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....
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