ALFAGTV6.COM

[junglejustice]

For starters; those who have not seen the YouTube video of the 2nd motor start-up - enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txG0cTx4VeI

Any way, I was digging through some old posts here today and realized that it has been 2 years since Jes or I have really posted any real updates to this joined Danish/South-African/US-effort! (Hard to believe that the whole thing started 3 years ago with my trip to SA to Sherpa pistons etc and get the 3.7s built!)

Many individual threads got SO side-ways in details and with the differences in opinions, that it just was not a pleasure to track or update here anymore and the projects were pretty much catalogued elsewhere. Got an email today though that made me realize that as much exposure as it has had over on the other site, there are still some members here who has never seen it, so I thought that I would update here and share.

Also, back then - this "Race Cars & Tack Preparation" forum did not exist (posts were scattered between "Performance", "Engines", "Introductions" etc.) So, I figured that I will update on my own car here in a new thread for those interested!

I'll just post the highlights from the pictures on my HD (I have thousands - literally!) Feel free to ask any constructive questions or for more details on certain angles or whatever.

Any questions related to price on parts, availability, conversion help, or custom engine-builds should be forwarded directly to me at info@glenwoodalfa.com to avoid the whole "commercial interest" BS arguments here again please! (Also, feel free to call me here in the US at 091.425.941.4747 on the West Coast any time!) Always happy to talk Alfa.

[junglejustice]

Top-level Engine Specifications;

Glenwood Motors built 24 valve V6 Alfa Romeo 156-generation block & heads w/over-sized valves and custom valve angles - Custom aluminium sump - crank/chain-driven oil pump.
Front-converted T-stat housing.
78mm Stroker crank w/100mm forged aluminium-alloy pistons
Gapless rings, forged steel tapered wrist-pins for a total of 3.7 litres.
Forged steel chrome molly connecting rods.
12.0:1 final compression ratio.
Lightened flywheel (+/- 40% weight-reduction) - fully balanced with crank, all 6 rotating assemblies and crank-pulley.
Custom cams (proprietary profile) with solid-lifter conversion and vernier pulleys.
Custom mild steel headers - ceramic coated inside and out.
380cc injectors
6 Individual throttle-bodies (dual, custom aluminium intake plenums) feeding 2 ITB banks (3 x 50mm throttle-bodies to a side.)

[junglejustice]

Electronics;

GoTech Pro-X fully-programmable (fuel and timing) stand-alone engine management system and custom wiring harness running TPS.
Alfa 155 remote-mounted 6-pack coils with HT plug-leads.
All-new Painless Wiring custom wiring bumper to bumper.
Stewart Warner instruments (except for Innovate 5-wire wide-band lambda sensor and gauge.)

[junglejustice]

Fuel, Oil & Cooling;

Billet-aluminium sandwich-plate oil-extractor w/Cabin-mounted Canton Accusump and remote filter setup.
AFCO aluminium oil-heat exchanger GT350 custom radiator - all XRP aluminium A/N fittings.
Canton expansion-tank.
ATL Fuel-cell w/interim single pump setup (upgrading to dual race-pump, dual pick-up, dual coarse-filter/single fine filter setup Winter '07.)
Aeromotive adjustable fuel-pressure regulator and gauge.

[junglejustice]

Suspension, Drive-line & Brakes;

Fully-adjustable (shocks and springs) RSRacing coil-over suspension - torsion-bars removed - rose-joint Watts links arms and center, 30mm/26mm 4-way adjustable rose-joint anti-roll bars.
Praggia 8-pot/4-pot interim brake setup w/13" front and Alfa 156 (front) for rear rotor-combo.
Dual Tilton/Girling brake masters.
Custom drive-shaft.
Fully-lightened 3.55:1 gearbox (cross-drilled & back-cut gears - shot-peened) with 4 friction-disc (50% lock-up) conversion.
Lightened & balanced rear flywheel & clutch assembly.
Wheels TBD - likely Team Dynamics Pro Race 2 w/8" & 9" x 17 staggered combination (interim Pro Race 1.2 Team Dynamics 7.5 x 17s setup.)
Negative camber and toe-in modified OEM DeDion tube.
RSRacing spherical DeDion bush.
105 Castor-rod conversion.
2.1-Turns lock-to-lock converted manual SPICA steering-rack.

[junglejustice]

Safety, Interior & Trim;

Custom roll-cage by Group 2 Inc.
Custom-modified shifter-assembly.
OMP fire-system.
OMP Seats, 6-point belts and shift-knob.
OMP/Sparco fuel-filler neck and Personal steering wheel w/RSRacing extender.
Evo/custom-fender body-kit.
Euro headlights and Milano Verde tail-lights

[junglejustice]

Most expensive part of the project: Engine
Most labour intensive: Tear-down, Body-prep, Roll-cage & welding
Most fun job: Suspension assembly
Crappiest job: Electrical, wiring & gauges
Best day: Start-up
Worst day: Seat installation
Will do again: Oil-plumbing
Won't do again: Fuel hard-lines

[junglejustice]

Credit for the most assistance, support and inspiration:

Dawie de Villiers & Glenwood Motors
Ron Simons - RSRacing
The "crew" - Group 2 Inc
Ol' Jes - who else?

...and naturally - ALL of the other "new" Alfa-buddies here and over on the BB that always had something nice and encouraging to say!

[junglejustice]

Along the way, the goals for this thing changed many times! The specs moved, the budget moved, the time-line slipped and there were MANY instances when I thought about giving up!

The best advice that I can give anybody is to lay-out your goals clearly - up-front! Decide early-on what you want to do with your project when it is done, the direction you want to take it in, how you want to use it in the end, what you are willing to give up to get there and how far you are willing to take it when things do change along the way!

Stretch your budget (if possible) and get what you ultimately want - now - even if you have to pay it off. It is cheaper (and feels a bit better) than getting the money together down the line to have gone a step further (like you may have wanted to in the first place), but now you have to re-do things or pay twice for something, or forgo something because it is too late!

Also, start a seperate project for track (even if it is a car that can be driven on the street AND to and on the track...) Start a seperate project - rather than modifying your daily driver like I did on my (now partially-modified) and undefined street car initially...

Start with the most base model car and spend the money on upgrades rather than buying say a 3.0 12 valve and then discovering that you would rather have a 24 valve. (Now you're tossing out some of the hings like the Verde/Americano orange dash, the Rearro seats or a 3.0 12 valve motor that you maybe paid-up for in the donour-car!)

[MR2 Zig]

Just a thought.... for a car more for track than street wouldn't the 410 gears be better than the 355 (Verde) in the diff? Even with the 3.7 you'll still be able to go 7000 rpm or better, yes? I'd see the 355 for the street for lower rpm on the highway. Did your overall tire size (height) change a bunch from stock?

Cool project!!!!

I think one should buy the best you can afford that fits the project up front....for me that was a clean body needing mechanical help.

Scott

[x-rad]

WOW

lots of work there! Something you should be really proud of!!

I woke the kids up playing that 3.7L start-up vid as loud as possible...NICE!!

[junglejustice]

Thanks Fred! Yeah - long time coming!

Scott, I am keeping the overall tire-circumference the same (or close!)

Well, 1st on the 4.10:1 box becomes WAY too short for this thing with that 4.10:1 final-drive! Keep in mind that the gear spacing is identical - it's only the final-drive ratio that changes, so you don't get the benefit of a "short-ratio box" per se!

A 4.10:1 box (with a stock 24 valve in a street car) was the original plan for the car and that is sort of what everybody preaches on the boards too! That idea crept over to the big-bore motors in a street/track car later on and truth be said, that is the way that I went on my street car - a pretty stock 12 valve 3.0 (other than GoTech, 50mm intakes and headers w/AFM removed), that puts about 180 to the wheels here at sea-level...

I like it, but even on that relatively mild 12 valve, I run out of 1st and through the rest of the gears REAL quick! On the tracks here with relatively LONG-arse straights, I run out of revs real quick too! (I have my limiter set close to 7K rpm and I hit that half-way down the front straight at PR in 4th!) With a motor that lays down 330 to 350 at the wheels, a chassis that had almost 300 kilos pulled out of it (including the roll-cage that went back in) and then with that short little box, it's going to be even worse!

OK - with the solid lifters, forged aluminium-alloy pistons and forged steel chrome molly rods and the cam/compression-combo I can rev this thing to 8K (so there is a ways to go on the dial), but it revs up so damn fast that I still think it'll max-out real quick. I don't want to end up drilling this thing 8K all of the time for sustained stretches on long tracks (like Spokane here in Washington - the longest straight in North America!)

[junglejustice]

Once the engine specifications started to migrate up, it became clear to me that the 4.10:1 was going to be too short. In fact, I had a 4.10 prepared for it that ended up in the street car and I had a 3.55 built for it instead!

Ideally you would want something like a 3.90 or even a 3.70 - given the gear-spacing (the 3.55 is perhaps not the best), but I still think that it is better than the 4.10 with the torque of the 3.7. My choice is also based on track elevation-changes. We have a back-hill (turns 6 & 7 at PR - good for only 69 to 72 mph flat-out in 3rd lugging the motor with the old 3.55 box or bouncing off-of the limiter in 2nd.) Me thinks that with the 3.55 I could easily pull 3rd in the 3.55 box up that hill with the 3.7 motor.

The torque is real nice - you just stick it in a gear and it'll pull you through the corner - you don't have to "drill" that thing to get life out of it! I am also of the opinion that the taller box will encourage momentum-driving - the car has the suspnsion for it...

We have a couple of long-sweepers (turns -2- and eight) that would be great in 3rd where you don't need to down-shift further - you can just lean on her! In a perfect world I would take the 3.55 and change the ratios in 1st through 3rd or even through 4th with some custom gears or by swapping Alfetta/older GTV6 gears in there, but I am saving that kind of R&D cash for a Hewland or Collotti box!

[junglejustice]

Any way, biggest crook I met while building this project: Chris Robinson from Praggia! The brakes work, but he is a thief!

Met some real gentlemen along the way though; I just can't say enough about ol' Barry back in SA and Dawie at Glenwood, Joe, Chris and the boys at Group 2 Inc, Greg Gordon, Domingos and Joe at GoTech and Ron Simons (who has become a close friend and confidant!)

All - super people!

[junglejustice]

The longest days of my life were the ones "waiting my turn" to get my donour car in to the shop, tear it all down and get the roll-cage started!

I am sure if this was not all budget dependant it all could have been made to go much faster, but then again - you can only push a time-line SO much. Each time you think that you have all of the parts together, something comes up missing, short, or unavailable!

The most time-consuming part is sourcing all of the little things! It is easy to think that you have the major components out of the way; engine, gearbox, chassis, body-kit, suspension, brakes, seat, steering-wheel, oil-system, radiator, wiring-kit, ECU & harness etc etc. Then one day you wake up and you have to install it all and start bolting it all together!

Now you find that you need about 3,000 different little pieces of hardware and shrink-wrap and connectors, and wire and 7mm-shit and OEM clips and o-rings and retainers - I can't even begin to mention how many trips it takes to various places - sometimes clear across town in traffic for one small little BS piece! Just about EVERYTHING was custom, or new in some way!

You also loose some things in a big shop (where things get moved around a bunch) and you are doing this over time! (They -Group 2) have their bread & butter business that turns in and out daily and then larger, long-term projects of their own that moves through the shop over time!) What has been invaluable is the opportunity to do the project in a shop like that where things like rolls of bulk-hose in various sizes, bulk-hardware bins, bulk fluids and general lubricants, sealants and adhesives are available a short distance across the room!

Having specialized tools on-hand (the guys have all been great about letting me borrow from their prized Snap-On collections) and seeing so many good and bad examples of race cars come through there is paramount to the success of something at this scale! There were many times when I felt that I was out of my league!