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Naturally-Aspirated Giulia Quadrifoglio V6 - Ferrari / Alfa Romeo F154 V6 Engine;

18K views 45 replies 15 participants last post by  PSk 
#1 ·
O-oh! Now what...!? Look what showed up last week!

The Alfa-gods and I concur that the Italians short-changed us when they decided not to offer a normally-aspirated (and perhaps larger displacement) V6 engine option in the new Giulia range! Something in the middle perhaps - between the base 2.0 litre turbo options and the amazing twin turbo V6 of the Quadrifoglio - would have been nice. All I asked for was even just a 6 / 7-speed manual, but no...

Well, as punishment for their transgressions, I have decided to build it. (If it pleases the Alfa-gods.) The turbos are off and so are the dual intake manifolds, the two drive-by-wire throttle-bodies and the dual water-to-air inter-coolers! We're going with 6 head-direct ITBs (individual throttle-bodies with nice tall stacks and bell-mouth trumpets) and a nice set of custom TIG-welded "bundle-of-snakes" exhaust headers in stainless!
 

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#2 ·
Normally-Aspirated Ferrari / Alfa F154-V6 Engine

The motor only had 4500 miles on it, but I'll be cracking this Italian Easter-egg come next weekend sometime and see what's inside it. (I have not been able to find any pictures online of the Ferrari 488 twin turbo, or the Alfa V6 torn down to the pistons and heads, so it's all guessing at this point. Anybody else have pictures?

I saw the pictures of the training engine down south a few months ago, but that only had the valve covers off and the rear cam-chain setup exposed.

It is my understanding that there may well be some wet-liners in there (as with it's V6 Busso predecessor), so perhaps there will be enough room for larger liners to accommodate a bore-size larger than the current 86.5mm. We've gone as large as 100 / 101 / 102 / 103mm bore on the old engines, so let's see what she can take. (Currently, the 82mm stroke crank is the only option available form Ferrari and Alfa Romeo, but if I can prove the base concept with only a larger bore, there are a number of companies out there that will make a forged crank of any stroke and journal specification.)

90mm on the 82mm stroke only gets me to 3.1+ litres. A 100mm bore gets us to 3.8+ litres! Let's see - may very well be limited to the current bore for some reason.

We'll be bumping compression to around 12.8:1 and with it - installing forged internals (probably Wossner pistons and Pauter connecting rods.) CNC-porting the intake and exhaust, larger combustion chambers, larger valves, billet cams with more duration, lift and overlap. We'll keep the Direct Injection, as well as the variable cam adjustment on all 4 cams (but we'll dump the dual ECUs and wiring harness in favor of a high-end fully-programmable, stand-alone engine management system...)

Motec may be my only option here to deal with a full-sequential fuel / full-sequential ignition setup, as well as the four variable cams AND direct injection.

The ultimate goal would be to see if we can get the same 500+ horsepower from it - naturally aspirated. Figure that if we revved it +2000rpm, we could get there.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Why make it bigger ... ? If you're chasing hp, they already solved that with turbos. I'd concentrate on making it shatter wine glasses with amazing sound, like a 155 DTM car. Pete
Why does a dog lick it's own balls...?

You know me and my naturally-aspirated compulsion! It takes FAR MORE talent, skill, experience, engineering, cost and effort to make power - REAL power - pure engineering, normally-aspirated, raw power from an NA build. There are people out there who walk in here, or that one encounters at events (normally the younger generation, or the yuk-yuk roundy-round crowd), who will pop off with stupid kakka like "...why don't you just slap a turbo on it...? OR "...why don't you just throw an LS in it..." and I just want to kakkas in my pantalones - if you know what I mean?

First - these questions show how ignorant people can be; those types of conversions take MAJOR effort to accomplish clean and sorted - you don't slap and you don't throw anything to make it happen - it takes a-LOT of effort - so I just want to slap the taste out of the next guy's mouth that I hear say that.

Secondly, it's crude to mix and match brands in my not so humble opinion. It's like having sex with your sister - no matter how hot she is, you just don't do it. The LSxxx swap is undeniable for the cost and power gains (even the relative simplicity of it - when you consider the huge range of kits out there available to put that bloody plant in just about ANYTHING), but it's just not appropriate...

Third and last; installing a turbo straight onto a factory line-produced, sloppy tolerance, port mismatched, OEM setup, is just wrong - it's cheating. It's lazy and it's sloppy. Even if you do install forged internals first and lower the compression - you still have crappy factory ports, crappy intakes and compromised tolerances for the most part. Most guys even say it "...dude, it doesn't matter - you're forcing air through there anyway..."

What if - just an if - you could clean all of that up, get the balancing right, the port-matching - everything - make MORE power NA and THEN turbo THAT setup!? It's like I tell these guys; just take a V6 - ANY NA V6 without variable cams, without direct injection, without knock control - just take any analog NA V6 and just make 200 horsepower! Try it - it takes REAL work! Any displacement - 3.8 Buick, 4.0 Ford, GM - any of them!

We're pushing 425+ at the crank from the Busso-based 24 valvers these days and that takes REAL effort and skill. No knock control. No variable cams. No vario intakes or VANOS. No direct injection. I'm the most digital thing in that car!

And yes - we will be shattering whine glasses. I just want to see what I can gain in displacement, in dome size, in valve size, in port size, in cam profile and in higher revs and go from there! Who knows, perhaps some day, I would STILL turbo THAT setup! For now - it's all about NA and then yes - probably a 155 DTM homage build...
 
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#7 · (Edited)
Finally got some time to start the 2.9 Quadrifoglio V6 motor tear-down... Oh look! An engine...

Played around a bit with a mock-up of some AT Power ITBs that I have here for a 911 project. Yes, these are round-port ITBs (the twin-plug 964 Porsche engine is still a 12 valve), but this F154 engine will have custom oval-port plenum adapters, with ATP's ellipse direct-to-head ITBs, obround velocity stacks and discorectangle trumpets (figured that I'd cover all of the basic nomenclatures for a stadium-shaped "sausage-body" port...) :grin2:

What's really crazy is that the Alfa head has one side of the "stadium" shape sides veering off into a Hershey's Kiss shaped point in the middle!

Also, check out the four cylinder-deactivation solenoid ports on the passenger-side head!

Wild to see how WIDE this 90-degree engine is - compared to the 60-degree Busso that I am so used to working on. (Interesting side note; putting together a Vittorio Jano V6 - Dino - right now and it is a 65-degree V...!)
 

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#8 ·
Very nice.

How did you land on that length intake runner? Just a guess, but you're 16" to 18" from back of valve to trumpet top?

I like to play with my engine modeling programs and was wondering if you used one to determine runner length.

Bob Holmes
 
#16 ·
How did you land on that length intake runner? Just a guess, but you're 16" to 18" from back of valve to trumpet top? I like to play with my engine modeling programs and was wondering if you used one to determine runner length.
Bob, as I had mentioned in the last post, this was just a mock-up of some round-port ITBs and velocity stacks that I happen to have here - destined for a 12 valve Porsche 964 engine that we are going to retrofit to an older 911 chassis. I was just playing around a bit to see what they would look like on the F154 engine. This engine would get it's own set of discorectangle head adapters, ITBs, velocity stacks and 3-D printed trumpets - oblong top to bottom!

Still, the length seems exaggerated in these pictures - they're not quite THAT long! I just set them down on there (they're a good inch away from the head and the very top of the bells are perhaps 11 to 12 inches from the back of the intake valve in this mock-up.) The actual setup for the F154 will perhaps be 8 to 10 inches from the trumpet mouth to the back of the valves. We'll see - I'll leave that to the engineers. We'll experiment with different lengths once the setup is on the engine dyno, but that's still a long ways away.

This set-up pictured here was engineered by AT Power in the UK - specifically for the 964 engine - to run a fully-programmable, stand-alone engine management system. Not sure what modeling program they utilize, but the setup makes good power with a bit of added cam on those cars. They are currently doing the engineering for me on an ITB set for my new 3.9 litre Busso-based 24 valve and then the set for this F154 engine is not far behind that...
 
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#10 ·
Almost all socket head capscrews... hardly any hex bolts anywhere, except for fittings of course. A real engineering exercise! And yep-- it's WIDE alright.
 
#11 ·
Honestly that is quite surprising that they went for that many allen heads. not a very modern fastener. They tend to cam out unless you get the angles right and fully seat the socket. Something that in a production environment is hard to ensure. Torx (internal or external) is much better suited for this.

Its typical Alfa though, the old aluminium twin cams and busso V6s also had many allen heads everywhere.
 
#15 ·
So do I, but the cam cover casting is horrid with all the lumps and bumps for I have no idea what.

Compare to any Busso v6, even the 4 valve ones with the coil covers removed, or Ferrari 206/246 v6, faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrr cleaner look. Modern engines are designed knowing that all will be hidden by a plastic cover, so they no longer care about looks :(
Pete
 
#18 ·
Naturally Aspirated Engines Suck

I've had a little plaque made with this on it and secured it to the radiator top on each turbo-car I've had.
The first was a 79 Alfetta Sports Sedan that I bought in 1980. Shortly after an injector leaned out and burned a hole in a piston.
Put in a kit from England similar to the then Lotus Turbo.
Ran that one for 18 years when it was severely rear-ended when parked.
Sigh,
 
#22 ·
I like such projects, although I would rather work on displacement increase and turbo, in a 155 if this is going to be a DTM replica of sorts.

Anyway the clean engine, now first seen, lets down on looks with all those lumps and bumps.

Alfa was much better in making nice looking engines! So just for comparison of looks the rare 90 degr 2,5L DTM engine. 2,5L V6 500Hp/12.000 Rpm, 1996. Pneumatic valve actuation. Short trumpets for short stroke and high rpm. Would love to see the Giulia Q. engine end result to look not so far from this!

G.
 

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#24 · (Edited)
No, not without major modifications to the 116 chassis. There's barely enough room for headers in that Milano / 75 / Alfetta / GTV6 chassis with the 60-degree Busso engines as it is - leave alone this 90-degree splayed monster.

Sorry if I missed it... what car is this engine going in? As someone who’s going to start seeing more gulia’s as people move away from the dealership service/purchase deals I would like to see internal photos.
Not sure yet - have been thinking about a 155 DTM-tribute car. Something that had a transverse-mounted arrangement before - so that there's more room for this broad engine. It would be kinda fitting - since the 155 DTM engine was a high-revving, small-bore, 24-valve, naturally-aspirated, 90-degree V6.

As mentioned before - for now - it's going to be an engine-dyno development. The future chassis is somewhat irrelevant for the moment. I'm about to complete the tear-down - stay tuned.

Alfa was much better in making nice looking engines! So just for comparison of looks the rare 90 degr 2,5L DTM engine.
Surely, you mean the French - and the Swedes...? (Peugeot, Renault and Volvo...) Sure, it was Alfa Romeo's brilliant engineering development that took the famous PRV engine from what it was, to what it became and yes - making their own valve covers made it pretty. Still, credit where credit is due.

Also, pneumatic valves...? Did they? Pretty sure that I saw 3 belts on these things - driving cams (and mechanical valve actuation.)

Anyway, like I said - the ugliness has function. The ITBs will go a long way to make this thing interesting I hope. Was also thinking about something like what we do for the BMW engines - talk about ugly... See below. Crude analogy, but you guys get the idea.

Working on the transaxle plans now too - leaning towards the Albins ST6 with a torque-tube as used in the South African GTC (Global Touring Cars) "spec" series BMW, VW and Audi cars, as well as in the Australia V8 Supercars series.
 

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#32 ·
I find this to be a visual treat to one's eyes to see what is hidden under all of that "stuff" on top. Few of us will ever see that let alone a mechanic in the shop. Mechanics are tinkers to see what can be done with what they have in front of them. It will be fun to watch you go through this to see what comes out on the dyno.

With all those Allen head bolts I can only imagine that dropping one into one of those open ports would be catastrophic.

Hard for me to imagine 400 hp in my 164Q, but that sure sounds like a lot of fun to drive.
 
#34 · (Edited)
We appear to have a 100mm bore-spacing.

I may very well be out of over-bore space - we'll see what they say when the block get's an ultrasound. I know that the new SF90 has a +1.5mm bore over the 488, the California TT and the V6. Perhaps there's an extra couple of millimeters to steal over that - just in the liners (since this will no longer be forced-induction...)

Then again, the goal is to go back to forced-induction after the development, so I would really want that over-bore capacity. It'll have to come from the block's internal dimension, but with only 100mm bore-spacing - that's it! No more - the liners need 7-8-9mm of wall-thickness up top where the combustion pressures are the highest - minimum (so, two of those walls, plus space in-between, plus 45mm radius per cylinder.

Even at just 90mm on the 82mm stroke, we're looking at 3,128CCs.
 

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#35 ·
Are you going for a manual tranny as well?
I have a 2.0 turbo from a 2017 n would love to go to a 6-7 speed manual
Hoping someone tackles this before Im ready to figure it out
at the rate the body is going, thats more than likely
interested to see where this goes
so many new engines out there with great hp, seems silly to not figure out a swap
4C 1.7 or Giulia 2.0 seems pretty available
 
#36 ·
As mentioned, the "what car is this going into" question is a low priority for me to define, as this will be an engine-dyno development initially. Ultimately, this engine in NA state will probably go into something like an Alfa 155 DTM tribute car. At that point, I'm big on an Albins ST6-style transaxle with a torque-tube (as utilized in the South African GTC series...)
 
#37 ·
Not easy to make a credible 155 V6TI DTM 2,5 V6 90 tribute or replica car. This last version of the Alfa ITC car was so advanced that it was actually a silhouette 155, with 4wd, pushrod suspension, carbonfibre rear box for tank and rear suspension attachment points. This level of technology and how expensive this racing was, resulted in the end of the series.

Instead of making a tribute or replica it would be better to buy the real thing, even they cost a lot!

Why not put the Giulia engine in a GTV6 or 75, because it probably would fit and a perfectly nice race car would be the result!

Here a sight of the technology of the 155 V6TI v6 90.

 
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