Scrapheap Challenge - Yet another Alfa

[yoda]

What a great project and fabulous progress!

[911hillclimber]

Well done on the engine.
I suggested it way back, but was not aware of the obstacles involved, but they do sound and look great. Daughter's friend had a V6 GTV and she terrified me once on a 'demo-run'.
Her nick name by me is Danger Zone.

Great progress and reports!

[Lightweight_911]

If you know Busso V6 engines you might be able to tell this is a very rare engine, and just what you need for a 105 conversion, absolute bargain. Brownie points for anyone who knows what car this came from. Triple points if you have seen one in the flesh.

That looks like the 2.5 litre V6 from an early (late '70's/early 80's) Alfa 6 ...

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[alfacat]

The Cam covers look a little too 'plain' for a 75, I'm trying to remember what the 2.5L V6 in my old 'Green' Cloverleaf looked like!
I think it's from an earlier car (than my 75) so I'm with Andy on this. Is it from an Alfa 6?


All the Best

Ian F.

[knapmann]

If you know Busso V6 engines you might be able to tell this is a very rare engine, and just what you need for a 105 conversion, absolute bargain. Brownie points for anyone who knows what car this came from. Triple points if you have seen one in the flesh.

That looks like the 2.5 litre V6 from an early (late '70's/early 80's) Alfa 6 ...

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Well Done Andy! Im surprised anyone has got that right!

[knapmann]

So yes. Fate had it that I had stumbled upon an early Alfa 6 engine. These land-barge Alfas were the first to receive the Busso V6 engine in 1979. They were incredibly unsuccessful, with hardly any global sales outside of italy, they were never offered in the US for starters, and only 128 sold in the UK of which 2, yes 2!, survive. For the record I would love to own an Alfa 6 just for these reasons!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/classi ... -two-left/

Why is this so important for a 105 conversion? Well...

1) The sump and the oil pump. This Alfa 6 variant of the Busso engine is the only version to have a sump (& therefor oil pump) that will fit forward of the 105 front subframe cross member in the stock location. Without these, your only option is to either cut out and fabricate a complete new subframe crossmember and use the later sumps, or fabricate a bespoke sump with modified/fabricated oil pump. Both of which involve huge expense and difficulty.

2) The early Alfa 6 engines were downdraft carburrated with different intake castings of the heads than the FI engines (which make up 99% of them). The flanges are flat and parrallel which for me means making an intake manifold much more easy. In case you are wondering.... my engine was missing the factory carbs which are also very rare, however they are far to tall to use in this application anyway, so this didnt matter to me.



3) The final reason why these are holy grail engines (which doesnt really apply to me) is that they can come with a manual 5 speed gear box attached which was only fitted to the Alfa 6. These gearboxes are even rarer than the engines - as a lot of the sales of Alfa 6 were autos. For most people these gearboxes are essential for putting a Busso into anything, because they are the only longitudinal gearbox that bolts up directly to the V6 engine that Alfa ever made. ALL other Busso powered cars were either FWD transverse, or Rear Transaxle arrangements, neither of which can be used for retrofitting into anything. These gearboxes are like hens teeth.

Now my engine didnt come with a gearbox, it was from an auto car anyway... but even if it had there are some issues... the gearbox is massive and heavy, you need to chop the transmission tunnel to bits to get it to fit and you are adding a lot more weight to already extra weight. Further to this the gearbox is long, a lot longer than the std 105 gearbox which I believe is one of, if not the smallest/shortest 5 speed box ever made, this length means the shifter moves back a good way. Now there are a number of people who make do with this move of the shifter position, but they are putting it in a coupe/spider i.e. a 2 seater car, in these the seats are further back and the change is less noticeable. In a 4 door/seater like mine you can tell everything in the cabin is squeezed forwards, so moving the shifter back is made much worse. Finally any movement in the shifter position would need solutions around the elaborate centre console/shifter gaiter arrangement that the 105 series of cars had. So all in all, 1) I didnt have a Alfa 6 gearbox, 2) there is no way I will ever be able to get hold of one, 3) even if I did it comes with lots of drawbacks.

So I have solved the sump/oil pump issue, I have a solution in my head for the intake issue, it was becoming clear to me that the only solution for the gearbox is to get a the stock 105 gearbox joined to this V6 engine somehow. That would solve all of the issues of the weight, the tunnel, the shift position, gearbox mounts, speedo cable etc etc etc..... Naturally the first thing you do is chuck them together and see how different they are, and the fact the V6 flywheel is too big to even fit inside the 105 gearbox bellhousing is not a good start.

Maybe I can use a flywheel off something else... except that would cause startermotor problems.... and V6 flywheels are counterbalanced especially for the engines and cannot be swapped for anything else...

At this point I was starting to see why no one does V6 conversions....

[DustyM]

Enjoying this


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[911hillclimber]

That is a big list of issues to install the engine, and no matter what box, the flywheel area sounds difficult.
This will take some thinking about, but you can do that while the welds cool down.

You probably now have us all trying to think of a reasonable solution!

[Gary71]

944 transaxle.

Hide it under the boot floor.
Sorted.

(I know it’s not that easy )

[misteralz]

Nah, forget the Busso idea and fling a VR6 in there, bolted up to an Amarok gearbox.

[knapmann]

VR6 sounds interesting, maybe I will do that in another project one day! I foolishly like to keep my engine swaps brand matching, even though a swap is still a swap...

On bad weather days I set about making my inlet manifold

First I made the base flange plate.



Then the carb flange plate.



Then I cut up some pipe with some angles



Tacked it all together



Welded it all together properly





Test fit - now I know that these arent going to be the best flowing manifolds ever as the angles are quite tight, obviously this is necessitated by having to keep the carbs as low as possible, I still think this ITB setup would be better than a factory EFI single TB system. I think it will do for now. I still have in my mind the thought of getting something CAD drawn and tested in 3D print. Then finally CNC machined. As each carb has its own little manifold it would only need a single one of the three drawing and then replicating three times. Unfortunately I dont have CAD, or the skills to use it, and I dont have a 3D printer etc, I would have to pay someone to design and 3D print it before then paying someone else to CNC machine 3 of them. I think this would end up very expensive... maybe one day I might be able to get hold of CAD and learn how to use it, and then try and beg some access to 3D printers off people I know who has them. If I can get an accurate drawing maybe the machining cost alone, while expensive, wont be horrendous.




Another indoor project I could tackle was making a new fuel tank support frame, as part of rebuilding my boot floor, the boot floor is basically just flat metal except for this area... so if I could make a new frame from scratch I could save the £320 cost of a repro boot floor panel.









All welded together and ready to be fitted.

[sladey]

Nice work

[911hillclimber]

That is a lot of very hard work, esp the manifolds getting it all to fit, bolts to line up etc.
Good going indeed.

[Bruce M]

That looks a relatively simple part to draw in CAD, although very tight angles to machine. If you can message me a drawing & measurements I can see if I can do the CAD. You could see if tight radius schedule elbows could be used to soften the curves

[knapmann]

That looks a relatively simple part to draw in CAD, although very tight angles to machine. If you can message me a drawing & measurements I can see if I can do the CAD. You could see if tight radius schedule elbows could be used to soften the curves

Hi Bruce, thanks for the offer I've thought about this in the past. I think really I need to give the engine block and heads to someone who can measure everything, draw it, print a test piece etc also maybe someone who knows what is possible to machine, as theres no point in creating a drawing that is then un-machineable so to speak. I have wondered if its possible to actually use a 3D printed manifold on the car, many intake manifolds on cars are plastic nowadays after all, albeit not 3D printed. Im not sure if this would be possible, it would have to be resistant to petrol and to heat etc, as having looked into it more I think ultimately machining billet parts or getting a custom casting made could be too expensive