New project. 1987 Lamborghini Jalpa. There's no easy way out.

tuna55 wrote: That crank looks chunky. How much does it weigh?

Chunky is accurate. It weighs more than one of the wheels on the car. I weighed myself this morning. 159lbs. Held the crank, stepped on the scale, 213lbs. 54lbs. Chunky is certainly accurate. The block weighs less than the crank by far lol.

jimbob_racing wrote: Wow. I'd never even consider pulling an engine from a Lambo much less disassemble one. It's way past my skill and comfort level. I'm eagerly following your build.

I think you'd be surprised at how simple the engine is once you get to the core of the motor. I was surprised once I got inside. I think the most intimidating factor is that if you mess something up on it, it costs a lot more to fix.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: I saw a red Jalpa parked on the side of Woodward Ave in Ferndale Mi (Just north of Detroit for the non locals) last night. First one I've ever seen in the wild. Unfortunately I was driving with two other cars following so couldn't stop and get a pic.

Nice! Spoiler or no spoiler? They aren't seen hardly ever.

corsepervita wrote:

tuna55 wrote: That crank looks chunky. How much does it weigh?

Chunky is accurate. It weighs more than one of the wheels on the car. I weighed myself this morning. 159lbs. Held the crank, stepped on the scale, 213lbs. 54lbs. Chunky is certainly accurate. The block weighs less than the crank by far lol.

jimbob_racing wrote: Wow. I'd never even consider pulling an engine from a Lambo much less disassemble one. It's way past my skill and comfort level. I'm eagerly following your build.

I think you'd be surprised at how simple the engine is once you get to the core of the motor. I was surprised once I got inside. I think the most intimidating factor is that if you mess something up on it, it costs a lot more to fix.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: I saw a red Jalpa parked on the side of Woodward Ave in Ferndale Mi (Just north of Detroit for the non locals) last night. First one I've ever seen in the wild. Unfortunately I was driving with two other cars following so couldn't stop and get a pic.

Nice! Spoiler or no spoiler? They aren't seen hardly ever.

I'll bet money that a really good machine shop could shave down those counterweights. They are blocky and large, make a old 60s chevy steel crank look like a work of art. What's the firing order? I'd also take some measurements. It's possible that you could machine a better piece into that block.

That's actually not incredibly heavy. I think it's really close to a small block chevy (350) crank. Granted that has a ton more stroke. Some gains are to be had. I also wonder about dragging those giant counterweights through the oil. Did have a windage tray or scraper at all?

cranks counterweights are allegedly designed to counter the piston/rod as rpms climb. Once you decided on pistons.. (and maybe rods???) you can then better determine what to do with that crank.

How much is the Lambo crank from Lambo? Might it be worthwhile to send it to a crank maker - say Marine Crankshaft and give them the specs, and see what they can come up with...

btw... heavier cranks aren't necessarily a problem... in the 4AGE world... the TRD cranks are nearly 2 kilos heavier then a gen 1 crank, and almost 1 kilo heavier then a gen 2 crank... when you are spinning an engine over 10k rpm you need a fair amount of counterweight even on a 420 gram rod and a 300 gram piston

Firing order is 1-5-4-8-7-2-6-3. Does have a windage tray, but no scraper.

corsepervita wrote: Firing order is 1-5-4-8-7-2-6-3. Does have a windage tray, but no scraper.

Neat, that's different. What's the cylinder numbering? Ford or normal style?

tuna55 wrote:

corsepervita wrote: Firing order is 1-5-4-8-7-2-6-3. Does have a windage tray, but no scraper.

Neat, that's different. What's the cylinder numbering? Ford or normal style?

Sorry I didn't respond sooner. Got busy.

I got the dash apart and am working on removing the last bit of the harness in the front of the car. I will get some pics here in a few.

I suck for slacking on this. The last week and a half I've been dealing with a sick cat. Raised the little guy from a bottle when he was abandoned as a kitten and he's super sick. Good news from the vet today.

On the topic of the car itself: The interior is totally stripped down at the moment and I'm down to the front wiring harness so I can finish that up. Pics to come sometime this week, I just haven't had the motivation to do much this week. Things are just crazy.

I have a meeting tomorrow at 9am with my machinist and this local head repair guy who does aluminum so we can discuss the details of fixing the pitting on the aluminum heads. I'm pretty excited about that. Took half a day off of work so I could go do that.

Had the meeting this morning. The welder looked at the heads and we went over with what needed to be done. He went, "Yeah I see what you're saying. Yeahhhhhhhhh. NOPE." and told us that essentially he does not have an oven and does not want to warp the heads, especially for how much they cost. He has a few recommended areas up near Portland, Oregon that he said can do the work though, and said they look better than new when they come back.

I'm waiting for my machinist to call them and work with them on this, it seems that the head rebuild will be delayed. At least I can work on the interior and wiring and bottom end in the mean time.

Kinda bummed, but he was very thorough in his explanation, and I appreciate his honesty in not taking it on due to not having the proper stuff to do it, than tell me it would be a piece of cake and ruin the heads.

corsepervita wrote: He has a few recommended areas up near Portland, Oregon that he said can do the work though, and said they look better than new when they come back. I'm waiting for my machinist to call them and work with them on this, it seems that the head rebuild will be delayed. At least I can work on the interior and wiring and bottom end in the mean time. Kinda bummed, but he was very thorough in his explanation, and I appreciate his honesty in not taking it on due to not having the proper stuff to do it, than tell me it would be a piece of cake and ruin the heads.

Portland here(along with a few other GRMers)... anything I can do? Any idea whom your machinist is planning on using??

oldeskewltoy wrote:

corsepervita wrote: He has a few recommended areas up near Portland, Oregon that he said can do the work though, and said they look better than new when they come back. I'm waiting for my machinist to call them and work with them on this, it seems that the head rebuild will be delayed. At least I can work on the interior and wiring and bottom end in the mean time. Kinda bummed, but he was very thorough in his explanation, and I appreciate his honesty in not taking it on due to not having the proper stuff to do it, than tell me it would be a piece of cake and ruin the heads.

Portland here(along with a few other GRMers)... anything I can do? Any idea whom your machinist is planning on using??

I got off the phone with M&B. He apparently has an inverter setup and says that he doesn't have to get the heads super hot and was not afraid of them. I'm going to send him photos later tonight (unless I don't have photos of the pitting, but I am 99% sure I have the pics he is wanting). I'll send it to him and see what he says, he didn't sound afraid to do it, more afraid to quote me since he didn't know what it would cost (has to be cheaper than new heads... sooooo)...

If you have any recommendations of good shops that absolutely know what they are doing with aluminum head repairs, I'm all ears. I'm willing to entertain places outside of PDX as well, but obviously local is more cost efficient.

my recommendation is find a shop with a LOT of experience doing water cooled VW heads

banzaitoyota wrote: my recommendation is find a shop with a LOT of experience doing water cooled VW heads

Been trying all morning. So far the only place that sounds comfortable with that stuff is this M&B place. He was telling me that they are working on some older audi stuff right now that needs serious repairs. So it sounds promising.

As a secondary.... you might give these guys a call as well

Eastco Automotive & Machining 1850 NW Burnside Rd, Gresham, OR 97030 (503) 666-6288

oldeskewltoy wrote: As a secondary.... you might give these guys a call as well Eastco Automotive & Machining 1850 NW Burnside Rd, Gresham, OR 97030 (503) 666-6288

Yeah, I called them earlier since someone told me they deal with race motors and exotics. They said they can do the rebuild, but not the welding.

Very cool my dad sold lamborghinis in the 80's I remember a white jalpa they had in the showroom always liked them.

We've got a very experienced cylinder head guy in Tacoma. He's all over multi-valve euro heads. 70% of his business is for the Alfa racing crowd. Downsides: not exactly close to you, and he's glacially slow. Upside: he does great work. Shoot me a message if you want more info. He's not really online at all.

I spoke to Ted @ Portland Engine Rebuilding, they - Portland Engine Rebuilding do not do it, BUT Ted, one of the owners does! He says he has welded/repaired a few vintage Lamborghini and Ferrari heads. Give him a call

800-829-1276, or 503-230-1276

corsepervita wrote:

tuna55 wrote:

corsepervita wrote: Firing order is 1-5-4-8-7-2-6-3. Does have a windage tray, but no scraper.

Neat, that's different. What's the cylinder numbering? Ford or normal style?

Sorry I didn't respond sooner. Got busy. I got the dash apart and am working on removing the last bit of the harness in the front of the car. I will get some pics here in a few.

So it's ford style numbering but doesn't match any of their firing orders that I recall. Neat.

Eriksson Industries can probably do a great job with your heads. They're in Old Saybrook, CT but I've seen miracles come out of this place. They're well known amongst the old SAAB crowd when they had porosity problems with their aluminum castings. I also saw them take a BMW head beaten all to hell from a co-spatial valve-piston event and make it virtually brand new. Give them a buzz at 1-800-388-4418.

Caveat: This was 25 years ago but they're still there and they list aluminum cylinder head welding as a specialty.

Jerry From LA wrote: Caveat: This was 25 years ago but they're still there and they list aluminum cylinder head welding as a specialty.

Awesome, thanks. I found a place called M&B that I've heard good things of, and gave them a call. Sent them an email, then haven't been able to get ahold of them after that. Will try again today, and will also touch base with the place you mentioned. I really don't mind shipping them, if it means it'll be done right.

Haven't fallen off the planet (feels like it though these last few weeks).

I undertook refreshing the steering wheel column a few weeks ago. I cleaned out the old bearings and they felt "OKAY" after repacking. But really, I figured, "I'm already down this far, I may as well just go the full run." Hopped on Ebay and hunted down bearings.

Bearings came for the steering wheel column. Turns out they are a standard NGK bearing 16004. Not expensive (unless you order from a dealer at $30/ea, or $6.95 for NOS on ebay). The issue I'm running into is that there is some corrosion on the turn signal stalk, so I'm trying to clean that off without being intrusive. The stalk is NLA from Lamborghini and I have called 3 dealers, no one has them in stock, and no one can get them. The switches in the dash all look good and I'm cleaning those up while I'm at it. Believe it or not, most of them pop apart with a simple tiny pick and something small like an eye glasses screwdriver. The innards are just dirty.

The coating on the steering column is flaking off. I'm not sure if it's actually factory, or if someone painted it at some point in time. I'm toying with the idea of getting the outside of mine powdercoated. I'd like to know what the finish is like on other Jalpas, I put the feelers out to a few other Jalpa owners to see if someone could shoot me a photo of theirs.

The dash is completely disassembled so I can clean everything up. It had to come out to get to the front portion of the wiring harness, so I figured, "Eh, while I'm down there I may as well." Pretty sure I have the cleanest Jalpa dash around at the moment.

The only "dirty" part is the factory glue on the back from the leather work (can sort of see that in the picture)

The rest of the disassembled dash, also cleaned next to it.

Time to detail the heater vents, re-assemble, and I'll have a new looking dash. Nothing like italian leather, it's gorgeous.

Sometime this week I will likely be making a road trip to Portland to get the heads dropped off for final repairs and then hopefully I can FINALLY get the rest of this engine built. As things get detailed and refinished, the car is finally starting to feel more and more like progress. I suppose restoring a car like this is certainly not an overnight adventure. Hard to be patient sometimes, but seeing progress feels good, and makes it feel like a successful venture.

Also, I got the headlights up so I can remove them (only way I can see to get to the wiring harness up there). Probably the first time the lights have seen the light of day in ages.

I've had a few steering column powder coated. There's a few options when doing it. Level of gloss, and texture would be what I tried to match in your case. My bet is the original coating was a satin smooth finish.

If it wasn't, id probably still do it that way, as it looks good beside leather and is easier to keep clean.

The cylinder heads are dropped off. Made a day trip to portland yesterday. The machine shop was clean, had great machinery and the guy definitely knows his stuff. I was able to leave them with confidence knowing they'd get done right.

Going to keep working on the interior this weekend, more pics to come. Made some huge improvements and it cleaned up great. Can't actually put it back together till I get the wiring sorted (dash has to come out to do any of that wiring in the first place). All in good time.

Great news!