My New Track Hack: Project Alfa

[Oblivion]

3.7 370Z V6 or you've had man around your mouth too much.

Keep up the work, Can't wait to see this wipe the floor with Colon's 31.

[Smity42]

OK, I've had my fun, here 'tis:

And for Colin:

Need pics of the 11ty cats on the engine when you get it lol

No wait, that isn't right .

I only got 1 cat each side, the ones on the headers:

I think it has 5/6/7 cats in total, but the rest are further downstream in the exhaust system.

Unfortunately because the exhaust collects straight into a cat those headers are no good to me, so I guess its going to have to be custom headers (oh no, how sad)

It is the same engine as one of these:

But mine is not out of a GTA so it doesn't get the "GTA 3.2" stamp on the plenum

Also. the pallet had a mysterious white powder on one corner when I picked it up:

Dan tried it, he said it wasn't any good:

[Smity42]

Stand: (and deliver)

Pulled the passenger side exhaust manifold off, the studs for the RWD engine mounts are still there :

Drivers side looks like it is there too, but the heat exchanger for the oil filter is in the way:

Removed the starter and alternator for a better look:

Yep, that heat exchanger is going to have to go:

So, we have something to bolt an engine mounts to on both sides , although the drivers side will need some shorter studs:

Now I need to figure out a way to bolt an oil filter relocator on to that position. There is no thread in that hole in the block

The sump will need to be modified to clear the crossmember. It needs to be cut something like this:

The crank angle sensor falls in the bit to be cut, so it needs to be moved over to the other side of the flywheel. Fortunately this is possible, since there is no need for a clutch at this end of the car

Other headf**ks to solve include:

Throttle body (needs to move to the side of the plenum and not be electronic)

Alternator needs to go to the other side of the engine (so the tensioner still works without A/C and P/S)

And I'm sure many many more...

Oh, I also broke an exhaust stud Will try and get that out tomorrow.

[SABBAi]

Nice start McFly. It's coming along nicely.

[Ten Four]

So so cool

[Smity42]

This bastard stud is still stuck:

As an added bonus, it now has a stud extractor snapped off in it . I'll call a pro out to remove it sometime during the week, I'm over it.

Removed the thermostat housing thingo:

The two bigger fittings can be screwed out and replaced with bungs, then at the other end of the head bungs in the same place get removed and replaced with fittings. This allows the RWD spec thermostat housing to be used (with some mods). The smaller fitting is a heater hose, I'm not sure what to do about that one yet, might just bung it up.

Removed the inlet so I could remove all the loom:

It's an ugly beast with the top covers removed. My next job is to work out the wiring of the loom so I can start to work out how to wire in a haltech. It's a really tidy loom setup though, shouldnt be too much of a problem.

Dan had a look with his borescope too (I think he just wanted an excuse to play with it) and declared it was all good.

Spark plugs looked like they had never been changed though, never mind, I planned on doing that anyway.

It also looks like an RB spec oil filter relocator will almost certainly work, if I can work out a way to get a suitable fitting into that unthreaded center hole in the block. I might even crim the trust setup off the coupe...

Finally made my new seat rail linkages too:

They seem to work well. Only time will tell if they stand up to some abuse.

[Smity42]

Well after another trip to trade tools to waste more money on tools (inner hex bits, and a decent set of vernier calipers which I have wanted for ages), I managed to remove both the large coolant gallery fittings:

I'll fit the bungs from the other end of the heads in their place, once I get access to them (cam belt has to come off).

I'm not sold on what to do with the other fitting. Its for the heater hose, and the other end of the heater box goes to the bottom radiator hose. I can either:

a) run a hose to the bottom rad hose

b) put a bung in instead of that fitting

Option a) would work just like a factory system with the heater core bypassed, but means running a hose the length of the engine, which is annoying and messy. Option b) would be neater and simpler, but I'm worried about affecting the coolant flow for anything cooled by that gallery. Thoughts?

I also used my new verniers to measure that oil filter hole. It is, near as makes no difference, 18mm. I stole a fitting from an RB30 block, it has a M18x1.5 thread to screw into the block. I am hoping that while he is out here the thread repair guy can either helicoil the hole to that thread, or failing that tap it to a 3/4 UNF thread. I will then dodgy up a -8 AN male-male adapter to allow a relocator block to screw on.

[Ashy Larry]

Nice Work Marty

Oh and I am jumping on the McFly bandwagon!

[Smity42]

Oh and I am jumping on the McFly bandwagon!

Hate you guys...

[Smity42]

Well the alfa nuts reckon it is OK to block off that heater hose port, and it has been done before without issue so removed the fitting:

And a quick trip to pirtek to get a plug for it:

While I was at it I gave the cooling system a good flush (well as good as I could with the engine on a stand). Lots of brown water came out, I will make sure to give it another good flush with an additive once its in the car and running.

Then I removed the thingo off the top of the water pump:

The thermostat housing from the 75 needs to bolt there instead to convert the engine back to RWD styles. Unfortunately, the bolt patterns don't line up:

I thought at least 3 of the 4 were the same but as it turns out, not quite:

Should be able to get 3 done by enlargening the holes, the 4th might be a bit of a prick

[Smity42]

Thread repair guy has just been, sorted out that stud good and proper:

He tried a bunch of tools to unwind it, eventually it just snapped off. Then he drilled/grinded the remainder of the stud out of the hole and cleaned up the thread with a tap. Didn't even need to helicoil it or anything. Seriously impressive.

On the downside, he said he couldn't do anything with the oil filter hole without getting filings in the block . I also wanted him to timesert it rather than helicoil it (better for creating a seal) and while he said he could on the phone, he didn't have any M18 ones when he got here. So I told him not to worry about it. I'll have to pull the sump off and check if I'll be able to clean it out after tapping it, if I can I should be able to do it myself.

[zebra]

Looking very nice! i love the look of the Alfa V6s, get the cam covers powder coated or polished and It will look shmick

[Smity42]

Sump off. Oil pickup is... epic.

So, looking at the block, it looks like the oil gallery runs like so:

and to another plug at the front:

I was hoping with the sump off I could get in at the back by going up the blue gallery, but unfortunately that is blocked off:

So I removed the plug from the side of the red gallery to get a better look at that side:

Annoyingly, that fitting is an M18 thread, which is exaclty what I would like the other one to be . I could put a M18 to AN adapter there, but then I would still need a way to block off the other hole and convert the 'outer' section to an AN fitting...

It seems that is a 4 way intersection with another gallery running up at about a 45deg angle into the block:

So I am a bit stuck for ideas. None of these seem to give me easy access to flush out any fillings that result from tapping that hole in the block .

Options I am considering are:

a) hacking up the heat exchanger with an angle grinder to remove all the stuff that gets in the way of the engine mount, and getting it welded back up with 2 -10 AN fittings. Would probably not look all that pretty, but it won't be that visible anyway

b) turn the engine on the stand so that that hole is pointing down, and tap it with the tap filled with grease, and hope that any filings either get caught in the grease or fall down and out.

c) try to make a plate of some sort that bolts on and blocks that middle hole, and converts the 'outer' section to an AN fitting, then screwing another AN fitting in place of that M18 plug.

d) / wrists

e) other ideas?

[TiTAN]

i like option a, failing that option d

[Ashy Larry]

initiate steps D & E

Take a warm bath and call me in the morning!

[Smity42]

This afternoon's progress, minor though it may be:

Fixed the door handle on my XF for about the 17th time

Then cut some more thread on these epic long studs:

And then cut them down:

I decided to use a dremel for this job instead of the angle grinder (yes soft I know).

Got another mobile thread guy coming tomorrow who said he can tap that oil filter hole and keep all the filings out

[Smity42]

Mobile thread dude has been, hole is now threaded to 3/4 UNF:

He did a real pro job, shoved rags up both galleries to block filings, and used a square every qtr turn or so when starting it to make sure the tap was going in straight.

Here's hoping theres no sneaking filings in there. Shouldn't be.

Cut the M18 half of my nissan fitting off, so I was just left with the 3/4 section. Wound it in about 1/3 of the way with loctite:

Will see how well that holds when the loctite sets. If its not good enough, I'll have to either grab another nissan fitting and put it in backwards (therefore requiring an M18 relocator plate) or get a 3/4 UNF male-male fitting with a positive locator (ie a nut in the middle)

[Smity42]

Oil filter success:

Screwed filters on and off a number of times and the loctite seems to be holding the fitting in place well . Also o ring seems to be sealing around the whole edge so the fitting should be straight. And yes, that is an RB oil filter

[Beelzebub89]

very nice mang.

[75coupe]

That is cool...

What colour loctite did you use?