deonne
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ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by deonne »

Hi guys ; I am looking for some guidance and basic costings. I have a '84 3 Litre in pretty good shape for her age and I am looking at doing some extensive restoration and recommission work on her. The car has 126k kilo's on her , of which I have driven 80k kilo's.

What can I expect to spend on an Engine rebuild , including new rings , bearings , and overhauling the heads ? I do not expect the bottom end to show excessive wear as she is not blowing past the rings and there is very little oil in the airbox , oil consumption is quite high , but I think due to top end and the last compression test is did gave 220psi on a cool engine , the lowest being 212. I rebuilt the carbs two years ago with a fresh rebuild kit from Eurocarb , and she actually runs great except for a bit of smoke and highish oil consumption. Any assistance is appreciated.

I am looking at spending a total of 80K on getting this car done in total , including a respray and sorting out some minor corrosion issue's.Was looking at selling a year ago ; but have since come to my senses after a brisk drive around Franshoek pass ; man these cars are just amazing !!! :lol:
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Re: ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by kevin »

Deonne, you right these carbi gtv3.0 are awesome to drive. The sound and midrange punch is cant be explained until you have driven one.
Back to costs. I have used vw combi rings in past but had to increase size of skirts. Give me a call and i can put you in the right direction to source parts. 0716823009.
How about some pics of your car in that beautiful part of the country you stay. (side ways down franschoek pass 8)
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Re: ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by Deonne3 »

Thanks Kevin ; I will be sure to give you a call. My objective is to keep the car as stock as possible ; with some savy upgrades mostly centred around the chassis , braking and handling. Each of which can be done at my leasure and returned to stock easily being " BOLT ON " only .

I do not have access to the equipment to pull the engine and running gear or I would certainly do so myself including the Engine rebuild ; so I am farming it out to a local guy who has given me excellent service in the past. I am trying to get an Idea of what others may have spent in terms of a budget as I need to put a cap on this or I will go overboard !!! :lol: I have owned this car for 6 years and bought her as an unfinished project.

My car is a split dash '84 ; needs some tlc in the bodywork department but nothing huge or major. The Engine and running gear will get all new parts as required through September , I plan to order some koni's through Steve and will look into possibly getting a handle on an RSR kit depending on import costs later. I want the motor stock ; although my car has been played with by some before me and has headers and a good 68 mil exhaust throughout. The carbs I rebuilt myself as mentioned before , the Chokes are 36,s and I am running 140 mains , she will pull to a 6800 RPM rev limit here at 240 indicated at the drop of a hat !!! I think she has a set of Dawie's Group 1 cams as I cannot get the idle below 1200RPM , somewhere I remember reading that the Group 1's cause a high idle ; may be wrong though !

Enjoy the pics ; unfortunately nothing sideways down Franshoek this time though !!! :lol:
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GTV27
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Re: ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by GTV27 »

Nice car.

Not that it pertains to the questions asked, but some heat sheilding around the air filter would be a good idea to limit the potential to draw in hot-underbonnet air. Also, I'd assumed that the scoop in the hood was functional, given the location of the plenum on top of the carbs - not so? (or is the piping off to the side not OEM?)
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1983 GTV6 2.8 litre
Deonne3
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Re: ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by Deonne3 »

Hi Jason ; thanks for the compliment !

The scoop on the hood of the road car was not functional and was made in that fashion only to clear the Airfilter housing on top of the carbs. The Stock intake for some of the 3.0 litre cars I have seen also featured a modified housing with a double intake to feed the carbs , this apparently gave an extra 10 hp over the stock housing cars like mine. I do believe Kevin has posted pics of his Grey 3.0 litre showing the '85 style modified housing.

My car is basically as I got it ; save some small concessions to modern reliability. The original intake runner and choke assembly were removed and the previous owner had fitted a large diameter ribbed rubber tube for intake. When I opened the Airbox housing up for the first time it was clear that the securing ring for the airfilter was rusting away so I had to remove it and make a plan for filtration , therefore the K&N at the end of the runner. There is a ducted , cold air diverter behind the grill of the car in this area which feeds cold air to the intake when at speed. The car sounds just fantastic breathing through that alloy runner and K&N , always a pleasure to drive with the windows open !!!!!! :D

The Dellorto's on the stock car are very well set up from the factory and they dont go rich at the top end which shows a limit to airflow ; I have done a few trackdays at the local and must say the only thing I found wanting was the brakes. Looking at getting that seen to with some suspension work too , just simple upgrades mind !!!!!!! :P
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Re: ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by kevin »

Deonne if you can rebuild and ballance those dellortos then you have mastered the gtv3.0L
Im surprised it has the split dash as it look like one the last ones that were made. Near the end of the run alfa ran out of compomotive rims and 3.0l front spoilers hence the 2.5 spoiler and the campanturas. Leonard has an identical one in looks to yours.
In race set up they made holes in the airbox directly in the same position as the two blocked offholes in the bonnet and bonnet grill.
Ps i still have one grill which goes into bonnet made by the origional guy.
Car looks in great shape. Post some more pics of dash and seats if you can.
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Re: ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by Deonne3 »

Hi Kevin ; pics below show front and rear seats , and dash. I will get to the interior after rebuilding the car also , my problem is the two front seats have splits in the vinyl sides.
I recall you posting at some time that you may have a contact for the original pistripe material ? May need to send you a case of wine or 3 for a bit of that material.

The interior has very little fade ; the rear seats are almost perfect with a little wear and tear on the vinyl , the material is good. The roofliner is perfect ; the dash is almost perfect with no cracks , just a little bit of lifting the size of your pinkie nail in two corners.

The carpet needs replacing , but its not actually too bad.

Yeah ; the carbies take a little setting up thats for sure ! Fortunately ; mine were not completely stuffed , just diaphragms and gaskets. I had to make special inserts and helicoil 6 of the attachment points for the aircleaner body , some idiot had overtorque'd these at some stage and pulled the original inserts right out of the carb bodies !!!!
I had some really weird settings on the bypass screws and lowspeed mixture screws when I got the car , she ran a bit funny at first. The guys at Eurocarb gave me some basic setup info and I got something off the net for the ALFA 6 which helped a lot. Basic settings to work from , and I tuned from there using mercury sticks. I will probably need to do a setup again after the engine build.

I had an old guy here give me some really good setup tricks with these carbs ; the most important being not to make any adjustments until the valve clearances were set up properly. I followed his advice ; and basically only touched them for the first time again in 3 years two weeks ago !!! Contrary to popular belief ; I find them to hold balance very well.
I suppose I cheated though ; they were fresh with a brand new rebuild kit fitted !!! Have a good one , I will give you a call some time.
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lucass81
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Re: ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by lucass81 »

Hi, what a great GTV6!
I´m in a similar situation than you, I have to rebuild the motor and suspencion. My car is consuming a lot of oil and makes a lot of smoke over 4000 rpm.
Here in Argentina the rebuild will cost me around 4.000 US dollars. It is a 2.5 84 GTV6 with autodelta cams, some work on the heads and a custom exhaust. When it was running at 100% it reached 220km/h at 6500 rpm in 5th.
What tire size are you using? I have 205/55R15 but since this measure its getting hard to find I was considering 195/60R15 or 205/60R15.
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Re: ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by fedezyl »

lucass81 wrote:Hi, what a great GTV6!
I´m in a similar situation than you, I have to rebuild the motor and suspencion. My car is consuming a lot of oil and makes a lot of smoke over 4000 rpm.
Here in Argentina the rebuild will cost me around 4.000 US dollars. It is a 2.5 84 GTV6 with autodelta cams, some work on the heads and a custom exhaust. When it was running at 100% it reached 220km/h at 6500 rpm in 5th.
What tire size are you using? I have 205/55R15 but since this measure its getting hard to find I was considering 195/60R15 or 205/60R15.
That sounds a bit expensive, you should get all the parts yourself on international auto parts and just pay for labor
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Re: ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by JohnGTA »

Deonne3 wrote:Hi Jason ; thanks for the compliment !

The scoop on the hood of the road car was not functional and was made in that fashion only to clear the Airfilter housing on top of the carbs. The Stock intake for some of the 3.0 litre cars I have seen also featured a modified housing with a double intake to feed the carbs , this apparently gave an extra 10 hp over the stock housing cars like mine. I do believe Kevin has posted pics of his Grey 3.0 litre showing the '85 style modified housing.

My car is basically as I got it ; save some small concessions to modern reliability. The original intake runner and choke assembly were removed and the previous owner had fitted a large diameter ribbed rubber tube for intake. When I opened the Airbox housing up for the first time it was clear that the securing ring for the airfilter was rusting away so I had to remove it and make a plan for filtration , therefore the K&N at the end of the runner. There is a ducted , cold air diverter behind the grill of the car in this area which feeds cold air to the intake when at speed. The car sounds just fantastic breathing through that alloy runner and K&N , always a pleasure to drive with the windows open !!!!!! :D

The Dellorto's on the stock car are very well set up from the factory and they dont go rich at the top end which shows a limit to airflow ; I have done a few trackdays at the local and must say the only thing I found wanting was the brakes. Looking at getting that seen to with some suspension work too , just simple upgrades mind !!!!!!! :P

Deonne,
On my 84' 3L GTV6 with big bore 3.5L conversion I've had a brake upgrade which stays true to the original set up but improves it substantially.
Powerbrake(in Pretoria) supplied me with their front disc upgrade(vented & grooved) & fast road/track day pads, I then obtained Brembo rear vented discs & caliper mod kit & braided lines from RSR.
Must be at least 30% better than good stock set up.Not expensive & easy to do, rebuild the calipers while you are at it with new seals etc.
If you need contact details of the suppliers please pm me & I will provide you with the details.
Ciao
85' 3L GTV6(White) number 197off 212, 3.5L
83' 3L GTV6 (Red) number 46 off 212
03' 156GTA(Red)3.7L Turbo
06' 147GTA(Blue)3.8L+6XITB's
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Re: ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by JohnGTA »

Deonne3 wrote:Thanks Kevin ; I will be sure to give you a call. My objective is to keep the car as stock as possible ; with some savy upgrades mostly centred around the chassis , braking and handling. Each of which can be done at my leasure and returned to stock easily being " BOLT ON " only .

I do not have access to the equipment to pull the engine and running gear or I would certainly do so myself including the Engine rebuild ; so I am farming it out to a local guy who has given me excellent service in the past. I am trying to get an Idea of what others may have spent in terms of a budget as I need to put a cap on this or I will go overboard !!! :lol: I have owned this car for 6 years and bought her as an unfinished project.

My car is a split dash '84 ; needs some tlc in the bodywork department but nothing huge or major. The Engine and running gear will get all new parts as required through September , I plan to order some koni's through Steve and will look into possibly getting a handle on an RSR kit depending on import costs later. I want the motor stock ; although my car has been played with by some before me and has headers and a good 68 mil exhaust throughout. The carbs I rebuilt myself as mentioned before , the Chokes are 36,s and I am running 140 mains , she will pull to a 6800 RPM rev limit here at 240 indicated at the drop of a hat !!! I think she has a set of Dawie's Group 1 cams as I cannot get the idle below 1200RPM , somewhere I remember reading that the Group 1's cause a high idle ; may be wrong though !

Enjoy the pics ; unfortunately nothing sideways down Franshoek this time though !!! :lol:
Rose 022.jpg
Rose 008.jpg
Deonne,
On the chassis there is no need to go the expensive coil over set up, I am using Koni Sport Shocks(adjustable) RSR complete roll bar front & rear, RSR Watts Linkage & De Dion bearing kit.
The whole lot cost me R12K with duties.Works well.
Ciao
85' 3L GTV6(White) number 197off 212, 3.5L
83' 3L GTV6 (Red) number 46 off 212
03' 156GTA(Red)3.7L Turbo
06' 147GTA(Blue)3.8L+6XITB's
deonne
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Re: ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by deonne »

JohnGTA wrote:
Deonne3 wrote:Thanks Kevin ; I will be sure to give you a call. My objective is to keep the car as stock as possible ; with some savy upgrades mostly centred around the chassis , braking and handling. Each of which can be done at my leasure and returned to stock easily being " BOLT ON " only .

I do not have access to the equipment to pull the engine and running gear or I would certainly do so myself including the Engine rebuild ; so I am farming it out to a local guy who has given me excellent service in the past. I am trying to get an Idea of what others may have spent in terms of a budget as I need to put a cap on this or I will go overboard !!! :lol: I have owned this car for 6 years and bought her as an unfinished project.

My car is a split dash '84 ; needs some tlc in the bodywork department but nothing huge or major. The Engine and running gear will get all new parts as required through September , I plan to order some koni's through Steve and will look into possibly getting a handle on an RSR kit depending on import costs later. I want the motor stock ; although my car has been played with by some before me and has headers and a good 68 mil exhaust throughout. The carbs I rebuilt myself as mentioned before , the Chokes are 36,s and I am running 140 mains , she will pull to a 6800 RPM rev limit here at 240 indicated at the drop of a hat !!! I think she has a set of Dawie's Group 1 cams as I cannot get the idle below 1200RPM , somewhere I remember reading that the Group 1's cause a high idle ; may be wrong though !

Enjoy the pics ; unfortunately nothing sideways down Franshoek this time though !!! :lol:
Rose 022.jpg
Rose 008.jpg
Deonne,
On the chassis there is no need to go the expensive coil over set up, I am using Koni Sport Shocks(adjustable) RSR complete roll bar front & rear, RSR Watts Linkage & De Dion bearing kit.
The whole lot cost me R12K with duties.Works well.
Ciao
Hi John ; I will certainly take your lead on the brakes and suspension tips if I may. Those are things I can do myself without having car lifts and special equipment.

The car in its current form is plenty fast for me so I am at a loss when it comes to the BIG HORSE your Babies are putting out !!! Must be a blast for sure !!! :mrgreen:

My plan is to have a near stock 3.0L which is just nicely tuned. The car is going to George Labatt here in CapeTown next week fo the engine build and basically a complete mechanical seeing too !!! I want to start with a very good foundation , and tweak individual systems from there. Nothing major ; I want a sleeper that looks very stock with 220 - 250 HP and excellent handling and braking.

I am seriously looking forward to getting this completed by the end of next year ; including a complete " to dead stock " respray. Man ; I just love these cars ; they must have been something else in 1984 for sure !!! :wink:
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Re: ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by kevin »

Deonne, when you say engine build , is it going to be completly stripped. If so get it ballanced. Check with ak components now whats in stock. You can use 164 headgaskets but you must just open the right bank stud no 6 as it does not fit 100 percent. Take pics as im sure its got the original copper rings type gasket with normal outer.
What size torsion bars have you got as some 3.0 came with 28mm. If it has then its handling will be superb for our roads. Standard bars were 24mm.
Redo all your front suspension bushed. Be surprised how that improves handling .Do not use polyurethane on upper control as they always come out and are crap. Use standard Alfa ones. But you can use the polyurethane on castor arm as its merely compression and not rotational. No need to do 105 ball joint conversion as you want to keep close to original.
Good luck.
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Re: ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by Deonne3 »

kevin wrote:Deonne, when you say engine build , is it going to be completly stripped. If so get it ballanced. Check with ak components now whats in stock. You can use 164 headgaskets but you must just open the right bank stud no 6 as it does not fit 100 percent. Take pics as im sure its got the original copper rings type gasket with normal outer.
What size torsion bars have you got as some 3.0 came with 28mm. If it has then its handling will be superb for our roads. Standard bars were 24mm.
Redo all your front suspension bushed. Be surprised how that improves handling .Do not use polyurethane on upper control as they always come out and are crap. Use standard Alfa ones. But you can use the polyurethane on castor arm as its merely compression and not rotational. No need to do 105 ball joint conversion as you want to keep close to original.
Good luck.
Hi Kevin ; the motor will be completely rebuilt from scratch. The Gent doing the work has a bunch of 2.5 experience and has done a few of the local 3.0L Cape Alfa Club cars , George did the gearbox for me some time back as I broke a tooth of the pinion , due to standing for a long time the pinion corroded. He has a very good name down here ; I trust his work without doubt.
We are not expecting much wear on the bottom end , she is not blowing oil into the airbox at all , just classic valve / guide wear symptoms , and a genuine 128k kilometres under the belt. Also ; I have been changing oil out every 4-5000 k's with a new filter every time. I will speak with him about balancing , George will have a handle on local engineering capabilities. So basically the bottom end will get rings / bearings / seals and a balance job then. Top end will get a good clean up , new guides and I have asked for a little blue printing / minor porting. While the motor's out , complete new drive line parts , including all bushes and suspension work to renew as required. The engine bay will hopefully also be completely stripped , cleaned up and resprayed while everything is out !!! :wink:

I have a set of machined polymer bushes in the front lower arms and oversize inner front wheel bearings , the bearings are from a Cressida , 32002 If my memory serves me. Slightly smaller ID , larger OD and a bit wider. This was done by the previous owner , I changed the bushes from teflon to polymer when I got the car because the teflon was too soft and did not handle being close the the exhaust down pipes. Heat seemed to affect the teflon badly , the suspension seemed to stiffen up substantially on the move ; weird feeling !
May decide to do your bearing conversion at some time. Definately 28mm torsion bars , I will try the koni sports before changing the front end any more. I do get a little more body roll than I would like though , maybe bigger A/R Bars will stiffen things up nicely without going overboard !!! 8) What do you guys do with the rear springs for race use , would you recommend going slightly stiffer at the back ?

Thanks for the help !
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Re: ENGINE REBUILD Q FOR BARRY / KEVIN

Post by kevin »

Deonne, just take bearing caps off to do inspection if motor is still good. Personally no need to go go overboard then. Skip ballancing if it was a good runner as all these motors weretechnically balanced as they were asssembled away from the factory in Booyesens. Who ever skims the heads tell them just a clean as every idiot around goes and take to much off and there are no spare heads around for these carbi cars.
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