ALFAGTV6.COM

[Jim K]

Here are a few pics of the 'new' 3.2 airbox. As you can see, it was modified to suit the 3.2 intake tract with the inlet pipe I used, from some -unfortunately- unknown big Alfa. I found it in the Alfa garage and I must say I don't like it much because of the 'sharp' 90* bend. In the future I will try to find a more gradual bend but I do want to also have an 'accordion' portion for some vibration allowance.
Jim K.

[75evo]

Where is your cardboard template? I guess the Buy 2 get 1 free pizza offer expired ....



Looks legit. I think the Emerald will beat the Motronic. Because the MAF looks kinda small. Maybe for a stock 3.0 it's more than sufficient.

My bet is:

Motronic:
short runners: 324
Long runners: 313

[Jim K]

Truth be told, I don't think any Emerald/DTA/Haltech or other, can make more power than the remapped Motronic. WHY would they? They all have the same kind of maps and comparable resolution. No other hidden secrets. After all, a great many E30 M3's in Germany are seriously raced with their remapped Motronics. I wonder why tuners in the vast US and Australia don't remap std factory ecu's as a matter of fact, something done as a rule in Europe. Here in Greeceland for example, a dyno remap goes for ~400€. If you buy an aftermarket ecu you will pay its price+the custom harness and then 400€ for dyno mapping. Doesn't make much sense UNLESS you are installing efi in an older non-efi or not fully-mappable model like L-jetronic for example. My reason for mapping both Motronic and Emerald for the 3.2 is strictly for the next book (dealing with the 24v and 1.8T). As a preview, I will say that any Alfa 24v (3/3.2/3.5 etc) will always lose to a similar car with a 1.8T engine. I would love things to be the other way around as all my good suspension stuff, thicker tires and close-ratio box is on the 24v and its still 1sec slower than my 1.8T = V6 UNDERSTEER! This is truly a good comparison of engines. Well, they have about the same power 276 vs 272 (for the 3liter) but the turbo has 400Nm torque, no hope to be matched by the 24v. It will be interesting to see how the 3.2 does on track. I do expect it to beat the 1,8T times but then... if the turbo also gets the full RSR, bigger tires and ratios.... Then again, if the turbo is 'allowed' to make ~30 more horses, we will also likely be looking at ~450Nm of torque...
Aftermarket ecu's are necessary for dedicated race stuff, turbo, nitrous and ultra-high rpm as well as other facilities like data loggers, abs, sensor calibration facility, additional inputs/outputs etc. When running turbo+nitrous at 11krpm you want a FAST ecu, that's why people like AEM are so successfull with their Infinity series.
Now let's move on to the chassis. I put the 24v on the scales and here are the numbers with lbs in brackets:
LF: 351(774) RF: 327(721)
LR: 271(597) RR: 287(633) Total: 1233kg (2718lbs)
No driver, no spare, 3/4 fuel

LF: 396(873) RF: 333(734)
LR: 298(657) RR: 304(670) Total: 1331kg (2935lbs)
With driver, no spare, 3/4 fuel ....actual trackday weight.

Let me remind you this is a road car with full 75 Recaro interior, sound system and 8-point rollcage.
Next job will be on a 4-post ramp lift, where while on the scales and with a corpse at the wheel, coilovers will be adjusted until left/right weights are as close as they can be. Forget about front/rear for this pig with a V6!

Jim K.

[Duk]

Truth be told, I don't think any Emerald/DTA/Haltech or other, can make more power than the remapped Motronic. WHY would they? They all have the same kind of maps and comparable resolution. No other hidden secrets. After all, a great many E30 M3's in Germany are seriously raced with their remapped Motronics. I wonder why tuners in the vast US and Australia don't remap std factory ecu's as a matter of fact, something done as a rule in Europe. Here in Greeceland for example, a dyno remap goes for ~400€. If you buy an aftermarket ecu you will pay its price+the custom harness and then 400€ for dyno mapping. Doesn't make much sense UNLESS you are installing efi in an older non-efi or not fully-mappable model like L-jetronic for example. My reason for mapping both Motronic and Emerald for the 3.2 is strictly for the next book (dealing with the 24v and 1.8T). As a preview, I will say that any Alfa 24v (3/3.2/3.5 etc) will always lose to a similar car with a 1.8T engine. I would love things to be the other way around as all my good suspension stuff, thicker tires and close-ratio box is on the 24v and its still 1sec slower than my 1.8T = V6 UNDERSTEER! This is truly a good comparison of engines. Well, they have about the same power 276 vs 272 (for the 3liter) but the turbo has 400Nm torque, no hope to be matched by the 24v. It will be interesting to see how the 3.2 does on track. I do expect it to beat the 1,8T times but then... if the turbo also gets the full RSR, bigger tires and ratios.... Then again, if the turbo is 'allowed' to make ~30 more horses, we will also likely be looking at ~450Nm of torque...
Aftermarket ecu's are necessary for dedicated race stuff, turbo, nitrous and ultra-high rpm as well as other facilities like data loggers, abs, sensor calibration facility, additional inputs/outputs etc. When running turbo+nitrous at 11krpm you want a FAST ecu, that's why people like AEM are so successfull with their Infinity series.

While I would agree with you when talking about the later Motronic ECUs, the earlier Motronic didn't even have 3 injector channels or a linear TPS, so there's no way I'd waste any effort making that work with a built NA or force fed engine. Maybe it could work OK, but again, I wouldn't spend the time and money to find out and it would definitely be compromised.

Now let's move on to the chassis. I put the 24v on the scales and here are the numbers with lbs in brackets:
LF: 351(774) RF: 327(721)
LR: 271(597) RR: 287(633) Total: 1233kg (2718lbs)
No driver, no spare, 3/4 fuel

LF: 396(873) RF: 333(734)
LR: 298(657) RR: 304(670) Total: 1331kg (2935lbs)
With driver, no spare, 3/4 fuel ....actual trackday weight.

Let me remind you this is a road car with full 75 Recaro interior, sound system and 8-point rollcage.
Next job will be on a 4-post ramp lift, where while on the scales and with a corpse at the wheel, coilovers will be adjusted until left/right weights are as close as they can be. Forget about front/rear for this pig with a V6!

Jim K.

Where's your battery? What front bumper?

Obviously it's getting pretty serious do it all, but:
Battery in the boot.
At the minimum, non-impact absorbing bumpers.
Carbon fiber bonnet.
Move the engine back as far as you can (notched sump, shortened front section of the tailshaft, new top section of your exstractors and new engine mounts). Or go mad and open up the transmission tunnel so it can swallow the flange of the bellhousing/rear engine mount and move the engine back even further.
Much more secure engine mounts to better locate the engine, even if you didn't move the engine.
Electric power steering pump (in the boot) or no power steering.
Lager surface area, but better (more open core) flowing, thin aluminium radiator.
Hollow anti-roll bar with lightened arms.
Relocate the charcoal canister and horns.

[Jim K]

The 164Q4 ecu in use (M3.7.1) has linear TPS, sequential injection, left/right bank lamda, left/right bank knock sensors, cam sensor, COP. Doesn't get any better as Motronic goes!

What front bumper? Euro 4cyl light ones (Not America/Milano)
Battery in the boot. YES
Carbon fiber bonnet. YES and trunk lid
Move the engine back as far as you can (notched sump, shortened front section of the tailshaft, new top section of your exstractors and new engine mounts). Or go mad and open up the transmission tunnel so it can swallow the flange of the bellhousing/rear engine mount and move the engine back even further.
Much more secure engine mounts to better locate the engine, even if you didn't move the engine.
Electric power steering pump (in the boot) or no power steering.
Lager surface area, but better (more open core) flowing, thin aluminium radiator.
Hollow anti-roll bar with lightened arms. Nice but too involved for a road car
Relocate the charcoal canister and horns. No canister
Windshield washer bottle at front left extremity of car was full on scales so there's a quick ~8-10kg (20lbs)
Like I said its a road/trackday car. I accept the limitations and will try the best compromise within given constraints.

Jim K.

[75evo]

nice JK. You're on the right track.

Just need a few more lightening tips like:

PS pump relocate to the firewall. Use an electro-hydraulic unit from a French car.

Get rid of starter, park on a slope . Or ask the wife to push start it.

[Jim K]

No sweat, I'll go on my yearly diet, lose ~14kg (again), drain the windshield washer bottle and there's a quick ~22-25kg off the left front side!
Jim K.

[Duk]

Just to dig up the 'extra stroke subject' again.............
I know that the Toyota 4AGE/4AGZE engines used 42mm big ends and I've seen over the years that plenty of them have both revved to the moon or produced impressive (plenty of 100hp/cylinder engines out there) force fed performance.
So maybe considerably reducing the big end size could better accomidate a longer stroke arrangement and give a nice increase in engine capacity.
I'm not suggesting that it would work by reducing the factory cranks journal diameter, but with a custom crank. But investigating a machined factory crank could be an option for an engine that has spun a bearing???

[Jim K]

It does seem like a possible experiment for someone with a bad crank, enough time and free machine shop time but I would first like to know HOW designers arrive at a given journal size. Why 52mm for the V6 and not 42 as you say. It would be interesting to hear from someone with relevant design knowledge. Alfa says their journals are big enough to make for very nice 'overlap' on the crank webs and a sturdy crank, but this doesn't seem like the true sizing reason.
How does one calculate journal size

Jim K.

[Duk]

I've wondered about things like that too.

Your comment: "Alfa says their journals are big enough to make for very nice 'overlap' on the crank webs and a sturdy crank." does make some good sence, especially with the design of the crank. The way I see it, large diameter overlapping journals should give better bending strength to the crank, which is probably quite important when 2 offset big end journals are supported by 2 main journals (rather than 3 (well, 2.5ish) mains supporting to big ends in a straight 6 crank).

However, how much of that size based overlap is a result of production compromise?
That is, mass produced engines (and everything else) are built to price rather than a pure recipe.
How much compromise was built into the design because of cost based compromise?
Could a longer stoke, smaller big end journal based crank be happily achieved because the crank is made from a better quality material (like 4140), with a more accurate machining processes?

[Jim K]

I think the essence of your (interesting) questions is quickly spiraling out of the general expertise of most members here and unless the 3M's can answer (Maurizio, Mats, Micke) the only possible light can come from SAE or these guys: http://www.eng-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=71

Jim K.

[maxiboy]

I think i read somewhere on another forum of a conversion using bmw rods and when i investigated they had the correct piston pin journal size i was after but a 45mm main bearing. Thats why i decided on Cosworth rods as the journal in very slightly smaller than alfa but not a massive amount.

I guess crank design journal size must take into lots of other factors such as rpm range rod and piston weight etc.. and can,t just be decided on the crankshaft usage with lots of other factors..

cosworth use the same size on pinto cranks but with 4 pistons and five main bearings..

[Jim K]

And them Pinto engines make upwards of 1100hp on turbo/NOS... which is 300hp/cylinder or 550hp/liter... Let's see the V6 try for even half of that!

Jim K.

[Jim K]

One more job done for the 3.2 engine. Since I hate making wiring harnesses I had to pay a good electronics friend to do it. He took his time and after a total of 400€ (parts+labor) even I was happy with the outcome -and that is serious as among other things I was involved with MIL-spec wiring for over 30 years! After completing the work he vowed never to do the same thing again as it was really time-consuming, more than he initially figured. Its now time for the exhaust shop for my own set of headers (the existing set goes with the previous 3liter engine) plus one more set for someone in Oz. After that is the end of the road with map/dyno session.
Jim K.

[Fernando]

Hi Jim,

I am enjoying your thread and look forward to the new book on 24V motors and possibly a 24V with snails fitted.

My brother was given your current book as a birthday gift this Janaury. It is a great read.