Stuff

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

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

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

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 we had made. The rad has the oil cooler integrated into it, this means the oil is cooled in Summer, but warmed in Winter when it is difficult to get it up to operating temps.
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*

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.

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.....

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.