11% Racing's Automotive Adventures

You absolutely must run the alternator cooling duct and preferably add more heat shield between the exhaust and the alternator. My cars alternator fails within 10 minutes of the cooling hose failing, every time....

In reply to TurnerX19 :

Ill definitely be putting the heat shielding in. I dont think Ive seen an alternator cooling duct, only the injector cooling duct we run

Next on the list, patch the notched frame:

Start with 14ga steel

Add some bends

Test fit

And weld in place

Now our frame rail is sitting happily in one piece again, with an attractive splotch of gloss white paint over it. One day the whole engine bay will match, but today is not that day

Alternator cooling duct runs from the top of the right side plastic vent trim to the tube on the heat shield that bolts to the "back" of the alternator. It is just corrugated aluminum/cardboard ducting. This has always been on my '81. Even has a little stamped steel hanger that holds the tube above the timing case. I will take some more photos tomorrow after sunrise and post them. here are 2 with the bulkhead out of the way. Seriously blows out the regulator as soon as you slow down from a highway run if the duct gets dislodged. Top photo shows the shield with duct attach point but no duct. Second shows a fresh (in 2010) duct attached with the original wire form hose clamp.

In reply to TurnerX19 :

Huh, I think I found the remnants of that system on the right side duct trim, but weve never had that actually plumbed in. The full system wasnt present when I bought the car. Maybe because its a factory ac car? Or maybe the various rats, opossums and other critters ate it enough that it got thrown out in the great cleaning when i bought the car

I plan to add a couple aluminum shields between the exhaust and alternator, and I could probably throw a scoop on the "hood" to force air by the alternator

Still catching the thread up to real time, the coolant reservoir has been relocated to the trunk

Just need to mount the overflow tank and route coolant lines

The rest of the alternator duct. I think the A/C cars got it too, but I have studiously avoided them, so I do not know. Not sure if carb cars got it either. I worked on many when they were new, but memory fails me.

In reply to TurnerX19 :

Never seen that on my car, but given i bought it for $150 im not suprised

This weekend Im creeping towards getting the car running under its own power again, but theres a few things in the way, namely wiring, but we'll get to that.

First we plumb fuel lines from the frunk to the engine bay

Then the engine goes back in, along with clutch, brakes, fire suppression, and transmission

Heres hoping i dont need to redo any flares when its comes bleeding time.

  I think you are better off with the Honda engine, while the Italian engine has lots of potential, for what you are doing the Honda engine will be better.   You could more easily find a Honda replacement engine, ideally you would sell the Italian engine to someone that wants to make it into what it could be.  But for what you are doing, get a spare Honda engine.  It's sad how choked down the Italian engine is in stock form, but really you are much off with something that is currently more common and in stock form will actually make more power.

In reply to TED_fiestaHP :

Oh thats definitely true, on all points. My aim is to do a full drivetrain and suspension swap to go to honda parts store available stuff.

However we have a race in a hair over a month, and given my plan for building a whole new front and rear suspension, brakes system, clutch, shifter, and all the ancillary bits, we (Im working alone but race as a team) just dont have time to get it all done.

Thats why at the beginning I made sure I could still fit the fiat engine in and get running in short order. Id much rather be racing slow at the back of the pack for a weekend than missing it to go faster next time.

Ill get back to the swap action after the race and some house projects Ive neglected

Winding down for the day with the start of a cooling upgrade and more progress on the fuel cell cage

   I think your limiting the air flow into the engine, with a little more time and money.

      But seriously, check Vicks Fiat, they have cams for about $75  to much cam won't work well with the OEM fuel injection, but they have a few to pick from and a mild cam up grade might work to add some power.

In reply to TED_fiestaHP :

The original air flow meter is so tiny when fully open that no other modifications are worth doing. The first move I made 16 years ago with my X1/9 was Megasquirt with the original injectors. Major improvement. Later a tri-y header added some more. When I had it all apart 2 years ago I bumped the compression to 9.3/1 and a mild cam. That then required increasing the fuel pressure to keep from going lean up top. It is now quick enough to need more tire than stock, which is not going to happen.

  The original carb and the original fuel injection are both limiting the power.   Being a small Italian engine, it will make power at higher rev's, but can't do that with it choked down.   To make any power with the Fiat engine will require some updates, the Honda engine will make more power and can easily be replaced.

     I do kind of prefer the Italian stuff, but they made a lot of those Honda's.

Theoretically, could you fit a turbo and piping down by the floor? Up by the valve cover?

In reply to DDT :

Turbos have been done with the original engine, but engine compartment and intake air temperatures have prevented real success. Very bad idea for the OP's intended use.

In reply to TurnerX19 :

It is for selfish reasons. I think the Turbo D series X1/9 is the budget autocross champion. MR2's are a little wider, more modern engines are heavier and have less aftermarket support. Really seems like a good setup.

The bigger problem that ive been told of its that the transmissions were designed for 50hp in the 128, and the X runs it at 75 (stock, i highly doubt mine is pushing that, it likely needs new rings at a minimum)

The guys down at Vick Autosports have told me that a lot of trans parts are NLA, and inconsistent between model years so you wont jnow what you need until you open it. They also told me that when they were dyno testing a turbocharged X, transmissions were consistently letting go at the ~115hp.

So I have a constricted engine, likely with crappy compression, and a black box transmission that I may not be able to fix. In an endurance car. Right now the combo works, but we're slow. Whos to say making the original engine perform even like what it should stock will be beneficial. Going faster for 2 hours before grenading your transmission doesnt really help you in a 13+ hour race.

Its the unknowns of what the stock setup will be able to handle once fully healthy that is pushing me to complete the swap before refreshing stock. Time on track is more valuable to me than maintaining stock configuration

Small update because I've been bad about taking pics, fuel cell is plumbed, caged, vented, grounded, and the car seems to be happy and healthy. Racing in under 2 weeks at MSR Houston

We survived the race in November with 2 major issues. A dead kill switch (lost 3 or 4 hours) getting collected in an accident and hour later (bent lower control arm and ended Saturday) but had relatively little issue Sunday until we had to tighten the exhaust, and the alternator belt loosened and killed our battery.

Towards the end of the day with ~6 gallons left in the tank we started encoutering fuel starvation in long left hand turns due to the pickup location, but a 15x15 hydramat is in our future to solve that.

So whats next? Back to fitting the honda engine! To accommodate the massive plastic intake and leave room for other engine possibilites (maybe a v6 one day) I built a brace and cut back the frame

I then boxed in the remaining stubs of the cross brace.

To reinstall the original unit, all that has to be done is extend the dog bone torque mount and weld in a bracket on the new cross brace.

Next up: shifting, suspension, and more