Twin Spark Swap Owner's Satisfaction Survey

Ichella, I will post the photos of the 155/75 heads, the details of the front cover differences plus the lack of coolant passages in the intake manifold, the thermostat is mounted at the rear of the head etc. Sometime tuesday and another thread. not this one,too many photos.

[quote=alfa of-corse;381780]You want info on the before and after performance gains, well these conversions are not new, and neither are the well stated opinons of core members that claims that 4cyl Alfa's can keep up with WRX's or entry level BMW's and Porsche's are pure BS. Perhaps these owners prefer not to revisit that subject.
Max, if this is the part of the post that you felt was an attack on your work, please reread, I am explaining that I will not dicuss any performance figures with this forum because of past responses that I am simply full of #$%^ for making claims similar to yours.

[Max Banks]

Alfa of Corse - Sorry, misunderstood your comments about performance of my car originally it would seem, was not in the loop about your similar previous comments, or indeed still 100% who you are. For the others out there, this performance really is real, my car was recently road and track tested back to back by the leading Swedish modern car magazine - the outcome - real Porsche 996 performance - their words, not mine. This article will be on my website soon for those of you who like a read articles and fancy photos.

Wasn't assuming you build drag racers either - again I still don't really know who you are, was merely bringing light to something many people over look when thinking about doing a big BHP conversion - the rest of the stuff that IMO actually makes up more speed than the extra BHP and adds the crucial reliability. If I have just read correctly who you are from another person's post, then you no doubt already know this! I have now cained my car for 20,000 miles with various states of engine tune and, believe you me I have broken most things in the drivetrain now - its only by doing this that you really understand what each part of the drivetrain can withstand in terms of power and punishment - I don't run a 3 UJ prop and paddle clutch in my road/trackday car for fun, its essential....

Max,thanks for the compliment but I am not who you think I am,

For US builders, consider that you should upgrade your car to handle small block V8 like power figures, I know that sounds absurd, but consider that you have enough torque to start out in 1st and shift to 4th and treat it like an auto.
Serious TS conversions should be treated as ground-up conversions, if you put togehter a shopping list and add 15% for things you overlooked you might find a SC TS to not be worth it. your insurance company won't

Started the 155/75 TS head thread, many more items to be dicussed on that subject, coolant, roll pins, etc.

[180OUT]

Quote:

... EVERYONE can go out and buy all the best internals to build a screamer (from one shop or several), if the tuning shop engine builder is worth his salt then the home builder will never attain the same power (perhaps reliability also) but the home builder makes this choice because they WANT to build their own engine. Some people just don't want to build their own engine and want the very best delivered to them to install, so they chose to pay to have the best built for them.

[nzkiwiguy]

attempt to build a motor so would buy something already in place. wanting that bit more i would go for a low modified TS, so i could have reliability all the way through the drivetrain.

I think it's great people share their thoughts and setting etc on the board. being a newbie i feel like a sponge and not able to give back yet! I also appreciate some people make a living from the stuff we chat about and you are effect buying their knowledge when you buy their stuff. And that is a whole lot different from buying all the parts! Synergy - sum of the whole is greater the value of the parts! That's why I would use an engine builder!

I loved the old aston martins that had the name of the engine builder engraved into the heads. Many owners would request that builder again for their next car.

I used to race bicycles competitively. The same went for wheels and frames. A good wheel builder made a bike sing. The wheels i built were great for training, but i would never race them - not good enough.

[180OUT]

[quote]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nzkiwiguy attempt to build a motor so would buy something already in place. wanting that bit more i would go for a low modified TS, so i could have reliability all the way through the drivetrain.

[nzkiwiguy]

re the economics a 1989 2.0 TS engine here in New Zealand (from a wrecked car) is $800NZ, ($600US). Makes you think long and hard about it over here!

[hughqv]

[quote=180OUT;387919]

Quote:

On the other hand, what is extremely interesting to me is Max's 198hp TS motor that he talks about on the Alfaholics site. This is a "street" and track-day motor and not a full-tilt racing motor. It runs on carburetors and pump gas which means that doing an install would be dead easy. Here in the States, that kind of option makes a lot more sense to me. If you are going to go to the trouble of importing a TS motor, why not go ahead and build it into a 198hp screamer that will also take your kids to school and not terrify the neighbors. I'm hoping Max will tell us a little more about what he did to build that motor. The world wants to know Max!!

[Max Banks]

With regard to 75/Milano twin sparks - Out of the box they give 148BHPish on standard EFI - this syetem fits in a late GT fine, but if you have an early GT/Duetto/Giulia with the shallow inner wing, you can't fit the EFI, unless you don't mind butchering the inner wing. In terms of tuning the standard engine in its standard configuration, there isn't a huge amount you can do, you can get a chip and change cams, but most people I know who have done this only report modest power gains of around 8-10 BHP. IMO to get real power, you have to chuck the EFI and carb the car, junking the VVT at the same time. Throttle bodies are a luxury, but extra expense again (3-d mapped carbs are a good halfway house). You can do it all around standard pistons, but the exhaust valve runs too tight with a decent cam so you have to pocket and lose compression, not an ideal situation. This means that you really need a set of h/c forged pistons, its better to go a touch oversize as obviously new liners are not available on their own, this enables you to retain your original liners and bore them.

So as you are fitting h/c pistons, billet cams and 45's to get any worthwhile power increase you may as well just fit the stuff that gives the most performance. This used to be about 180BHP, but we have now breached well past that, whilst retaining perfect driveability. I get people asking me for a 185BHP t/s and I say sure I can supply this, but as the process to get this is the same getting 198bhp, just with less optimised parts, it has to cost the same. At this point they go either 1 of 2 ways - "OK i'll have the full shabang" or "i'll just tune my nord then". If money is an issue then the Nord route is sensible. We get up to 175BHP from Nords pretty sensibly. What the Nord ALWAYS lacks is the torque AND driveability, because you have to work quite hard to get the power. The issue with building Nords is that its also harder work, blocks are always in poorer condition, as are heads and you spend hours changing studs for the main bearings/head etc, line boring and other arduous tasks.

Although the bottom end of the engines are very similar, the heads are completely different - flat top pistons and narrow angle head similar to a GTAm motor constitute vast leaps forward for the t/s.

On costs - I remember when we could buy donor t/s motors for £50, now we regularly have to give £300 or alternatively £500 for a whole car just so we can get the lump out of it!

So I guess what I'm saying is that if you want 175ish BHP, its cheaper to do so from a Nord, especially as most people already have an engine, most of this due to the ancillaries that make a t/s more expensive. If you want more than this then really there is only one way to do get it with driveability... t/s.

HughQV - Seriously driveability is not an issue - if you run 3-D mapped igintion you really have all the driveability you need - foot flat at 1200 rpm in any gear, clean through to 7,200....not shabby and something a Nord can only dream of in a good state of tune.

I hope this has helps to answer a few questions for you guys.

[coda tronca]

To get back to Biba's original poll of TS swap owner satisfaction, here my 2 cts worth( or maybe just 1 penny)...Yes..factoring in all the ups and downs, given what it offers( more torque, smooth revver with proper crank/rods,pistons etc balancing..) installed into a 71GTV wich already had a very nice running 2L Nord in it with 40DCOES...cant honestly recommend to all Alfisti given all the work and resources/hassles required, but I would do it again, and actually am... stock Motronic into L jet spider..more to report later..cheers

[Biba69]

Coda, thanks for remembering what this thread was originally intended for. What you said in essence - a lot of work, expense, and no doubt 'refining' of the installation - but still worth it. I am concerned with Stefano's unusual clutch problem after installing a TS in his Alfetta GT since that's what mine is going to go in to. Unfortunately Hughqv apparently is having similar clutch problems with his Milano - both of course being transaxle cars.

Max Banks, I appreciate your adding some interesting comments and observations. While this is a bit 'much' for me to add, I feel it sure would be great if you had a page or a couple of pages on your website giving a general idea of what would be involved for you in building up say a 175 HP TS and/or a 198 HP TS. I'm not suggesting a 'how to', just the basics of what a rebuild to hotter specs would entail, in general. General prices would be great also.

Biba

[lgowin]

Sorry Biba, I'll take us off track again...

Max, you mention ditching the VVT with the hot TS setup. It is my understanding that the VVT enables not only cleaner emissions, but the low RPM retarding of the intake cam also provides additional tractability than one would see with fixed cam timing.

Do you not use a custom grind VVT cam because of the complexity of setting it up right or because you believe it to not yield meaningful results in the high BHP applications that you're setting the TS up for?

More on topic, I'm maybe a few weeks away from firing up the TS in my 105 GTV. I'm running the stock injection system for now but may modify it a bit in a year or two. I hope to provide glowing reviews to this thread when its complete.

Regards,
Lawrence

[Abarth]

I think it is difficult for Max to substantiate his claims of how perfectly drivable his hot 198hp ts conversion is- so I thought I might add my thoughts. I am currently running the same set up as Max on my GT Junior and cannot begin to tell you what a well tempered yet incredibly potent package it is! I live in Central London and can confirm that the car behaves astoundingly well on our congested streets here. I have also had the opportunity to attend three track days since the conversion to t/s where I have regularly spanked it to 7500 rpm. The car, although fully spec’d with every other bit of Alfaholics equipment my bank manager let me buy, has proven to be a serious contender with 911’s, lotus exiges, Caterham 7s etc. Max’s stories of one-upmanship against modern sports cars are absolutely true. Biba- I definitely recommend t/s route. You will never look back, but I take it the ultimate key to success is the mapped ignition which offers the element of perfect drivability and smooth hp/tremendous torque delivery curves.

All the best,

[nzkiwiguy]

Hey Abarth, want to post some pics and specs on yout TS (maybe start a new thread.) It sounds ideal _drive around town and lapping on track days!