Lemons X1/9 but more cylinders

Hi everyone,

Long time lurker, first time poster here. I've made some threads in the past on the Lemons forum (which is...quiet, since facebook ruined the internet) and the X1/9 forum which is great, but this project is getting weird.

We picked up a 1984 Fiat X1/9 for $500 in 2019 with a blown head gasket. We rebuilt the engine within budget (ie: just dropped new rings and bearings in it, and resurfaced the head using my kitchen counter) and got it running.  This, however was pre-covid, so of course E36 M3 hit the fan. So we paused for a bit and then put the cage in it and finished the build. Our first race was 2021 at ORP. It went surprisingly well, given it was our first time, there is 0 cumulative experience racing on our team, and we showed up with a fiat. We did 180ish laps and came home with the judges choice trophy for having our E36 M3 together and driving an awful car.

This year, we were back at ORP. Things didn't go so smoothly. We had a number of different problems. We were out almost the entire first day dealing with overheating issues, and the transmission separating from the engine (where did all the bolts go...we may never know), which led to some carnage. We ended the weekend with 110 laps which was surprising, given how much of the time I spent under the car in the paddock. Our fastest lap was a bit better, and our brake upgrades (vented rotors from a modern fiat 500, front calipers from that fiat 500, porterfield pads, decent fluid, and brake cooling) worked, so there were positives to take away.

Paddock picture of this fine machine sporting the GRM sticker

The real issue, however, was how slow it was. Which leads me to this forum. When we rebuilt the motor, we couldn't do oversize pistons because of budget concerns (this was before we knew that nobody in lemons sticks to the $500 rule, we *really* tried our best) and there was pitting in the cylinders from it sitting for 4 years with a blown head gasket before we bought it. This is what it looked like *after* honing it:

Compression is low (130psi ish) but consistent. The X1/9 wasn't quick from the factory, but this one is definitely extra tired. This is compounded by the 15x7 wheels I put on the car so that we could have a decent tire selection, making the gearing even worse. At ORP I couldn't accelerate up the hill after turn 5, or turn 14. The only car I could out drag on the straight was a VW beetle powered Porsche 996 (which weighs about 400 pounds more than the fiat).

Another X1/9 came up on craigslist for $500, so I went to get it. My plan is to mock up the swap in the spare car while leaving the race car in one piece. We're planning to race at The Ridge in October, so the race car needs to be ready for that. I'm planning to just tack things in to the donor car and then swap it all over once the season has ended either this year or next year. Unfortunately, the donor car came with an unhealthy engine (180psi in 3 cylinders, 80psi in the 4th), so we won't be able to easily extend our time with the little lampredi if the existing one goes pop. But I haven't torn it down yet to see what the issue is, either.

A while back, I had a VR6 Corrado, and a spare engine for that car, as one does. That car is now gone (don't worry I got a different, better Corrado) but the engine sat on the floor of my parent's garage for years. Then I graduated, got a job, got married, got a house, moved to a different house with a shop, and somehow this craigslist VR6 followed me to this point. It is only fair to use it. It has been through so much. So that brings us to today. Finally, little VR6, it is your time to shine.

In some dimensions, the VR6 and O2a are actually smaller than the lampredi, but, not all dimensions. So some cutting is required.

Then I dropped the tank, which sits right behind the driver, and cut out more of the car. Finally it mostly fits, even with the intake manifold on.

Which brings us to today where I've tacked together some of the mounts. In the next couple weeks I'd like to finish the mounts. Then I'll probably do the axles, and then figure out the exhaust. Once the exhaust is done, I'll tack the horizontal bracing back in. I'd like to build the exhaust first because I see several different options for the bracing, which will have to work around the exhaust.

Looking ahead, we will need some sort of large oil cooler, as the stock one on the VR6 is insufficient. The lemons car has a larger than stock radiator (it's actually from a scirocco) but it will be insufficient for the VR6. I'm thinking two radiators, and maybe hood vents in the front for extra help. I think once we get to this point, we'll cut up the race car and transfer everything over. Then we'll do a fuel cell in the front.

One of the (many) unknowns is spring rates. We'll need stiffer springs in the rear to compensate for the extra weight. We'll probably make coilovers since the existing dampers are nice Koni units, but we will need adjustability. Adjustable sway bars front and rear will likely be required to tame the extra weight and 4x power increase as well.

I've never swapped anything before, so I'll be making lots of mistakes along the way. If anyone has any thoughts or things to look out for, I'm all ears. I have no idea what I'm doing.

This is going to sound amazing. Would love to see it on track!

Where's the turbo(s)?

In reply to rozap :

Nice to see some German influences in an old Italian 2 seater. Is that the 2.8 or 2.9? DBW or cable throttle? 

It's a 2.8l with a cable throttle. Engine was from a late corrado or early Passat. It has a coil pack instead of distributor, but the ECU I have is still OBD1.

I was thinking of just grabbing an O2j shift linkage, but then realized that it'll be facing backwards. I'm not sure that forcing the cables to have a 180 degree bend will work, so I'll need to do some thinking there. I'd really like to just drop in an O2j box since they're easy to find and are an upgrade over the original corrado linkage. If anyone has any thoughts on what to do here, I would be grateful.

I just grabbed all the accessories off ebay. It has been like 90 degrees in Seattle lately and the thought of doing the proper thing of rolling around in the dirt at the junkyard just isn't as appealing as sitting on my ass with a beer and summoning the parts over the world wide web. Hopefully no more cutting is required to mount those...I'm wary of the starter intersecting the frame.

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

How do you say Wookie in Italian? I completely approve. Carry on.

StripesSA1 said:

In reply to rozap :

Nice to see some German influences in an old Italian 2 seater. Is that the 2.8 or 2.9? DBW or cable throttle? 

The first narrow angle V engine with a single head was created by Lancia, so this combination was always meant to be.

Finally looked through the terrible footage from our last lemons race, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDAYn31moW4 You can see how the car can't accelerate up the hills. From the data, our terminal velocity was an absolutely staggering 69mph.

A bit more progress today. Finished tacking the mounts in and released the hoist, and the engine didn't drop out of the car, so this is a small victory. Started on the exhaust. The stock VR6 downpipe can be used, but I had to shorten it about 4 inches to make it clear the lower crossmember. I chopped the flanges off and hogged out the middles on the lathe, cut a few inches off the downpipe ends, and then welded them back up.

Such a cool swap! It may or may not be helpful to you, but for my X 1/9 Neon swap I chopped the shift arms on the transaxle and welded them 180 out to reverse the inputs from the shifter. Love all the room you've got topside. This should be a very exciting car to drive.

GoLucky said:

Such a cool swap! It may or may not be helpful to you, but for my X 1/9 Neon swap I chopped the shift arms on the transaxle and welded them 180 out to reverse the inputs from the shifter. Love all the room you've got topside. This should be a very exciting car to drive.

I read your whole thread, great job on that. Lots of great information that will help me out. I'm also thinking of putting a sleeve on the axles.

I'll look into modifying the shift arms, though the Neon shift mechanism looks a little less complicated than the VW one. There are, of course, plastic slidey components in play on this, so I'm not sure I'll be able to cut and weld. This guy tackled the same problem, though I don't totally understand how he modified the shift tower up front, maybe it would make sense to me if I was looking at the O2J tower.  https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/mid-vr6-mki-scirocco.2636625/page-19#post-87556532

If you mod the shift box to have the cables come out the back rather than the front, that should make the direction swap with no bends added to the cable path (pure speculation). I am switching my 02A to the 02J shifter box. Do you want and old 02A shifter box to rip apart? I will send it to you for the cost of shipping. What Corrado do you have, now?

Wow! Yea, I would love that. PM sent. Though I don't see where forum messages show up...looks like custom forum software. Maybe I get an email or something? Unsure.

I have a 1993 Corrado with a 2.9L. It has the unobtainium VSR intake. My old corrado was not as nice, but it ran well and was as reliable as a Corrado can be. I got it when I was 18 and it had 210k+ miles, and quite a few bumps and bruises. Then I got this one, since it was a 2 owner car and was in beautiful shape and been well maintained. It has been nothing but problems. Super high maintenance and there's always something wrong. Fun car though. Just goes to show that there is a lot of luck involved in an ownership experience.

matthewmcl said:

If you mod the shift box to have the cables come out the back rather than the front, that should make the direction swap with no bends added to the cable path (pure speculation). 

That won't work unless you also flip the shift linkage on the transmission 180 degrees. The easiest option is to mount the shift lever backwards with the cables coming out towards the rear of the car. That should allow you to use the stock transmission linkage.

bgkast said:

matthewmcl said:

If you mod the shift box to have the cables come out the back rather than the front, that should make the direction swap with no bends added to the cable path (pure speculation). 

That won't work unless you also flip the shift linkage on the transmission 180 degrees. The easiest option is to mount the shift lever backwards with the cables coming out towards the rear of the car. That should allow you to use the stock transmission linkage.

True, but I guess I was assuming flipping both ends so that there are no 180 degree cable turns. Otherwise the cables need to approach the tranny from the back of the car, which seems troublesome and prone to give a sloppy feel. Since the tranny shifts using two cables, a new bracket may not be too hard to fab.

Thanks for pointing out the problem; I should have listed my assumptions better.

Other team member here. Thanks for all your help and advice so far :-)

We discussed mounting it backwards but we're pretty concerned that muscle memory will take over in a race situation and we'll shift completely wrong and do bad things to the drivetrain so we're trying to avoid it.

In reply to matthewmcl :

I've spent way too much time thinking about this on my own mid engine swap. 

matthewmcl said:

bgkast said:

matthewmcl said:

If you mod the shift box to have the cables come out the back rather than the front, that should make the direction swap with no bends added to the cable path (pure speculation). 

That won't work unless you also flip the shift linkage on the transmission 180 degrees. The easiest option is to mount the shift lever backwards with the cables coming out towards the rear of the car. That should allow you to use the stock transmission linkage.

True, but I guess I was assuming flipping both ends so that there are no 180 degree cable turns. Otherwise the cables need to approach the tranny from the back of the car, which seems troublesome and prone to give a sloppy feel. Since the tranny shifts using two cables, a new bracket may not be too hard to fab.

Thanks for pointing out the problem; I should have listed my assumptions better.

Yea, I think it'll require some experimentation, but in my mind:

* To make it "work" sloppily, there are two 180* bends and super long cables, cables come out the front of the tower and enter the back of the transaxle, just like the stock VW setup.

* Mod the tower (or just flip it) to make cables come out the rear, you've eliminated one of the 180* bends, but now the cables' actions are backwards.

* In addition to the above, make a bracket on the transaxle to make the cables come in from the front, eliminating the last 180* bend, and flipping things again so the cable's actions are correct again. This seems ideal, and also has the shortest cables. In my brain it works. In reality, there will need to be some fiddling around.

In reply to rozap :

I’m not super familiar with the VW shifter specifics but don’t they have a “reverse lockout “ where you have to push down on the shifter to access the reverse gate as a part of the tower itself? If that’s the case it wouldn’t easily lend itself to being mounted facing aft. Might make sense to use something without an internal lockout. Or maybe that can be easily modded/eliminated? 

I looked at the shifter facing aft/ brackets to the front of the transaxle (a setup that does create the proper motions) but in my setup the cables had to both do some tight S bends. With the ample access through your firewall it may be the better option especially if the shift mechanism goes above the factory tunnel. 

Stoked to see what y’all come up with. 

Started considering the axles and exhaust tonight. What are the odds that a Fiat axle end is the same as the VW? I didn't feel that these odds were good, but I guess I'm lucky. They are centered properly, bolt right up, and they even use identical hardware. Now there's no need to source VW axles to have a VW end and a Fiat end, we can just change the length of the Fiat ones. The longer Fiat axle needs to become slightly shorter, and the short axle needs to become slightly longer. Current plan is just to sleeve them. They are already pretty stout.

Woah. The inner CVs bolting up just blew my mind a little. I'm on the Kitsap peninsula and know my way around an X1/9 and would love to lend a hand. Maybe I can crew at The Ridge in October? 

This CV Thing has my head spinning. Is there any possibility that the Fiat CVs would work un-modified if the drivetrain was mounted more toward the driver's side? I almost feel bad asking, but are the diff flanges the same or super close in width between the VW and Fiat? 

If the whole assembly was moved about an inch to the left, then the longer of the two axles would be the correct length. The issue is the clearance between the left side of the transaxle and the frame rails. I already had to notch the frame to make it fit, and will be reinforcing that notch, but I can't push it much farther. Even if it did work, we'd still have to make the shorter axle about 4 inches longer. On the right, there is just enough space to change the serpentine belt, so all is well there.

That's a good point about the flange widths. I haven't actually measured them, and I haven't looked to see if there is an off the shelf VW axle of the correct length. I've been out of town for work so no progress this week.

In reply to Mezzanine :

Yea, that'd be cool, if you want to stop by sometime for a beer and see the collection of $500 X1/9's, shoot me a PM. I'm actually a bit south, in the Lacey/Olympia area.

As for the build, not much to report as I've been consumed with work stuff for the last 2 weeks. The accessories arrived and the starter just fits in the space I was hoping it would fit in, so no more cutting. The stock alternator and tensioner also fit in the cavity that was for the spare tire. I'll need to find some weird serpentine belt size, because no power steering pump. I've cut an exhaust flange and ordered some sort-by-lowest-price exhaust components. We'll see what a $35 amazon muffler sounds like.

matthewmcl said:

 True, but I guess I was assuming flipping both ends so that there are no 180 degree cable turns. Otherwise the cables need to approach the tranny from the back of the car, which seems troublesome and prone to give a sloppy feel. Since the tranny shifts using two cables, a new bracket may not be too hard to fab.

Thanks for pointing out the problem; I should have listed my assumptions better.

The 180 degree turn at the back of the transmission is how I built the K20 X1/9 conversions, along with a shift linkage that I built in-shop.  No slop was introduced; the stick felt like it was directly moving the forks inside the transmission.  Do everything right, and it doesn't matter how long the cables are or where they have to go.  

I chose to bring the cables around the back because clearance on the front side of the transmission did not readily allow for the mechanism to exist there, especially considering that the Honda transmission's linkage was already biased toward the front. 

And please just build your own shift linkage.  That VW system isn't so great.  It's better than their goofy rod linkage system on the 020 transmissions, but it's still not great.  If you figure out what needs to push and pull when and build your own Heim jointed system and use good cables, you will love the result.

Wait the fiat CVs bolted to the VW flanges? Or the fiat splines fit the VW trans?

That is indredible either way!