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Well gentlemen, it seems that it's time to ask for some advice as they are starting to put up a classic car racing series over here.

I'll have more info on thursday but here's the basic.

Most competitors will be, Fiat 125 with lampredi twin cams, Escort's mk2 with kent 1.6 engines, Fiesta's xr2's and probably a Giulia or so.

Here's the thing, I have basically a spare Giulie, 1.6, with 1.6 running gear. I have a set of 45 carbs and access to building up a 1.8 engine basically.
I don't want to spend that much money as my other Giulie has taken most of the cash in the build.
I'm prepared to do the following mods, cams, new high compression pistons, std rods, bigger valves maybe.
Brake wise i'm thinking of going vented disks and using the volvo 240 calipers.
Suspension wise is keeping the torsion bars and building coilovers from std revalved shocks.
Also new front stabilizer bar and ball jointed whererver I can.

The basic thing I think would be to get more power out of the engine, as most of the competitors have the weight advantage, I still need to get a hold of the rules.

I think the giulietta might be cometitive, not without quite some mods, but it's the car I have and the body is straight, so it's better to do something with it than let it rust...

Loose a lot of weight and get the suspension and brakes sorted before spending cash on the engine... if you can make speed but can't stop or take the speed through the corners you're still slow.

Standard 75 TS brembo callipers work quite well on most of the 75 racers over here. Good pads and original size ventilated discs (no cheapo aftermarket stuff but good brands like Brembo) with good ducting will do the trick.

Standard shocks are crap IMHO..

Cheapest set-up on some of the race 75's over here icludes:
- standard TS brakes, just good pads and SS brakelines and good fluid.
- thick anti-roll bar in front, like 30mm. Uniballed to the body.
- lowering springs.
- (revalved) yellow Koni's.

After that you could look into;
- SZ bearing for the de-dion triangle.
- uniballed watts linkage.
- modified de-dion triangle for camber and toe in.
- thicker torsion bars or RS coil-over set.

That should give you something to think about.

Well, I have been looking into a few things here for the race car, loosing weight is the top thing.
I need to do something with the suspension, cheaply, this means the RS suspension kit, although ideal, is out of the question due to price, and so are the koni's, because, thank's to 3d world custom rules, bringing them here is expensive.
I need to do something to stiffen up the front, I can get custom springs made here, but the torsion bars is something I can't get done here, so I need to make some sort of coilover setup with locally sourced gabriel shocks.
Ball jointing is feasable too for a reasonable price here, it's just getting the good bits expensive.
Engine wise, I have access to custom made 82mm pistons, I can get the block rebored so as to use the 1.6 crank, and thinking of 2l cams I also have access too.
Surprisingly I have a set of 45 weber's but not a set of 40's wich would be better for my aplication.
I will do the head porting myself following jim's book guidance.

Anyone knows where are the places to take weight from the Giulietta body?

How do your customs work then? If they are second-hand parts do you still have to pay that much taxes over them?

I thought we had it bad with customs, charging us import taxes on new stuff and then adding 19% BTW ( like VAT, added value tax?) over that aswell. But if it's used parts or a gift it's taxfree. Always a hassle to ask foreign sellers to mark it as a gift or to smear oil/grease onto new stuff. And offcourse to send the invoice by mail, not in the parcel...

Giulietta is much like a 75 bodywise. gutting the doors and swapping the side and rear windows for some lexan will save quite a few kilos. carpet and interior is not very heavy originally.

If it's a first series Giulietta you want to change the steel bumpers for the later plastic ones.

Giuliettaevo2 wrote:How do your customs work then? If they are second-hand parts do you still have to pay that much taxes over them?

I thought we had it bad with customs, charging us import taxes on new stuff and then adding 19% BTW ( like VAT, added value tax?) over that aswell. But if it's used parts or a gift it's taxfree. Always a hassle to ask foreign sellers to mark it as a gift or to smear oil/grease onto new stuff. And offcourse to send the invoice by mail, not in the parcel...

Giulietta is much like a 75 bodywise. gutting the doors and swapping the side and rear windows for some lexan will save quite a few kilos. carpet and interior is not very heavy originally.

If it's a first series Giulietta you want to change the steel bumpers for the later plastic ones.

Customs here are a hassle, you basically end up paying about 80% of the price plus shipping...
Yes they tax not only the cost of the good but also how much you paid for shipping..amazing...
Used parts are worse, they give it a fictitious value based on what they want, for example, you buy an engine for 500 euros and they say it's worth 1500, you pay taxes over 1500 euros...
I've been looking at the options, but a decent suspension setup will cost about 1100 dollars if you go the torsion bar route and buy the performatek kit...then you have to add shipping and taxes over here and you'll end up paying almost 2 grand on just torsion bars and 4 shocks...
So as much as can be sourced locally, the better, but i'm starting to think that it may be the only route if I want something that works...
Mine is also an early Giulietta, and those were the only ones imported, so no plastic bumpers to be sourced locally, maybe get some fiberglass ones made?

I'm looking at different options, we had a meeting last week outlining the racing series rules.

No ball joints allowed, that means poly bushings all around.

No LSD diffs, i'm keeping the 1.6 gearbox for the ratios.

No programable ignition timing, good old distributor with flyweight advance, electronic ignition allowed.

No adjustable shocks.

2 pot brake calipers (std alfa 75 TS brembo it is then)

My questions are, any of you guys can recomend a coil over setup for the 116 chasis that is good value? RS kit is out of my range and also shocks can't be adjustable (they can be adjusted but you have to revalve them).
I'm looking at the coil over setup instead of bigger torsion bars in order to have some adjustability via spring rates.

Also, we can use any fuel we want, we have acces to aviation 100LL fuel, engine will have 1750 pistons with 1600 crank, 2L cams, also pistons will be high compression ones, looking for about 10,5 to 1 ratio. I'm looking for advice on the timing advance curve, taking into account that I will be using 100LL.

The racing series will be based in 3 or 4 categories based in power to weight ratios, every car will be dynoed in the racing weekend and based on that you have a minimum weight for the category.
So basically i'm aiming at a 130/140hp engine and as low a weight I can get plus good handling to be competitive.
Any ideas on how low can a 116 giulie weight go? thinking on making fiberglass bumpers, front mudguards, maybe hood and trunk lid.

The idea is to make a budget racing series, as most of us don't get private funding, as of yet....

Personally the only place i would use poly bushings is in the castor arm as its compressive. Every poly bushing i have used or seen here in a rotational position has always worked it self out . So on front if you are not going with bearing use original alfa bushes . They are great.Oh and Poly bushing on centre dedion is also perfect. I dont see purpose of have adjustable shocks ( bump or rebound) unless you have top of the range penske or bilsteins because no others according to many articles actually adjust properly. Rons shocks are already perfect for his spring rate and they are all spot on our shock dyno and our " smooth tracks".
Wehave two guys who have just started racing with giuliettas and they are dam quick with budget set up. No coil overs but 28mm torsion bars ,fiberglass bonnets(weigh at ton), inside car is cut and drilled . Make sure your roll cage is dual purpose ( maintains shape in accident and picks up all points related to suspension and body torsion )
In other words dont make a cage like my first bolt in one.
10/43 box is a must unless you hace better ratios there.

Do a search on "coil over conversion kit". With those kits you can fit a coil spring around your existing shock.

I've been looking at those coil over kits, they look a bit iffy if you ask me for a racing purpose, i've been trying to convince myself into buying the RS racing kit, at the current exchange rate it's about 1700 dollars but it's sure that it works, plus I can bring it myself (the benefits of the airline world).
I have a 28mm torsion bar setup with konis on my V6 Giulie, it works great but it's a bit soft for racing.
As far as the bushings, I was thinking at the rear, at the front i'll put the castor arm 105 ball joint mod.
Sadly gearbox wise I just have the 1.6 box, I have access to a 2L alfetta gearbox but i'm afraid that it would have to long ratios, our track has only two or three fast sweepers and the rest is mostly 2d gear curves, we do have another racetrack about 300km away that is much faster but still.

Hey Kev, i'm really interested if you can shoot a couple of pics of the cages and those racing Giulies, so I can see where did they drill to lighten them up.

So far i'm the only one racing a 116 chasis alfa, I think they might be a GT junior with a 2L twinspark engine, mostly 1.6 escorts Mk2 and a couple of Fiat 125's.
Given the competition, I need to make damn sure that this is the best handling car in the class, as that'll be my advantage (the driver sucks so it's up to the machine ).

I do have quite a few pics of some of these giulies but here is one link
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=2048&start=240
If your roll cage can follow these same pick points of this gtv and gutted just like it then you are on the money
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=2048&start=345

Nice, thanks Kev, I think my money is on being as light as possible, our rules require that the fuel tank be completely separate from the cabin, but I will explore the possibility of changing that as there are a couple of golfs that have the fuel tank isolation problem.

fedezyl-

It is great to see your project! I saw one of slyalfa's posts on the AlfaBB that might be an answer for the front suspension on your race car:

http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/milano- ... spo-5.html

His setup uses QA1 racing shocks. These are user rebuildable and revalveable and are only $86.00 each from Summit Racing. The 650 lb/inch springs are $14.40. They are for a Manitou mountain bike. The spring seats and other needed parts are made from supplies from a hardware store. This is by far the least expensive way to get the spring rates you need and high quality racing shock absorbers.

slyalfa posts on this forum too, so if you have any questions, send him a PM.

Good luck with your project!

~Chris

fedezyl-

It is great to see your project! I saw one of slyalfa's posts on the AlfaBB that might be an answer for the front suspension on your race car:

http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/milano- ... spo-5.html

His setup uses QA1 racing shocks. These are user rebuildable and revalveable and are only $86.00 each from Summit Racing. The 650 lb/inch springs are $14.40. They are for a Manitou mountain bike. The spring seats and other needed parts are made from supplies from a hardware store. This is by far the least expensive way to get the spring rates you need and high quality racing shock absorbers.

slyalfa posts on this forum too, so if you have any questions, send him a PM.

Good luck with your project!

~Chris

Here is another link where slyalfa explains the current rear suspension on this same Milano (75):

http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/milano- ... ons-2.html

~Chris

Many many thanks! that surely makes it cheaper to import than the RS kit! i'll look into it