausage was bought for a few hundred pounds locally, with a seized engine, the cause of which could be traced back to a bent towing eye, hole in undertray and broken oil cooler pipes fixed back together with bits of tube and jubilee clips... It looked like at one time it had maybe hit a brick in the road or a high kerb which had caused said damage, leading to oil starvation.

Whilst it has the same engine as the 16v integrale it has loads more room up front for 'goodies' such as a decent FMIC, exhaust manifold, large radiator etc so we'll see what we can do.
The engine was dropped out, stripped, cleaned, de-rusted and yeah, that is really what was left of one of the big end shells.

A rebore followed, along with:
-Forged pistons and rods
-Standard CR
-Re-ground crank
-Steel flywheel
-High torque road clutch
-Full btm end balance +
Balancer shafts removed.
-25mm cambelt kit
-Gasflowed head, uprated valve springs to take future high lift cams
-Integrale 16v T3 turbo
-Ceramic coated tubular manifold
-3" exhaust with race cat
-Manual boost controller.
-Stock map and ECU.

At the moment it's pretty lively and also in dire need of a re-map with a slight raise in boost pressure, which would yield about 270bhp.
Other mods due are a front mounted intercooler, bigger turbo, bigger rad/oilcooler, cams and possibly an uprated intake manifold/plenum/throttle body combo which should add another 200bhp easily enough. I might put a fibreglass or carbon fibre bonnet on it too to reduce some of the weight and it will also get some bigger front brakes.

I'm delaying fitting the intake manifold because the inlet of which will clash with the ABS unit, being a primarily a road car it needs to keep this, although we may be able to move it around to where the battery was, as this now resides in the boot. One of the many advantages of modifying a cheap car is that you don't have to worry about cutting bits up and throwing them away when not needed.

If I was to advise someone on what to do with a Coupe engine (and I do have to on a weekly basis on the tuning of the 16v engine) the above would be pretty much it - apart from the turbo (I would fit a ball raced GT item), stock valve springs, remap and possibly FMIC, this would see around 300bhp which is enough for an old school Fwd car, much more than that and you need gearbox strengthening, Rwd or 4wd. All that power is pretty useless when you can't control the car. One of the reasons for this article is so I can point people in this direction when they ask the usual questions.

The words 'Re-ground crank' will no doubt stir up some conversation and raised eyebrows, especially from the armchair experts who have no practical experience whatsoever. There have been theories and experiments over the years, all of which (to me) have been largely inconclusive, lacking in complete information and not all avenues explored, so I decided to do my own practical experiments. Quite a lot has been learned. What works and what certainly does not.

I like learning new things.

The Coupe is ideal for this kind of experiment as the sump is easily dropped and the bearing shells readily accessible for inspection. No such luxury on an integrale. There is method in my madness ;-) and the results will then be passed on to future customers.

The shiny oversized dustbin stood crying on the floor whilst its stylish 3" slash cut replacement looked on.

Project S is currently being used to test the new BC Racing suspension set up.

This is just the protoype, there are still issues to iron out.

The Fiat Coupe club forum is a very good source of info for this car. Like any community it comes with mainly good, but some bad info, some sheep and is also a place to waste money on useless items such as the various braces, (which add absolutely nothing to the strength of the already stiff body shell), chrome light rings, LEDs and such trinkets, amongst some pretty useful stuff too.

I will add more chapters to this as we progress.

*Sausage: Tasty, but unhealthy, addictive, generally made up of bits swept up from the floor after a long days work.

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More pics.....

2011-03-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

We're on a roll here, so some more pics, mainly of customers cars;

A big thanks to all the guys who send us pics of their cars, it's really appreciated by me, all the readers of the blog and it's great to see what you've been up to.

An avid viewer of the blog in his daily driver:

Frenchman Guillaumes restoration and rebuild of his 16v (don't ask about the colour - it won't be staying like that!)

The three pics are then followed by Austrian Martins various cars and some of the top class work he does for himself and friends in his immaculate and well equipped garage.

Then we are back to France for some pics of Sébastien and Ludovic in their 8vs enjoying some high speed driving on the Monte Carlo Rally stages.

Life is all about ass:

You are either covering it,
laughing it off,
kicking it,
kissing it,
Busting it,
Trying to get a piece of it,
Or behaving like one.

Customers cars and other pics

2011-02-06T07:03:00.000-08:00

>

Well it's been a busy time at DP, pretty much ordinary day to day stuff and sadly too busy to be able to keep up with the blog, but here is a bit of a snap shot in pics.

Frankie Chow from Hong Kong in a great twilight shot with his immaculate 16v:

Geir Slåstad's stepson slides his Evo around a snowy Norwegian track:

Chilean Felipes beautiful clean Fiat 125, currently on 8v power, but soon to be upgraded to 16v with a few choice bits and pieces we sent over to help:

Pauls Mk1 Punto gets a 16vt engine:

We supplied the parts and he did the building with a few tips over the phone now and again, lovely clean and neat job - this should be one of the quickest Puntos in the country.........

........... He's going to need it if his Mrs finds out how much he spent on it and sets off after him....

Frenchman, friend and customer Sebastien Perraud gets down to some serious drifting!

Having a play around with different exhaust manifold designs with our modelling kit:

This is what happens to OE cast pistons when they are getting a bit old and overstressed - they start to break down due to fatigue. A good advertisement for forged pistons in a modified engine if ever there was one - it would have made a real mess if it had let go completely, only the crown was holding it together, the crack was very similar around the other side too.

The engine was still running, although down on power due to broken rings, the intake charge was pressurising the crank case and blowing oil out all over the place. Another piston would have given it a further 'budget' lease of life as the bores were unmarked, but not much point really, it will be getting the full treatment and some pretty special components.

A couple of great shots of Australian Tino Lionettis 8v in amongst the other lancias

Time for a break:

Creme Brulee Sir?

Yeah, even the hallowed Jaffa cake gets put to one side for something a bit more upmarket sometimes. :-)

.

Erhards 8v

2011-02-06T05:29:00.001-08:00

We have been supplying a few parts for Austrian Erhard Sammers 8v for a few months now, I was quite interested to learn about its history when Erhard mentioned it to me so I asked for more information. It has recently been featured in Autorevue magazine and the pictures (apart from the group shot above which is from Steyr-Daimler-Puch) are property of Ace photographer Andreas Riedmann.
A big thanks to Andreas for letting me post up examples of his excellent photography and to Erhard for writing the following story, It is so well written I have simply re-printed it word for word:

Some interesting facts about my Delta Integrale 8V (1988):

The car was imported from Italy in April 1988 by Steyr-Daimler-Puch-Fahrzeugtechnik. This company, which is situated in the city of Graz in Austria and today is a part of Magna International Inc., developed the 4-wheel-drive-system for the integrale. (On some Rally cars you can still see the small supplier-sponsor-sticker with the logo of the company). There it was part of the test-fleet and used for testing a very sophisticated torque-vectoring-4wd-system. Therefore the car was equipped with a Matter-rollcage and loads of sensors and other testing equipment.

Because in 1988 only cars with a catalytic converter could be registered (Austria and Switzerland, you know...) a special permission had to be given by the governor of the county Styria to register the car. No private person would have been able to get that permission, but for Steyr-Daimler-Fahrzeugtechnik it was a case of 'Higher interest for the country'. And so for sure my car is one of very, very few non-cat-Integrales in Austria.

After the car served its duty at Steyr-Fahrzeugtechnik the car was brought back to road-standard in 1995 and sold to someone, who had absolutely no idea how to treat an integrale and ruined the crankshaft bearings. Which was, from todays point of view, some big luck, because the car could not be destroyed by some 'enthusiast'. The next few years the car spent in a barn in the countryside, after it was bought back by a employee of Steyr-Daimler-Puch-Fahrzeugtechnik, who felt sorry for the car and wanted to bring it back to the road. Well, a little later he started building a house..... and ran out of money for the Integrale-project (but he has a very nice house right now).

At that time I first heard about the car and used the opportunity to buy it. Of course the engine was still broken and many parts of the Integrale where stored in boxes, which stood in and around the car in the barn. Well, then my restoration-project started: The engine and the rebuilding of the car was done by a rally-mechanic and Integrale-Specialist, who also worked for Franz Wittmann, a well known rally-driver in Austria. (He won the World-Championship-Rally in New Zealand in 1987 with a Delta HF 4WD). Everything took longer than I thought, but finally the engine and the car where finished and the car celebrated its comeback on the Austrian roads.

But that wasn’t the end of the - already very long - restoration-story. The car was running very well and I enjoyed it very much, when I discovered some small rust-stains on the back side of the roof, just over the hatch. I showed them to an expert – and could not believe, what he told me: The whole roof had to be replaced, because there was so much rust there (covered with some kind of filler and paint, of course) that it could not be repaired. I wasn’t too happy about that. But the funny thing was, that when I called Lancia Austria, they told me, that they have a Delta-roof in stock! After all those years and for a car, which had not been sold very often in Austria. Hmmm, maybe some other owners needed that spare part, too...

To make a long story short the new roof was put on the car and the whole body was redone by a specialist. He put so much effort in the body-repair and painting, that the car now is in a better shape than when it left the factory – as a friend told me, who knows a lot about italian cars ... and the build-quality there.

Otherwise I left the car in original-state, which I prefer. I just applied some rust-protection (Mike Sander’s) and put some Martini Racing-badges and a Martini-Steering wheel on. But in spring the best part will follow: the stainless-steel-waterpipe from deltaparts.co.uk!

Best Greetings!
Erhard

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Intrax suspension systems, camber and castor angles

2010-05-08T15:29:00.000-07:00

When we wanted to use and sell the best suspension systems you can buy we went to Intrax, they didn't have a system so I offered to lend them the 16v to help them develope some.

I took the integrale with me, hopped on a North Sea ferry and met up with fellow Lancisti Michel Van Aggelen. Why? Because he's Dutch and I was in The Netherlands, he knows his country, integrales, suspension and is a friendly helpful kind of fella so was the best man for the job.

We made our way swiftly across the country, stopping briefly for a bite to eat and for Michel to take some pics of windmills.

We got to Intrax at about lunchtime, met up with 'Mr Intrax': Henk Thuis, discussed what we needed and what they could provide.

Henk has been racing some serious cars since 1993, Donkervoort, Alfa, BMW and currently a Porsche 996 which he won with in 2008, came runner up in 2009 and is currently doing well with in 2010.

After a quick tour of their premises which had some interesting Automotive machinery lurking in every corner (and large trophy cabinet)

I left the 'grale with them and it was back across the country in Michels 8v (well, you can't have everything) to a bar for a few beers before getting back onto the Ferry.

A few weeks later I was back to pick the car up, the guys there explained what they had done and Henk took me out for a drive, the car felt really tight and quick as he threw it around a local industrial estate.

The set up looks great, really well made and thought out:

We had some lunch and met up with another local Deltisti Bas Van Elten, I've been in contact with these guys for years via email so it was great to meet them in the flesh and have a good chat before heading off back to the ferry.

Back home and on track the grip is amazing, I met up with two customers, both 'grale drivers who could not get over how easy it was to corner at such high speeds, also with the addition of the thicker adjustable rear ARB set to 'dry' it changes direction through the tight left right flicks such as chicanes with superb composure.

A big thanks to Intrax and Michel, a big thumbs down to tightwads North Sea Ferries, Hull: If you want to go with a car and come back on foot they charge a very large premium, so I booked for a car both ways. On coming back with no car on the Dutch side it was no problem, I just showed my ticket, passport and walked on.
Trying to do the same on the UK side had me being pulled up at the check in desk and forced to pay a stupid amount of money to get on as a foot passenger.

Yes, you read that right, if you want to go on as a foot passenger and not take your car you are charged more!

Castor and camber

The Intrax strut top is available in different colours and is adjustable for camber and castor.

It's very difficult to find anything written about castor angles, I have several books on suspension and I think only one mentions why it can be important, advantageous and linked to camber.

Castor angle is the angle of the strut as viewed from the side:

Most people refer to it in connection with the directional stability of a car because this is its primary function, when you have more positive castor (viewed from the side, the top of the strut is further towards the back of the car) the steering self centres easier and the car is more stable in a straight line at high speed, the steering also becomes more heavy the more positive castor is applied.

This is Camber:

If the wheel leans in towards the car at the top then this is 'Negative camber'.

Basically, in order for the tyre to grip when cornering hard it needs to present itself flat to the tarmac so all of the surface of the tyre is working, camber gives us this. This is called 'Static camber' and whilst it comes into its own when cornering, it can be a compromise when braking or accelerating in a straight line when the tyre is at an angle to the road or track, both for traction and for tyre wear.

This is where positive castor angle (PCA) comes in and here is how it works:
The pencil is the strut with zero castor angle, the wheel (roll of tape) has zero camber angle, when we turn the 'wheel' it keeps the same angle, i.e, the tyre to road angle doesn't alter.

Now let's dial in some PCA:

The axis of the turned wheel has now altered and you see how it has affected the camber angle:

This is quite an exaggerated example, but it shows what is happening - the more you turn the wheel, the more camber is introduced.

Flowbench testing

2010-04-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

Just a bit of a write up this week on some parts brought in by Andrew Grogan for testing.
Andrew looked high and a low for a really good Evo 1 to do a restoration project on, but sadly settled for a Winner red.

He then proceeded to pull it to bits and is reconditioning everything which could be and replacing everything which couldn't, we are talking about a full-on nut and bolt restoration here, every step and every part has been methodically logged, pictured and written about and lot of people eagerly await the results of his years of hard work.

All results below were taken at 10" of depression.

First up on the flowbench was a mildly reprofiled throttle body, it looked really nice and I would have put money on it giving 2 or 3cfm extra, result? Zero improvement over standard.

Well it could only get better and next up was a bit more interesting: An OE intercooler with the end tanks removed and a new more modern core welded inbetween them. The exit/entry pipes had been mildly re-profiled and polished, the quality of welding was superb and we counted less tubes than the OE 'cooler meaning it had larger section ones fitted. Looking into the core you could see it was a more aerodynamically friendly affair, but still tube and fin construction (see earlier intercooler article).

On the bench the OE intercooler flowed 153cfm.
The re-cored one flowed 165cfm.

So not a bad result for a simple core change and a bit of cleaning up, I think they could have got more by changing to a bar & plate type, or at least, it would have been interesting to test one anyhow. As outlined before if you want more power then get more airflow by trading up to larger section core, but if you want to keep your integrale looking standard whilst gaining a bit and lightly modernising it then it's not a bad mod.

Andrew then brought in a head he had done by someone without a flowbench so had no figures for it. It had been very tidily done, no major changes to the port geometry or valve and seat angles, just some rounding off of the short-side-radius and knife edging on the port splitter.

A stock head flows 137cfm
And his was up to 155cfm

So again a good modest improvement, but it shows that all that glisters is not gold.

We tested an OE cast iron log manifold on an umodified head V Andrews tubular item:

As you can see, nothing really unexpected, but interesting to see nonetheless. Looking closer at the figures, at least the tubulars best and worst flowing headers are within 10cfm of each other whilst the OE log has a much larger 18cfm difference.

This was supposed to be just a factual post on what we found out from the items tested, but lets wander off for a moment and look a bit closer at the usual manifold debate questions.

Are you going to see a non flow loss ex'manifold on an integrale which keeps the turbo in its original position? Well I think you're going to struggle! I'm saying this not only from what we have found here, but also because we have a life size model along with modelling kit in the workshop which we are making our own on so I know how difficult (impossible?) it is to create the perfect manifold.

Do you really need equal length tubes? I still think so. Look at the tubular one on test, the shortest pipe has the worst CFM figure, it has this because of the number of bends and restrictions in it, so what if we build a manifold purely based on equal flow rates for all four pipes?
What is the point in an equal length manifold if the flow figures are all over the place?
Food for thought and open to discussion, but the answer for me would be equal length and equal flow.

Another widely debated topic is whether the integrale 16v inlet manifold is better than that of the Fiat Coupe, many people claim it is so we did a back to back test and found no difference between the two at all. Both showed a 36cfm loss when bolted to a head flowing 168cfm on cylinder No.1.

Flowbench and cylinderheads

2010-04-04T13:10:00.001-07:00

Some people don't realise we have a flowbench at Deltaparts.

Many people have no idea what one is so let me explain.

Ok, as previously discussed in an earlier post airflow is probably the most important thing to consider when trying to increase the power of your engine, if you can get more in and match it with more fuel you are going to get more power, simple.

How do you know if your modifications to the airways have done any good without checking the output of the engine? You don't unless you have a flowbench to give you a good idea of what is going on. You see, sometimes you can make things worse or spend a lot of time on something which gives little or no improvement.

Don't buy a reworked head from someone who cannot prove what they have done.

(Very!) basically a flowbench has a few electric fans inside it which draw a vacuum through the test hole, they can be reversed to blow and can also be controlled to give a certain airflow at which you take your readings at, the basic Superflow 110/120 is what many people have, it is rated at testing up to 100bhp per cylinder and maxes out at 185cfm (cubic feet per minute)

Ours is a bit bigger, it runs 6 motors and will pull your arm in if you get too close! It pulls over 28" and 250cfm quite easily. 28" is called test depression, it is read from a manometer which is T'd off from one of the chambers within the bench. The more vac and CFM you can pull the closer and more accurate to a real life situation you will get.

Whilst it has to be said that your own flowbench is better used with your own before & after figures it's sometimes good to compare with others, so the ability to be able to check at 10 or 28" is useful as not everyone uses the same test depression.

The Superflow has liquid filled manometers to take the readings which you manually log, we have digital ones on ours which are displayed on the laptop screen and can be logged into the laptop if needed. This makes the job much easier and quicker and photographing your good work a bit easier too as you will see.

With a fair bit of work we can get an integrale 16v bare inlet port up to 170cfm, it isn't just the high cfm numbers which you are chasing, you need good air speed throughout the port, no good if the air speed is too slow or too high even. We read airspeed in FPS (feet per second) with a probe which we can push into any part of the port to check for high, low or dead areas where nothing much is happening and shape the port to suit.
There isn't much point in beyond 170cfm BPF either if you are still using the OE sized valve or untouched inlet manifold as it will pull those figures back down once it is fitted.

Below is a graph of results from a head I did last week compared to standard. It shows the flow of the port with the valves fitted and at different lifts in increments of 1mm. Stock head versus modified which has a 3 angle valve seat too. It also shows a comparison at BPF (bare port flow) no valves fitted.

As you can see, it flows more air from the start, but really comes into its own at the higher lifts from about 7mm onwards.
What is interesting to note is that with the standard ports the CFM with the valve in at full lift matches the BPF. With the modified port and valve in test it never matches the BPF (well it might do if you lifted it higher), this indicates that we could fit slightly larger valves and maybe make some small gains.

Why do you need a gasflowed or ported head on your engine?

Many people modify their cars without doing much to the head, I don't know why this is, maybe because they don't understand how important it is or because it's not a bolt on shiny part which you can admire and show people....

About 75% of the power in your engine is made in the cylinder head so it makes sense to start here. Many modifications which you do to an engine have a downside to them, the cylinder head is not one of them. When you fit a properly modified head you gain in power, driveability and economy - it's a win-win situation.
As outlined in the engine related articles it is important to start an engine modification project by getting the basic core of the engine right before going any further. Any clod can bolt on a huge turbo and ram the air in to get a bigger power figure, not of much use if the car is horrible to drive though.......

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Valve train upgrades

2010-04-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

Small, but important and impossible to find off-the-shelf ones of the correct dimensions. That is the conclusion I came to after reconditioning a few cylinder heads - we just couldn't find any which were of the correct OD and ID so had a batch made for ours and your use which fit easily and don't give that 'But the valve still flops around like the guide is 100,000 miles old' feeling like most do.

Made from Aluminium-bronze these fit just great and will outlast the originals easily. If you want them fitting then send your head up to us and we'll do them for you, we have the correct tools and equipment to do the job properly and with the miniumum of fuss.

If you've managed to make a mess of removing the old ones and require an oversized OD then contact us, we can order in some for you.

Also available are Nimonic exhaust valves, nice, light and swirl polished on the back of the heads on the standard size and they can be made in bigger diameters if you need a big valve head for quicker turbo spool up time. The last set went out to a customer as quickly as they came in so we only had time to get these shots!

To finish things off with the ultimate in valve reaction time and lightness are these new tappet buckets with tiny shims which go underneath and sit on top of the valve stem. Buckets are anti-friction coated and the weight saving is well worth having.

Prices will be uploaded on the website.

Intercooler theory and practice Part 1

2010-03-08T13:23:00.000-08:00

This is a reprint of a small three part series I wrote on intercoolers so some may have read it before.

Abbreviations:

IC = Intercooler

Ambient = The temp of the air outside the car

Charge air = the air coming from the turbo to the engine

Tubes = These are the passageways that the charge air goes through within the intercooler.

AKA = As commonly known as...

CFM = Cubic feet per Minute (A measure of airflow)

I don't like imperial measurements, we (in the UK) have been Metric since 1971. BUT for the sake of simplicity here I am going to write in inches (") because it makes the numbers easier to digest for you.

Ok, let's start with the basics, the turbo on an engine compresses the air so more of it can be forced into the engine: More air (and petrol to match) = more power.

The main trade off is that compressing air also makes it hot, this is where the intercooler comes in - to cool the charge air. Cool air = more power AND reliability - hot air causes uncontrolled detonation within the combustion chamber which in turn leads to major engine damage and failure. Colder air is more dense (It contains more oxygen) so it gives more power.

The intercooler must meet two criteria, the first we just covered, the second is where a lot of people mess up: *It must be able to flow enough air for the engine to breathe properly*, get it too small and you will strangle the engine and throw away potential power.

Here is how you label the dimensions of an intercooler:

Let's look at a 'cooler in detail, there are two types of core: Bar & plate and tube & fin, it refers to the way they are manufactured and the shape of the tubes, B&P is more desireable as it flows better.

Bar and plate detail:

Tube and fin detail (an integrale IC):

Take a look at the zig-zag fins, these are known as 'Turbulators' or just fins, this is because they cause turbulance in the air. Basically the hot air hits and bounces over the turbulators as it goes through the tubes, when it does this it loses its heat to them, the fins then pass this heat (by convection) to the outside of the cooler, a similar process then happens - cooler ambient air passes through the external fins and cools them.

It is all down to heat transfer, basically an intercooler is a large heat sink, it takes the heat from the air within it then holds it until it is cooled by the air outside. The next facts are very important:

Turbulators slow the air to take the heat from them, the longer the tubes, the more you slow down the air, (velocity) do we want the air to slow right down? Of course not!! Slow lazy air = bad throttle response, AKA: Turbolag. Loss of power, response, economy etc.

FACT:
In a good efficient core the majority of air cooling is done in the first few inches of tube.

The rest is mainly waste, yes it drops the temp a little bit more, but nothing worth shouting about and is more than offset by the fact that that the air has practically gone to sleep....

What is a good figure here? About 7 to 8 inches, 12 - 16 as a max.

7 - 8"? Really?

Yep.

So why do aftermarket manufacturers make 'double pass' intercoolers which make the air go through 48" of tube and a U bend?

To make money out of people who don't know anything about ICs. Take a look here:

Will there be any flow figures (CFM)? Pressure drop? MPG? Power? Nope.
If you see a double pass intercooler for sale then just leave it on the shelf please, hopefully someone will melt it down and make something useful from it.

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Intercooler theory and practice Part 2

2010-03-08T13:20:00.000-08:00

Fact:
It's the number of tubes, not the length of them which matters.

To make a basic comparison, you have a guy who can run a marathon and you stick a drinking straw in his mouth, tell him to breathe through it and send him off, he gets 1/2 a mile before collapsing with exhaustion, why? Because he cannot get enough air to his lungs, so you pick him up, dust him off and give him a drink and a rest then stick a 3" pipe in his mouth (!!) and send him on his way again, he finishes the 5 mile marathon..... Your engine is just like the marathon runner.

Now for some basic maths, if you look inside a 'cooler:

You will see that roughly half is tube and half is blank, so only about 50% of the total area will actually flow air. Lets take the integrale cooler and compare it, a quick sum gives us sq" remember, only is half is tube so:

8 x 3 (x .5) so = 12sq"

This:

Is a pathetic 7.5 sq" (6 x 2.5 x .5) So although it looks bigger it will actually flow less air...

And then we return to this complete mess of an attempt, oh yes, the good old 3 x 12 x 24 double pass! (oh my god):

The air has to travel a whopping 48" (4 times further than an integrale IC) to get through it and it has a flow area of 9".
It flows less air than the OE cooler.
Jeez, I bet you could measure the turbo lag with an egg timer.

Turbo lag

Yes we just brushed on it there, you wanna know where lag comes from where tube area and pipe diameters are concerned? Well I'll let you into a secret, lag comes from the fact that not enough air can get through in the first place, not too much volume.....

How do we know for certain we are on the right track? Where to look for good designs? Other newer cars of course, here are a few good examples:

The first one is a VW, check out the well shaped end tanks, designed to give well balanced flow to all the tubes. Also note Subarus nice job, short tubes, compact and the idea of twin pipes to equalise the flow again. The Pug one is just good basic design, tapered end tanks, lots of tubes, a very bad 90' bend on the end pipe, but still, you get the idea.

So, an off-the-shelf good design? Let's look at this:

Core size is 3 x 18

This looks like a good design, 3" thick x 12 wide and 16" long tubes:

Now you've just got to do the hard bit - fitting it in the cramped space......

Intercooler theory and practice Part 3

2010-03-07T11:49:00.000-08:00

Ducting is very important, especially if your IC is small and/or thick. Some people remove the duct from the integrale IC and then wonder why there car slows down as the intake temps go up...

FMICs cannot always be ducted easily, the air can go around them instead of through - which it does as it will always take the easiest path.

Grp A integrale, this has a small compact intercooler so they had to make the best of it with an excellent duct, see how it is smaller at the entrance than where it meets the 'cooler face, the air has no way of whirling round and coming back out, it is forced through the intercooler matrix where it cools it down:

Ducting on a race car:

See how the rad is fitted at an angle? This makes the air struggle to get through the core and gives better cooling, it also allows a bigger core to be fitted in the same height.

And finally here is what happens on the front of an integrale:

The cooling air goes throught the rad and intercooler and is then dragged back out of the engine bay by the air passing over the louvres.

So does the theory work?

Of course it does ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/user/Evoluzione2?feature=mhw4#p/u/4/mYEyAaqBbd4

Evo 2 blown head gasket

2010-02-20T14:43:00.000-08:00

Nothing really out of the ordinary, it came in sounding like Ivor the Engine (apologies to our overseas and younger readers: Steam powered locomotive)

And as you can see the result of running too much boost on an old engine with stock head gasket is:

On removing the front bumper I was confronted with this:

As you can see it is the Bertone symbol sprayed onto the front crossmember, apparently all Evos made after Lancia officially closed the Chivasso plant were sprayed by Bertone. Maggiora assembled the car bare, then they were loaded onto a truck and sent to Bertone to be sprayed, then returned and the car was then put on the Production line. Side skirts, spoilers, bumpers, bonnet grilles were sprayed separately off the car, fitted, then quality controlled/checked and road tested on some local roads and on the Chivasso test track.

Anyhow, back to the job: The head was stripped and cleaned for inspection, skimmed, new guides fitted, valves and seats re-cut, reassembled and shimmed up ready to go back. Once it was back on the block a new water pump, belts and all bearings were fitted.
Is this any better than what your local garage would do? I have a great relationship with the local garages around here, but after seeing them take a complete head from a car with a blown head gasket which was full of emulsified oil and put it back on again as it was, well you just wouldn't do that with a 15yr old 16v Lancia head - the guides will be worn out and the valve seats pitted for sure, it's also prudent to check for wear on the cams and cracks in the combustion chamber too, a common failure of these heads.

While we were waiting for the head being skimmed we also cured the rust problem on the bootlid - the usual area on the bottom corner and fitted one of our rear bumpers, resprayed and head re-fitted it is all ready for pick up.

The recess where the glass sits is filled with Waxoyl before the rear screen is re-fitted:

You pays your money, you take your chances.....

Thankyou to Paul Baker for the Bertone info.

Beware the armchair expert

2010-02-20T03:37:00.000-08:00

Ah yes, every forum has at least one, if it is a large forum then there could be many.

They will quote something they read on another forum or something someone told them as if they they just did the job themselves. Before taking any notice of such people ask them to prove their theories, it will soon go quiet.

An armchair theorist porting and polishing his tailpipe whilst filling up with hot air yesterday:

Hmmm, nothing really floating my boat recently music-wise so lets go back in time with a classic just for the Keyboard Warrior:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g09GzbctlA

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Deltaparts Developement car

2010-01-11T13:58:00.000-08:00

Currently reckoned to be the quickest 16v in the country is our long suffering developement car. It was never intended to be much special, bought as an abandoned project a few years ago when nothing more than stock apart from a partly fitted cage. Every panel on it is a different shade of Rosso 155, but it's relatively rust free and just refuses to die despite us never re-building the engine and it running well over 360bhp on standard internals - a testomony to strength of the Fiat/Lancia Twin cam.

It's been quite enjoyable just to buy someone elses quality part or design and build your own, bolt them on and measure the results, it has got a bit out of hand though and I think a new engine will be completed and fitted sometime this year, more power will be easy - just bolt on a bigger turbo, although if we have time it would be better to do some accompanying mods too. The old 16v has proved a few theorists wrong. Theories smashed were that you won't get stock rods and pistons to cope with over 300bhp, large intercoolers cause lag and that there is no way you will get that amount of power from the stock sized Garret T3 (this output I believe is a world first).

After studying and modifying naturally aspirated engines I applied the same techniques to the turbocharged Lampredi Twin-cam, the basic school of thought here is just as simple: Make the passages which carry air able to carry more, then match it with the equivalent increase in fuel. If you never lose sight of this simple rule you won't fail and if you want maximum efficiency then examine every single restriction and improve it. It really isn't difficult. So how did I go about this?
Well, going backwards from the 3" exhaust, through the equal length ceramic coated tubular manifold into the cylinder head which was gasflowed in house, controlled with bespoke high lift cams we move on to a matched and blended intake manifold with bigger injectors, ported throttle body, 3" intake pipework to the specially designed non restrictive downflow intercooler. Before that comes the stock sized T3 turbo (apart from 360' bearing, staggered oil seal and re-shaped/blended housings) and finally drawn through a rather large and properly sized K&N air filter.
Everything is controlled by a Motec ECU and the engine cooled by an aluminium radiator which incorporates the oil cooler in the same unit.
Ok, there is the occasional slight trade secret here and there in that mix, but there are the basics of it, sound simple? Pretty much so I think, just good old fashioned tuning theory, nothing more. The secret to keeping an engine in one piece is no restrictions, a cool intake charge and a damn good map.

Sadly when the car was mapped we didn't realise we had a small hole in a boost hose, this prevented the engine from receiving the full amount of pressure so we never knew what its genuine output was, you can see the torque and the boost drop off on the graph below. The rolling road we were on had just been recalibrated following it being flooded out in a storm!

Would I recommend anyone push stock engine internals to these limits? Certainly not, this is just an old engine which we bolted some goodies onto to see what they would do, we had to do it this way to prove they worked. If we started from scratch with a whole host of new bits and pieces how would we know what was working well and what wasn't? By building it up this way we know and if the old engine blew it wouldn't be any problem, it owes us nothing.

The suspension is quite special, it features the first of a new generation of Intrax inverted coilovers all round which were built by Intrax and then dialled in specifically on the car by company owner and long time successful circuit racer Hank Thuis, I took it over there for them to work on it and they did a great job.

The front ARB has been shortened to increase its strength, drop links added which connect it to the strengthened suspension arms. A castor kit was also made and fitted. At the rear it features GrpA style transverse suspension arms, diff cradle, lower brace and a 19mm anti-roll bar, I would like to make some forward facing diagonal braces to the front (from the diff cradle to the cills) to finish of the rear and eradicate any movement.

The handling and grip need to be felt to be believed, front to rear traction 'slippage' is controlled by a viscous coupler which we had replenished with new fluid of a higher torque rating, the way it sticks to the tarmac is amazing, understeer is practically non-existant. There are still the Polybushes to get rid of as they are now the weak link, a sensitive driver (not me!) can feel the movement and there are witness marks at the rear where you can see it, some solid bearings will be fitted here this year. What is also helping the car handle is the Sparco cage, it stiffens the shell massively, this along with lightweight composite wings, bootlid and bonnet ensures the suspension does its work properly.
Currently being tested on the car is an aerodynamic front undertray, with more products being designed and made right now.

Engine from Hell, balancer shafts and other bits and pieces.....

2010-01-05T11:58:00.000-08:00

The car came in just needing 'A few bits of finishing off' following an engine rebuild by some expert (Note: Not Lancia specialist). On a brief road test it didn't drive too well and when on the lift in the workshop an anonymous knocking started.... After draining off the nice glittery metallic oil, the first thing to come off was the sump pan to reveal lots of tiny pieces of metal which weren't attached to anything, I noted that the sump pan had a dent in it with a nice imprint of the oil pick up gauze on the inside.

Possible cause of oil starvation?

On removing the bearing caps all the shell bearings were completely shot. After conferring with the owner It was agreed that I remove and strip down the engine to assess it and more delights were revealed: Scored bores, pistons, crank journals and oil pump, various bits missing from the external of the engine such as strengthening plates, spacer bobbins, bolt heads snapped off: Silicone sealer oozing out from the mating surfaces of various components, second hand gaskets, cambelt practically hanging off:

Some old piece of water pipe from another car with the wrong angle on it was hardly going to let the cooling water flow very well was it?

One of the blanking bungs for the gearbox was badly mangled and rolling up and down the dashboard, why this had been removed we'll never be entirely sure, to fill the gearbox with oil maybe? Either way it never made it back to where it previously lived as a bit of rag had been stuffed in there instead.

Best of all, one lobe from each of the cams partially missing. Only just worn like this? Nope, the corresponding shim was about as thick as my house doorstep so the builder must or should have known. Apart from having a few stripped threads the head looked ok, although some muppet had replaced the Sodium filled valves with Stainless steel ones more suited to a naturally aspirated engine. Apart from the basic block and head the engine had been reduced to scrap.
The block had been painted quite nicely though.

After much more conferring, a spec was agreed on and the task of rebuilding it properly began. Basically it was to be running stock power for now, but with uprated components built into the block so it could be safely modified by 'bolt ons' at a later date when funds allowed.

New steel rods and forged pistons were specced, a checked good used crank had its journals polished, core plugs knocked out and was left in the dip & strip tank for a few hours before being high pressure washed and dried off. It was mated to a new steel flywheel, paddle clutch with high pressure plate and sent off for balancing along with the pistons and rods. I have found the OE cranks to be quite well balanced from the factory and only needing a bit of a tickle here and there on the counterweights to make them perfect, they do however need all the other components bolting to them and balancing properly by someone who has the right equipment and knows how to use it. The steel flywheels we sell are already balanced, but clutch pressure plates rarely are and need a fair amount of attention. Whilst that was being done the block was being decked, bored and honed. I specify that the boring and honing is done with a deck plate, main bearing caps in place and torqued down to the correct settings. For the little extra time and effort involved you might aswell try and get things as perfect as possible. When all the components were back with us and thoroughly cleaned a dry build was done and all clearances set and checked. It is folly to simply assume that everything has been done properly, isn't worn or will be ok. This calls for a good collection of tools such as bore clock, micrometers, dial gauge, feeler gauges and Plastigauge. Pistons are hand finished by us, ARP bolts used on the new rods. The block also had the balancer shafts removed and all associated oilways etc blocked off with our own kit, much has been discussed about this modification, my thoughts are this:

Balancer shafts

People talk about "2nd order alternating inertial forces" quoting it from the Lancia manual or some online text without knowing exactly what it means, the best explanation I have ever come across is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_shaft

To simplify what they are saying is that in a long stroke four cylinder engine the pistons aren't in exactly the opposite places at the same time in the four stroke cycle so can't cancel out the slight imbalances caused by each other. There will always be some vibration, but the engine is mounted on floppy rubber bushes so will you feel it?
As outlined in the aforementioned article, the two litre capacity is borderline size for needing balancer shafts. So the advantage of BS on an otherwise unmodified engine is just singularly to reduce some vibration of a not completely properly balanced production engine and no more. We get around this on our re-builds by having the bottom ends (crank, FW and pulleys, rods and pistons) completely balanced to a very high degree.

What about the advantages of removal? Well the centre bearing shells are no longer available and when worn will leak oil reducing the overall oil pressure, blocking these and the other associated oilways off will see a big improvement in oil pressure.
There is a subtle increase in engine power and response. Servicing is easy and cheaper due to less belts and bearings. Reliability goes up due to inceased oil pressure and less moving parts to fail.

It is also worthy of note that the balancer shafts changed weight over the years, the last ones used in the Fiat Coupe were different compared to of the early ones in the 8v, this was done by machining more or less out of shaft along its length which must have altered its balance too, I do wonder why...

Knocking out old bearing shells: Pulling in new bungs with appropriate tool: The block was completed with a new oil and water pump The head was stripped, inspected and cleaned as per the block, valves lapped and re-shimmed with some good used cams. There wasn't any point in going overboard with the head as it was going to be replaced with something a bit more fruity in the future. Pretty soon it was finished and ready to go in: Once in, fitted and turned over until we had some oil pressure showing it fired up first time. More 1970s garden-shed tuning then came to light, It was running really rich, the fuel pressure regulator had been tampered with and the pressure was sky high, the boost gauge was also showing 1.2 bar when it should be 1 bar on overboost with the stock chip it had in it, once sorted it ran like a dream, lovely and smooth - vibration? Forget it, do the job properly and you can sling your balancer shafts in the bin.

The guys smile when they came to pick it up made it worthwhile, they plan on running it in then just getting some use out of it on the road and doing some sprints. More modification will follow when needed, but just for now they were happy to get the car back with a good reliable strong bottom end.

Happy New Year.....

2010-01-01T04:13:00.000-08:00

......... To all readers.

"The best that can be said for 2009 is that it could have been worse"
Joseph Stiglitz

Indeed, let's hope for a better year in 2010, it's my opinion that the economy has bottomed out and this year will see some slow recovery.
On some other more positive notes after finding time to do some more 'Blogging' this last week I am getting better at loading pics and presenting this Blog in a much more readable manner.
We have some more great products on the way this year so keep following here as they will be introduced with an explanation of all the whys, wheres and whatfors.

In defence of the Specialist M'lud

2009-12-31T12:55:00.000-08:00

If you own an integrale then you have in your possession a piece of complex automotive history, please treat it with the respect it deserves!

So many cars come through those workshop doors in such shoddy condition it is a crying shame, bits missing, parts put on back to front, oil leaking out of every silicone bodged orifice. Quite often the cost of the work involved to bring these cars back to a roadworthy condition is more than the car is worth and it is so sad that much of my job is spent finishing someone elses job off because they got so far in and realised they were out of their depth or just made such a hash of things that they caused more damage than than they did good.

If you can't afford to look after an integrale then don't buy one and they are expensive cars to run.
Think with your head and not your pocket.

There are a few well respected integrale Specialists dotted around the country, please use and support them as they charge what they do because they have the parts and the knowledge to keep your car in top condition. In these times of ever declining spare parts believe me, it ain't no easy task.

Chippy.

2009-12-31T12:47:00.001-08:00

Centre Lathe

2009-12-27T03:23:00.000-08:00

When I first started earning a crust at the age of 16 I was trained to use machines, both in the workshop and at college, I've always enjoyed working with them and still have all my own fingers...
Back in Summer I decided it was time we invested in a centre lathe, there were a few reasons for this.

The integrale is of course not a new car anymore and so many come in with bits and pieces missing, on a new engine build this was never going to do was it:

?

With many parts NLA or taking a long time to get hold of you have to take matters into your own hands in order to survive and get the job done:

The same car came in with one of the map sensor nipples snapped off and someone had tried glueing it back on, but the glue had run into the sensor and blocked the hole so when plugged into the scanner there was no reading. The car was needed and map sensors are expensive so the solution was quick, easy and permanent:

A clutch centering tool was also one of the first things I made after not really getting on with the universal ones you can buy:

To be able to make your own precision parts as and when you need them without having the problems involved with sub contracting them out is very satisfying, the lathe is a such a versatile tool it's difficult to imagine work life without it..

Some other bits:

Cheating a bit here, but it did the job:

I don't think we'll be winning any awards, but it gets the job done and properly.

Auxiliary belt tensioners

2009-12-26T10:07:00.000-08:00

At last a replacement for those badly specced cast iron things which snap so easily...

Made from Zinc plated billet steel these won't ever break!

Click on the banner at the top of the Blog to gain access to the site for prices.

Track of the month: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=steC-8NSVIw

Poignant lyrics.

Project Evo Chapter one.

2009-12-26T09:51:00.000-08:00

A bit of a slow burner this one, I'm hoping to get it finished before we stop using petrol to power cars as I have some radical new parts to use on it.
The idea behind it is simple, It will be a no compromise track car, be as light, powerful and handle as well as possible.

I started off with a straight, but rather rusty shell. It was cheap enough and I figured by the time I had hacked it about to strengthen it, lighten it, make things fit better and added light weight panels it would have been sacrilegious to start with a decent one, they've all got rust on them anyhow!

Sandblasting in progress:

The neighbours were well impressed.
It came out nice and clean though with an excellent surface for the primer to cling to. I masked off the seams so they could be welded afterwards:

The rusty sunroof equipped roof panel has been taken off and we made a carbon fibre replacement, lots lighter and also stronger, it will eventually be equipped with all the composite panels we do.

As you can see in the pics above I started on it at home, just doing a bit on free weekends. I bought some A frames and turned them into a spit so I could spin the shell around to gain access to every part, if you are working comfortably and safely you are going to spend more time getting the job done just right. The spit is now at the workshop for use on customer cars.

I handmade all the strengthening plates to the front end:

I knew that Metalworking course at college would come in handy one day!

Right now it is having the cage fitted and welded in, seam welding and the strengthening plates welding on. Every item was degreased and etch primed before being welded. Etch primer is the one and only thing which you should use on bare metal, it won't scratch off very easily at all as it attaches itself chemically to the metal. It's also good near the welded areas as it doesn't come loose, burn and flake off, it just goes orange.

The engine bay was braced and the suspension arms bolted on to prevent any possibility of warpage from the welding.

Favourite track last month but one(!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLJf9qJHR3E
Not usually a fan of folk, but this hits the spot. Just 4 guys and some basic instruments, make the most of it 'cos the follow up is rubbish.

Club Lanciasport sprint day at Curborough

2009-11-04T02:21:00.001-08:00

Time to do some testing, meet up with fellow Lancisti and give the cars a good work out.

Some pics of just a few of the cars there including yours truly in the red 16v Deltaparts developement car. A massive thanks to those on the CLS commitee (especially Chris E) who make this event possible and everyone who turned up, the weather was very kind to us and everyone had a great day.

Photography by www.nslphotographics.co.uk/

Body shells and Cages.

2009-10-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

Integrales have weak shells and cracks in various places at the front are common, especially on the wider Evo models. You can try to strengthen it or simply add a cage.

Why do they crack?

Cracks are formed by the metal being regularly flexed, steel can be bent quite a lot before it starts to break, but your car will have seen a lot of flexing since it was made over 15yrs ago.

You have to remember that the basic shell was designed in the 70's for a small medium priced FWD hatchback with 1.3 engine. By the end of its run the power output had tripled and the weight of the engine, transmission and ancillaries had grown out of all proportion, still the basic shell remained...

The heavy engine and transmission is hung out at the front which apart from making the car a bit 'understeery' means that it puts a lot of strain on the front part of the shell, the chassis rails or legs get a good work out. Support for the chassis rails comes in the form of the suspension arms below. The problem here is that they are fixed to the shell via rubber bushes which allow movement. If you were to replace these with solid bearings or brace around them then you would stop a lot of the movement and stress fractures on the legs themselves, you could however move the problem further back on the shell. Replacing rubber bushes with bearings will increase feedback from the car to the driver making it more enjoyable to drive, the suspension will be encouraged to do its thing too instead of the chassis flexing. The downside is that road noise in the cabin will be increased - they were made from rubber for this reason.

The floorpan beneath the front inner seat mountings crack too, this is basically the weight of the driver and passenger bouncing up and down, easily remedied by welding on strengthening plates.

The cills on Evos can crack by the base of the A pillar, the front door surrounds also near where they meet the top of the A pillar. What forces are at work here I'm not totally sure, is it caused by the chassis flexing because of the suspension and road or by forces transmitted back from the engine/transmission bouncing up and down? Please feel free to Email me if you have any irrefutable evidence of why this occurs.

These are the main areas which crack, there are others.

I've known and had dealings with three cages: OMP, Sparco, Custom Cages.

OMP
Rated: 2/10

Just don't even go there, it has no diagonal bracing (front to rear), doesn't tie to the shell and is short on well, just everything... If you must buy this thing then at least make up some brackets to weld it to the shell at high level - top of A and B post, it doesn't do much if you don't apart from make the car difficult to get into.

Sparco
Rated: 9/10

Overall the best off the shelf package for those who expect to get what they pay for and don't want to pay for hidden extra materials/work. It is has lots of diagonal bracing, weld in brackets to tie it to the shell and is based on the Grp A cage which was very well thought out - well it bloody well should have been!

Custom Cages
Rated: 7/10
http://www.customcages.co.uk/Rollcage/LoadRollCage.castle?manufacturer=Lancia&model=Delta Integrale&type=Multipoint

On the surface a very comprehensive cage with lots of tube, on fitting it you will find that not much of it actually fits. The cage features a diagonal bar which goes from the base of the A pillar, up through the bulkhead/wheelarch and meets the horizontal bar near where it fixes to the strut top. This is a very useful addition as it tackles the problem that integrales have in this area.

The A pillar tubes are bent to the wrong angle, a few other braces have the wrong angles cut on them or are short. If you buy this kit be prepared to re-bend some of the tube and order some more for the parts which don't fit. You will also have to make up some brackets to fix it to the shell at high level (A & B posts) as none are provided. It comes across as a cage which was originally designed and fitted to a crashed car, but persevere, add more tube, brackets and you will have a very good strong cage.

How do I come to these conclusions?

Well having a bit of common sense when just looking at the thing works wonders along with some easily learned structural knowledge, how braces do what they do and what forces are at work.
In the workshop we have a two post lift with four adjustable pads which sit under each of the jacking points, if a car has no cage or a poor cage it sags to fit the lift if the adjustable pads aren't wound up exactly equally. If you lift a car with a properly fitted good quality cage in this way it will rock from corner to corner.

An interesting read here on the CLS forum: http://www.lanciasport.com/forum/index.php?topic=1020.15

Site goes live

2009-10-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.deltaparts.co.uk/

We are off to a slightly shaky start, there is still the odd mistake here and there and it is a bit light on content, but it can only get better and the range grow.

A massive thanks to site creator James and photographer Nick for making this possible, being a computer dufus and not a great cameraman I couldn't have done it without you.

:-)

Wheel studs and nuts

2009-10-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

Just a short post on the small subject of converting to wheel studs & nuts from bolts.

Although there is the advantage that the wheels are much easier to put on with studs, they are usually fitted when wheel spacers are used to allow for the extra thickness. When ordering measure the total thickness of everything which the bolt has to pass through: The hub, brake disc or bell, spacers, wheel and of course wheel nut. The nuts we sell are 25mm total long, the studs are measured as their total length, we stock mainly 80mm although other sizes are available to order, so:

Hub: 11mm

Standard brake disc: 7mm

Spacer: 17mm

Wheel thickness in nut hole: 15mm

Nut length: 25mm

+5mm extra

Total 80mm

When fitting, an aerosol can of brake cleaner and cotton buds or a small bottle brush are ideal for getting the threads in the hub de-greased and clean before applying liquid thread lock and winding the stud home. Keep an eye on the back as it is easy to go too far when using two nuts together to wind them in, don't go much further than the stud sticking out of the back a mm or two. Allow to dry before putting the other components on and finally the wheel nuts of course.

BC_Racing Suspension

2009-10-06T05:55:00.000-07:00

I was rather apprehensive of this system when I first read about it, it seemed too good to be true, but on going round and seeing for myself what it was all about I was happy to give them all the struts and springs they needed to copy and make it work.

On receiving the first set I wasn't dissapointed, the build quality and way it fitted was 1st class, likewise the way the car drove when it was fitted.

Terry, the new owner of an immaculate and beautifully standard (apart from the nice wheels!) white 16v had come to us complaining about the terrible ride on his car, "A shocker must be leaking or a spring broken" he said.
I checked the car over and found nothing wrong, the front struts were nearly new. This just goes to show how bad the OE set up is when a new owner thinks it is defective, Terry opted for the BC-Racing fast road set up.

We carefully fitted the struts and set the car up by lowering it just 20mm and resetting the tracking and camber to our specs. What an improvement! On the softest setting the car just soaks up the bumps and holds itself upright when cornering, if you are found wanting something stiffer then it is a simple job to just turn the top adjuster to firmer for those more spirited days out and trackdays.

The next time I saw Terry was at the Club Lancia Sport Curborough track day where he was lapping quicker and more composed than most people there - including the more higher powered modified cars.

Transmission Problem

2009-10-06T05:41:00.001-07:00

Up on the lift just recently was a red Evo 1, the transmission had been slipping and another garage had diagnosed a slipping clutch and replaced it, it made no difference....

First off we cleaned down the underside of the car with the power washer as there was oil everywhere, once it was clean and up in the air it was an easy job to nail the fault - the offside output shaft was hanging out!

Working on cars involves a lot of investigation, I gave the whole area a good coat of looking at and it seemed to me that the car had had a slight accident at the front O/S at one time, I got to work with my spanners.
I soon had the thing apart and the problem soon became clear - half the splines were missing on the output shaft and the inside of the housing which contains the viscous coupler was badly mangled, bits of the clip which had once held it together along with a shattered bearing were still there. What had happened in the past was that the accident had pushed the shaft in too far, broken the clip and the whole lot had whirled around in and out slowly destroying itself, the shaft had only been running off part of it's full length of splines so had eventually given up under the strain hence the transmission slip.
A quick call to the customer confirmed the car was needed back ASAP, so I was to repair it with some second hand parts I had. Sometime later after putting it back together, flushing it through and putting in new oil it was back on the road.

You have to ask what kind of garage incorrectly fits a new clutch while there is hardly any oil in the gearbox and most of it is escaping from the other side of the transmission?

Inner Wheel Arch Protection

2009-10-06T04:59:00.000-07:00

Well Summer is gone and Winter is on the way, time to address some rust prevention issues!

It seems that every car that comes in has issues in this area, some almost innocent brown stains make way to bubbles and then all too soon you have an extra large hole.

Why when Lancia went to the trouble of making plastic wheel arch liners did they not cover this area? Maybe they ran out of plastic and it was late Friday afternoon.....

Many cars come in with this area already patched up of course, this issue is by no means new. The problem then is that the person usually doing the patching up makes a piece which doesn't have the access hole in it, then the nuts which hold the anchoring plate below spin and you're into a much bigger job. I have even seen this plate welded on to the crossmember which make things even worse when you come to working on the car.

So to protect this vulnerable area we came up with these.
Just take out your front arch liner, put this in position and then the arch liner back in place, the old liner will need a bit trimming from the edge (we use tin snips) to take up the extra thickness. They don't need any extra fixings and are held in place by the original liner. As usual view the website for more details.

www.deltaparts.co.uk