Dash and steering wheel re-cover

I’m removing the dash from the Alfa to get it re-covered whilst the car is out of action – it’s got a big crack in it caused by the sun. I’m planning to fit some new door cards too to brighten up the interior.

Thinking of having it recovered in Alcantera to hide the crack rather than have the crack repaired – thinking of having my Momo Prototipo rim recovered in the stuff too.

All I need to do now is find a good automotive upholsterer…

One thing after another…

The problem with old cars is as soon as you start tinkering with one thing you find another thing that needs some attention. Having taken the old engine out of the Alfa (in preparation for the twin spark) we found some minor welding that was required to the front cross member. The grubby engine bay could then do with a spraying afterwards to make it look like it did 40 years ago.

Also, the interior (which has been stripped and caged) could do with a lick of paint. Ideally, I’d like to take the dash out (simple) and the seats + door trim and get a pro to give it a spray with the same matt grey that I used on the cage bars. Might as well have the (split!) dashtop re-trimmed whilst it’s out…

In addition, I’ve known for a couple of years that the rear arches will need doing on the car. Not only do the tyres rub, but the inners were full of filler and the replacement outers that were done back in 2002 weren’t the best job (before I owned the car). Might as well get it all tidied up whilst its out of action.

Plenty of stonechips on the front valance, too…

Bah! Might be as well to do a full lower half respray to keep things tidy. Do’h.

Merc fixed

After 5 days in the garage, the Merc is fixed after its embarrassment at Donnington last weekend. The culprit was a faulty metalastic crank pulley (which also acts as a damper for the belt). Not expensive, but enough to make the car undrivable – you’ll have no engine fan or alternator, which means you’ll either overheat or run out of battery if you ignore it!

While it was in, the front ball joints and lower wishbone bushes were replaced, both totally shot (and the cause of an imprecise steering and the recent crashing over bumps). Not cheap due to the 4 hours labour required to fit, but has made a world of difference to the steering field and actually knowing what the front wheels are doing.

No progress on the Alfa rebuild, aside getting a quote sorted for shipping the forged pistons from the US. Roll on next week when I shall tackle the remaining crank oilway plug and try and sort the shot peening on the conrods.

AROC Track Day @ Donnington

Some photos from today at Donnington:

Flickr Slideshow

Unfortunately, my Alfa is broken, so I took the Merc instead. I managed to set a 1m 30sec lap time which, according to a chap who came up to speak to me afterwards, was as quick as a Caterham Academy car also lapping in my session. Unfortunately, I only managed to do one 20 minute stint before the belt tensioner which keeps the belt driving my power steering, alternator and fan decided to squeal itself to death, putting an end to the day’s on-track activity. Do you think the Alfa club appreciated my Max Power stick on badges?

Front case and sump off for blasting

The front case and sump (35 years old) proved too much to clean using the degrease/brush/degrease/air cycle, so I’ve sent them to a media blasting expert… They’ll be finished tomorrow, I’ll pick them up friday and I’ll post some pics.

An hygenically clean base is so important at this stage of the build to ensure reliability – although we’re essentially rebuilding this engine as a race specimen, I’d expect ten year’s track day usage once we’re done…

I now need to find someone local to rebuild the starter motor and alternator – they’ve been rattling about in the back of the C43 for a couple of days now – I keep being reminded when I hit the loud pedal and hear a thump!

Alfa Twin Spark engine rebuild (part 1)

Having managed to blow up my Alfa’s engine at the Nurburgring back in August, I’ve been plotting a bigger (well, more powerful) and better (built) new motor for the GT Junior.I’ve decided to go for a transplant to a later, but similar Twin Spark engine from an Alfa 75. £300 secured me a running engine complete with loom an injection system from an MOT-failed 1991 car – just about as late as you can get. Despite my car being a 1972, and being originally designed in the early 60’s, the new engine will drop straight in on the same mounts and can use the same bell housing, mating up to the same transmission as my old Alfa Nord twin cam.

The new twin spark, twin cam engine has several advantages over its earlier single spark counterpart. With two spark plugs offset from the center of each cylinder (making a total of eight) comes potential for bigger valves (and more BHP). Also, 35 years of cylinder head development since the first Alfa twin cam engine appeared in 1954 means that the later twin spark variant breaths much better – hence 148bhp out of the factory, versus an optimistic 130bhp of its predecessor. Due to a shallower angle between the values, it’s got a lot more torque too. (Image: Jim Steck http://www.autocomponenti.com/)

Before throwing the new engine into the car, I’ve decided to rebuild the engine. My old engine had around 170bhp, pretty highly strung for a Nord – I’m aiming for 180bhp out of this one. I’m going to throw away the Bosch Motronic fuel injection that came with the donor engine and keep the car on carburettors to make sure I retain the sound and under-bonnet appearance of a classic. However I’m going to bring the car bang up to date by hiding a 3D mapped ECU under the dash (probably an Emerald) to handle the timing and fueling. I’m going to fit some JE forged pistons and expand the capacity subtly, and also fit some quite frankly ridiculous cams. Using the mapped ECU will let me vary the ignition advance, so it should still be tractable driving somewhere south of 7000rpm. This lot, with a little bit of head work and a decent exhaust should easily see me with 180 ponies.

However, before getting any where near the exciting stuff, a strip, inspection and clean was in order. My slightly unhinged mechanic and friend batman a.k.a. Dave Hood, fastest pensioner older gentleman in the Midlands (sorry Dave) stripped the old lump down and gave me a bunch of parts to clean and another bunch of parts to send for machining.

The crank, rods, front pulley and flywheel were taken to Rob Walker of Rob Walker Engineering near Banbury for a damn good lightening and balancing. I’m determined with this engine to blue print and balance everything I can in a quest for smooth, reliable power. Rob knife edged, lightened and double doweled the crank (on Dave’s advice). He also took a huge chunk of material out of the flywheel to make sure the engine spins up quicker. The Alfa 75 front pulley was also chopped in half as I have no need to drive either an air conditioning compressor or a power steering pump, and besides which without the chop the pulley wouldn’t clear the radiator in my Junior’s engine bay. Rob bead blasted and balanced the con rods, I’m intending to have these shot peened for further protection against stress cracks that can occur – unfortunately, the company Rob normally outsources this to have recently stopped offering the service.A fully balanced and lightened bottom end ensures the engines smoothness and helps reliability by reducing vibrations, but also gives the potential for higher revs. Higher revs bring the potential for more power – my old (unbalanced) Nord engine would rev to 7000rpm, I’m hoping to get 7500rpm out of this one.My next job was to degrease the block of the donor engine, and the front case and sump off my old Nord, these will be combined with the TS block and head in order to fit my car properly, the TS sump being discarded in the conversion process. I used a rather ridiculous amount of degreaser, plus electric drill with wire brush and a variety of used tooth brushes… and an air compressor kindly lent to me by my colleague Dave Whitehouse.It’s not looking too bad… Now time to start ordering the pistons from the US and getting my hands on the head for some cleaning, more machining and crazy cams!

New blog

My lady has a new blogging home. Check out http://www.bobbiejanegardner.com – thanks to Antonio for installing WordPress; and Firebug for helping me do the stylin’.

GSOD

It’s taken nearly three and a half years of ownership, but I experienced a Grey Screen of Death for the first time today on my new(ish) MacBook Pro. Just after I installed a Microsoft wireless certificate…

One laptop per child

I know my colleague Rob Styles is going to wet his pants over these photos – taken at Xtech during the lightening talks session. Opera had brought along a prototype bit of kit featuring their browser – and very nice it was too.

Unwired web

Disappointing to discover that there’s no wireless (or power sockets) available at the conference – unfortunately work doesn’t stop when you go to a conference, so for now I’ve been relegated to my room (where there is a RJ45 connection) to get on with a few things. What’s a web conference without the web? Hmm.

On a more positive note, there was a great session on physical hyperlinks from Timo Arnall (fuzzy photo here) about his research on how people can use mobile phones to interact with barcodes, RFID and other technologies in physical space. More details about the talk here and Timo’s blog here.