Manu's hit the nail on the head - it is supposed to be as like the Alfa Sprint 6C as possible - apart from certain practical considerations in the drivetrain dept!
Here are the next bunch of pix, of the engine etc in place.
The first one shows two things - the space between the front of the engine and the firewall, where the fuel tank will go. This can be fed from the original fuel filler, luckily. The second thing it shows is the shift mechanism, circled. The 164 shift rod part (name?) is reversed here, so the eye sticks out of the front of the box rather than the back. Attached to that, for this car, is the bottom part of an alfasud steering column, with the splined end sticking out. The sud steering unversal joint slips over this, and SHOULD give us the articulation we need to run the shift linkage back via another UJ and through the central tunnel without fouling anything. We'll have to do some "adjusting" of the clutch actuation lever to prevent the extension from fouling.
The second photo shows the toe adjustment mechanism, aka the dummy steering rack. The central adjuster is actually the adjuster from the centre of a factory Nissan Skyline GTR strut brace, put to far better use here... Basically, to adjust the toe on either side, you just loosen the clamp on that side and tweak the big adjuster until it's right. The height of the clamps puts the centre of the balljoint at the same place as the one on the end of the 164 rack, and so the bump steer should be no different. Because it can be shimmed up or down (there are already 2 shims under it) it's nicely adjustable in that respect as well. There's enough space in here behind the engine to put a decent-sized exhaust and a wee compartment to hold the helmets as well, so it's all good.
I'll sort the last pics (the front suspension) and post them tomorrow.
I realise the complexity will be a lot greater, but from the experienced gained with this project will there be enough room for a longitudally mounted V6? This will depend mostly on the gearbox selected. I've done a fair bit of research on this and found the following options:
ZF transaxle as fitted to GT40/Pantera
- awesome unit!
- output shafts are close to bell housing
- not much change out of $10,000 for one
Renault transaxle as fitted to R20
- quite cheap
- crap shift movement
- will take quite a bit of HP
- reasonable layout
- it's French..
Porsche 944 / 968
- 968 has 6 speeds
- moderately expensive
- layout might be difficult to handle within confined space of 'sud/sprint
Porsche 911 gearbox
- G50 unit quite expensive
- older 911 units reasonably affordable
- rotation?! Can the diff be rotated through 180 degrees to alter rotation?
Citreon DS transaxle (as fitted to Merak?)
- very compact layout
- bell housing looks close to Alfa V6 - ie minimal modifications compared with others above.
- its French, but at least it was in a Maserati
~Benjamin
__________________ Daily Drivers
-'91 Alfa 33 series 3 16v
-'90 Alfa 164 3L 12V Projects
-'82 Alfasud Ti mid-engine Alfa V6 project coming soon! For Sale
-'82 Alfetta Sedan - in bits, take me, I'm free!
Another alternative - Strip the guts out of a sud/145 box, fit it with AHM's nice trick looking race stuff & bolt that in. Should cope with a stock-ish V6 well, cost less than a good version of the above stuff, plus then it's all Alfa
I've just realised (thanks for the prompt!) that I never did get around to putting up the pix of the front suspension.
They're tubular arms, WAY lighter than standard, and use a balljoint at the central joining point of the arms - for additional castor/toe adjustment. The "body" ends of the arms still use poly bushes because you need some compliance in a road rally car - too rigid and things start to break.
The anti-roll bar (if we end up needing one) will fit easily across the chassis rails (no engine, remember...) and pick up right at the hub end of the arms - meaning that the arms don't need to be hugely heavy to deal with bending stresses like the standard ones which hold the factory anti-roll bar.
The arms are also about 30mm longer than the standard ones, which provide the increased track required by the MUCH wider rear track.
The tops of the struts are held by balljoints in an adjustable plate, set as far back and outboard as possible to give more castor and less -ve camber (remember the arms are longer at the bottom which will naturally give more -ve camber)
In about 6 weeks, the car will come from where it's been resting for the last year (actually about 80 m from my garage, in someone else's garage) and work on it will begin again.
We've committed to get it ready for the Targa NZ next year, which means that it really needs to be up and running about this time next year to give us tiem to set it up. The biggest effort needed between now and then will be on the bodywork, because we need to make new F+R guards, boxed like a Delta Integrale or Audi Quattro - or Alfa's own Sprint 6c.
Itīs Ok to propose a time limit, that's the way things move !!!
This sunday we will run for a while in Jarama circuit (Madrid) with 7 sprints, different years, different levels of bodywork... (2 of then much wider than original) I'll show the pics in case any of them give you ideas...
Yep, it's a hell of an undertaking. Things have stalled for a while whilst the 16v sud is rehabilitated (the CURRENT race car) following a broken cambelt. No damage done, but lots of work.
And the latest distraction is an engineless GTV6, found just a week after I wrecked a 164 with a rebuilt V6. I had no reason to keep the motor, other than as a spare for the sprint project, so having a GTV6 present itself as a home for it seemed like fate.
One day, I'll post some pix of the sprint actually getting worked on...
Hi guys, I thought I'd put this in I saw it on youtube, apparently he used the engine and running gear from 164. 3L engine in a car weighing less than 1k, sounds like fun to me.
Stylin' driving, for sure. It looks like it's RWD, but it doesn't SOUND like a V6? Sounds like a four of some sort - maybe it's really a twinspark 164?
Either way, it's a nice conversion - the car didn't need any extra width, so he's put some hours into the engineering side. And it obviously drives well!
Hi guys, I thought I'd put this in I saw it on youtube, apparently he used the engine and running gear from 164. 3L engine in a car weighing less than 1k, sounds like fun to me.
Sorry guys I was mistaken, here is the V6 33. This cars was modified from the 164. He is driving the famous Italian strech of Tramac "The Stelvio pass"
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