V6 powered E30 (Finished!)

Discuss general engine, turbo and supercharger conversions in this section

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Toby_Unna
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Tue Jul 24, 2007 8:45 pm

...probably because they don't get the chance, once the silly horizontal pushrods have worn their cam lobes out and the oil pressure-regulated cambelt tensioner has given up the ghost and thrown the belt off :D

i don't particularly rate the m20 among other bmw designs, but defending Alfa engine reliability is shaky territory Andy winkeye
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fozzymandeus
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Tue Jul 24, 2007 8:48 pm

Pushrods and Cambelts in the one engine?!
stonesie
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Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:29 pm

chrisr29 wrote:Ouch!

Was reffering to the older, rear wheel drive stuff.

Would that be the 20v? Heard it's an engine out job on those.

There is a way of doing it with the engine in the car but it involves drilling a hole in the inner wing :wink: I have never done a belt on 1 of these myself but i know a man who can do them in under 3 hours, he eaven rust proofes the hole and puts a rubber bung in it..... top quality bodgeing.



Back on topic, i can't wait to hear this beast running, these alpha V6 lumps sound the nut's and its finally found a chassis that dosent rust for fun :P
Toby_Unna
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Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:48 pm

fozzymandeus wrote:Pushrods and Cambelts in the one engine?!
one belt driven cam per bank, inlets operated directly, exhausts by short horizontal (sideways across the head) pushrods and rockers. might be the other way round.

I ought to add, I love the Alfa V6 to bits whatever the reliability. 230bhp from the later 24v green cloverleaf 3.0 version, a match for the far newer BMW M54 3.0 :twisted:
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fozzymandeus
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Wed Jul 25, 2007 4:28 am

one belt driven cam per bank, inlets operated directly, exhausts by short horizontal (sideways across the head) pushrods and rockers. might be the other way round.
Crikey! So many moving parts! So much to go wrong!
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Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:31 am

Toby_Unna wrote:...probably because they don't get the chance, once the silly horizontal pushrods have worn their cam lobes out and the oil pressure-regulated cambelt tensioner has given up the ghost and thrown the belt off :D

i don't particularly rate the m20 among other bmw designs, but defending Alfa engine reliability is shaky territory Andy winkeye
The cam lobes thing is rare - rarer than a BMW cam............... :D Early ones did that along with head gasket oil leaks but we're talking 81 -85 era cars. The oil pressure fed cambelt tensioner is a weird thing but by the time anything bad happened it would be PISSING oil out. You can either reseal them or fit the standard Alfa replacement which is s steel sprung job. It comes with a brass bung to block off the oil feed.
230 bhp is the 24v. Early ones were less than great with inadequate tooth contact on the inner two cam wheels resulting in belt failure. Later ones had a longer belt and a repositioned tensioner to prevent this. They still weren't as good as the 12v which I rate as a better engine.

Alfa engine reliability - if we are talking proper Alfa motors, overall they're the same if not better. The old 12v twin spark and the 1954-95 twin cam it was based on are just legends and unbreakable. The flat four 8v equally so and they spoilt them with the 1.7 and hydraulic tappets. The 16v TS used in the 156, GTV/Spider and later 155 'wide body' is a 16v thing based on a Fiat iron block short engine. It's less than fantastic (plastic belt tensioners on early ones, that inlet cam variator etc. As an engine it's like comparing an M40 to an M10. Okay but none of the traditional 'engineer' quality to it.
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chrisr29
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Wed Jul 25, 2007 8:41 am

They only wear the cam lobes out because people don't bother maintaining them...ie set the valve clearances occasionaly!
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Fri Jul 27, 2007 1:07 pm

I have a maserati BiTurbo and it one turbo per bank, and yes the reliabalty is a nighmare on the electrics, but the twin turbo odd fire engine sounds great and they come with a dogleg box. The suspension is a near copy of an e12 so they drive like a BMW also.

But the m20 is smoother

Jason
x-works
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Sun Jul 29, 2007 10:08 pm

Evening all,
This weeks progress is as follows.
First up was to sort the ducting for the airflow meter to the throttle buterfly.
As previously mentioned we appear to be missing a few bits of the jigsaw
here, namely the elbow to connect the flexi-pipe to the throttle housing, and
as this elbow would appear to have allowed a few other pipes to tee into it,
we decided it was probably a good thing to have it present.
So..........
2 bits of tubing tacked together at the appropriate angle, one of which has
a tee off welded into it .......

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cardboard template of the metal needed to fill the gap between........

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template transfered to metal and tacked and bent into shape.........

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and after severe arc eye, sunburn, 3 burnt finger tips, and much
colorful language later, a complete elbow.........

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those with a keen eye might have spotted that the tee off on the
elbow might appear to be facing the wrong way to link in with the pipe
on the right of it, but we've decided the in the final engine "blinging"
session that we're going to move the little cold start valve on top of
the rocker cover back to the side of the head to tidy up the pipework
and clean up the engine appearance. There was to be another pipe that
should tee into the elbow aswell, the engine breather pipe, but we've
decided to run this into a catch tank instead rather than recirculate
the oily fumes.

With this sorted and the rubber flex pipe attached to the elbow we
could now see where the airflow meter wanted to sit, and where the
mounting bracket for it would have to be.

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As you can see the mouth of the airflow meter is square and this
needed to be adapted to take a round cone air filter. So...........

bit of tubing tacked to square.............

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some fillers applied and shaped to fill the gaps............

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a quick coat of satin black and bolt it up.........

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and bung the filter on..........

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Next up was to get some oil in, change the plugs and set the
tappet clearances............

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One of the items we also got from the scrap yard a while back but
only now got around to fitting was the electric fan. The said item is from a
Citreon Sara and fits just nice in front of the rad...........

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We also managed to get the water plumbing finished off and the
system filled, love to say that there was no leaks but you'd all know that
was a lie :D Some of the pipe runs were a little on the long side so we
decided to use copper tubeing and fittings as it's easier to secure than
flexible hose pipeing. (sorry for pic quality)

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The other slight mod in the cooling system was due to the way
the V6 is plumbed, the outlet from the back of the block is the feed to the
heater rad and because in the Alfa 75 you could turn of the feed to the
rad it would need a bypass route to continue on it's way circulating. We
decided to just plumb in and out of the bm heater rad and remove the
tap so doing away with the need for a complicated bypass route.

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Which brings us up to where we are now, we've just laid in the
engine loom and connected it up to all the sensors and injectors and all
things going according to plan will either finish wireing up the loom this
week or set fire to the car trying :mad:

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Hope to have some noise by this time next week and if we can
figure out how to I'll try and take a vid clip and stick it on u-tube.
Turbo-Brown
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Sun Jul 29, 2007 10:24 pm

Truely awe inspiring!
Wish I had your attention to detail, aside from the name on the cam covers, that looks like it belongs there :D
325i Twin Turbo (until 10am 01/12/07 :( )

www.air-in.co.uk free M20 exhaust and inlet flange
DRIFTBOY
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Sun Jul 29, 2007 10:38 pm

Damn fine work!

And top quality pictures and words as usual!

:cool:
Jeremy Clarkson wrote:...but it drives the front wheels. Theee wrooong wheels!
da4x4turbo wrote:I raced a vivaro on the motorway once in a 318is.... and lost!!!
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k10
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Mon Jul 30, 2007 10:53 pm

Fairplay , can't wait for the next instalment, I love that engine it's a classic, the sound !!
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james_obryan
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Tue Jul 31, 2007 12:09 am

ignore
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Kos
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Tue Jul 31, 2007 7:03 pm

james_obryan wrote:ignore
are you a cock, cu^t or a prick

or all rolled in to one ??
PUKAR DESIGNS - Reproduction BMW Decals Labels Sticker & Number Plates
www.pukardesigns.com
www.facebook.com/pukar.designs/
IG Pukar.Designs
x-works
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Tue Aug 07, 2007 10:22 pm

Evening all,

How hard can it be to start a bl**dy engine.

(The astute one's among you may have sensed that this weeks
installment might contain some frustration and as such be aware
that this weeks installment may contain foul language and
scenes of a violent nature.)

As was posted at the end of the last update the engine management
loom was laid in and fitted up to all the appropriate sensors, so all that was
left to do now was give the loom the feeds it would require from the chassis
to bring it to life. Once we got our heads around the diagrams we had for
the electrics (big thanks must go to "Slyalfa" Alfabb forum) this wasn't to
bad. We had previously decided that we would resist the urge to just
throw the final wiring in so that we could fire her up and instead take our
time and make the looms properly and so have to do the job only once.

that lasted 5 seconds................


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and the crowing touch, one WRC spec switch panel

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time had come to push the button.......

what followed was a noise from the starter teeth and ring gear
that left neither of us or any of the neighbors within a mile radius
under any illusions that the engine would be starting any time soon.
All would not appear to be well with the starter teeth alignment. So
after steeling the appropriate sized mirror we decided to investigate.
The picture isn't the clearest but what had happened was that the
starter teeth were not close enough to the ring gear teeth when the
starter was engaged, allowing them to slip over the ring gear teeth
and hence not turn over the engine.


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So out came the starter with the intentions of just fileing one of the
mounting holes and rotating the hole thing in a few mm closer to the
ring gear. Piece of p*ss you say. Until you remove the starter and find
out the reason it had come out of engaugement was the the bush at the
end of the starter shaft was shot to pieces allowing the starter teeth to
wobble all over the place. To truely appreciate the significance of the timing
of this remarkable discovery, i feel I should convey it was 6 o'clock on
a friday evening of a bank holiday weekend. Ireland had shut down one
hour ago for the next 3 days.

s h i t e!

So began a frantic search through all the spare parts in the garage for
a replacement bushing. Eventually a friend came to the rescue with a
bushing that was perfect internal diameter but 1 mm to small outside.
At which stage we discovered that this bushing was a tight fit in to a
copper fitting we had earlier disguarded. This now left the bushing 1 mm
to big, at which time the bushing was rammed onto a piece of stick and
tighted into the chuck of the Aldi pillar drill (new i'd eventually use it some
day). With the bush spinning at the end of the piece of stick we proceeded
to spend the next 50 minutes :cry: taking down the outside diameter with
a metal file till it was the right diameter.

bush pressed in,

starter refitted,

time to push the button.

turning.....

turning.....

turning.....

S H I T E !

Nothing, it just turned over and over. Back to basic's. We checked for
spark, check. We checked for fuel pressure, check. We fitted the noides
to the injector plugs and these were firing, check. So why won't it start?
We then decided to pull a plug and have a look, fully expecting them to
be drowned in fuel as we'd been cranking her over for a while now. The
plugs were bone dry. After 10 minutes of head scratching we decided
we'd have to pull the injectors as they must be siezed. (engine had been
left lying up for a few years before we got hold of it).

So inlet plenum off..............

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and fuel rails and injectors off..................

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to work on the injectors we would have to cut off the original clips and
rubber pipes..............

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so now with the injectors dismantled into individual items we could use
our state of the art, multi-million dollar, injector cleaning rig...........

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didn't your moma tell you not to laugh at other peoples stupidity.

but seriously, it works. A little freeing oil pumped in to the top of the
injector, fit the air line over the feed nozzle, pump up the air to 40psi
and tip the power and earth wires for the injector connection across
a spare batteries terminal's.

result..........

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So,

injectors refitted,

wires reconnected,

fuel rail refitted,

time to push the button..............

turning............

turning............

AHHH FOR THE LOVE OF J E S U S !

right, spark plug out, covered in fuel. Not that. Fuel pressure tested again,
spot on 35 psi. Not that. Why was this engine now flooding itself? We then
proceeded to have a "discussion" and pleasantly exchanged differing
views on why the twin fuel pump/swirl pot setup could be delivering to
much volume of fuel despite the pressure not being to high. Both of us
then wished we'd paid more attention at school before realizing that we
had the very same set up on our 325 rally car with no problems, so that
couldn't be it. We then came to the conclusion that it must be a wiring/ecu
fault and began rechecking the electrics. After 2 hours pinning out the
wires back to the ecu we found a broken connection at the engine temp
sensor.

wires repaired,

ecu repluged,

time to push the button.

turning............

turning............

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
:banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana:

Oh my God what a beautiful sound!!

hope to get the video up by the end of the week.
Last edited by x-works on Wed Aug 08, 2007 12:15 am, edited 5 times in total.
DRIFTBOY
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Tue Aug 07, 2007 10:31 pm

Get it fired up and put a sound clip or video up - I want to hear this thing! :D

Good luck guys!
Jeremy Clarkson wrote:...but it drives the front wheels. Theee wrooong wheels!
da4x4turbo wrote:I raced a vivaro on the motorway once in a 318is.... and lost!!!
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hoshy
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Wed Aug 08, 2007 9:59 am

:cool:

let's see the video then :)
E46 M3 CSL but dreaming of another E30.
andye30nut
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Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:21 am

get a video up guys lets here the purr
Toby_Unna
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Wed Aug 08, 2007 12:12 pm

well done guys! always the daft problems that get you properly stumped isn't it :x
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ric325i
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Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:38 pm

bravo old boy!

bet your happy.

so when will it be on the road?
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koos
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Wed Aug 08, 2007 7:00 pm

That was a good read!!! Looks good, well done.
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bottlecapE30
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Tue Aug 14, 2007 4:07 am

wow sweet project. and man you guys work fast. I can't wait to hear it.
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1991 3.5l e30 m30b35 it is dead so sad
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JazzMan
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Tue Aug 14, 2007 8:36 am

Well done, some amazing work there :D
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des400
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Tue Aug 14, 2007 4:10 pm

This is actually "xworks" and I'm having a bit of trouble at the moment.
Using a friends computer and user name at the moment as last week I managed
to get a video hosted and the next step was to put it up on here. Unfortunately
it didn't go quite according to plan, when I tried to embed the youtube video in
this topic the screen went black and a message came up to say I was permanantly
barred from the forum for attempting a "script attack". The e-mail address in this
message given to contact a web master just keeps bouncing back. So my IP
address appears to be locked out at the moment. If anybody reading this can
help I'd greatly appreciate it, will be a while before I can get to use someone else's
computer again. :x
daimlerman
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Wed Aug 15, 2007 12:45 pm

Come on mods,sort this out,the tale MUST have a happy ending!!
BadDave
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Wed Aug 15, 2007 5:57 pm

daimlerman wrote:Come on mods,sort this out,the tale MUST have a happy ending!!
They've been informed
Just waiting to find out what's happeneing

Patience dude
Gravy
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Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:05 pm

Wow, what a cool read! Can't wait to hear it, maximum respect to you guys for taking the project on and producing the awesome custom work!

In the meantime, here is an Alfa V6 video to keep you guys entertained (not associated to the video poster at all) :D
Gravy
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Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:08 pm

................and now perhaps if I posted the link :mad: ...................

JazzMan
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Wed Aug 15, 2007 9:21 pm

Gravy wrote:................and now perhaps if I posted the link :mad: ...................

:lol: good run :mad:
x-works
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Sun Aug 19, 2007 12:13 pm

Well somebody somewhere must have sorted something out,
I've no idea who at this stage but if your reading this then
thank you !

and without further delay heres the video..........


http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=U33Av9x7wkU

sound is poor and picture ain't great either but I'm
trying to get a better camera for the first test drive.
Toby_Unna
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Sun Aug 19, 2007 12:58 pm

well done lads, that sounds truly brilliant 8O
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Silverfang
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Sun Aug 19, 2007 2:53 pm

I'm loving that :D Should be interesting to with the handling since the V6 is probably shorter than the 4 pot, thusly shifting the weight behind the front crossmember further, that thing may be a real gokart round a track 8O
BMW and Opel, both RWD, both german, both good fun
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 5:47 pm

firefox7530 wrote:
One of the best chassis with the best Alfa engine ever! Nice done project!

I agree, awesome sound, should think it goes pretty well too!

Top job lads! :D
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Mon Aug 20, 2007 10:14 pm

well done some lovely bodgeing going on there to make things go together and work solidly... love it!! :cool:
x-works
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Thu Sep 06, 2007 11:11 pm

Evenin all,
been a while since the last post as there hasn't been much engine work
in the last few weeks. After getting the engine running and checking over
the driveline we had to complete pre-paint assembly (cause having to
bash things with hammers in a freshly paint shell is a nervous task).
Once we got the dash cut and in around the cage we fitted the seat
runners, seats and harnesses..................

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filled in the panel gaps we cut to run the cage to the rear turrets..........

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welded up the eye bolts for the harneses............

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then stuck a few panels on so we could take a quick test drive
without drawing to much attention (bit in vain really, the sideways driving
style and smoke from the rear tyres had just the same effect ) :o:

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the one thing both of us agreed upon after the test drive was that
while the engine noise was sweet the exhaust was far to quiet. We were
originally concerned that the car had to pass noise tests at track days
and had left the original 318 back box fitted, this had to go. A quick scan
around e-bay offered up a stainless renault 5 gt turbo back box for
35euro, 3 inch tail pipe, bingo..........

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the neighbours now know in advance when this cars coming out
of the garage :D
Next up was to sort the new dash and switch pannel,
dash out and gutted............

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this months subversive product advertisment.............

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m.d.f. wood dash panel to offset the "carbon foot print"for any
tree huggers out there .............

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centre switch panel along the same lines but out of perspex...........

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cover it and fit the switches...............

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and fit them both back in..............

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then pull it all back assunder again and sand every nook and crany till
your fingers bleed. A quick trip to the scrap yard turned up some side
skirts and a front chin spoiler, as is par for the course now neither came
off a bmw :roll:

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with the car now up the country in the bigger garage we could hang the
panels, place the car and errect the "Spray Boot 3000" (* patent pending)

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hope to get the paint on this weekend.

The other thing we got around to with the engine back out for the final
time was my favorite job, engine bling time...............

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and thats about it for now.
Last edited by x-works on Thu Sep 06, 2007 11:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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