Hi all,
An Alfisti friend (who wants to remain anonymous until it is finished) sent me a pic of his latest engine transplant project.
Cheers
Looks good to me! can't wait to see it finished.
by the looks of that front crank puley im presuming its a 2.5?
I almost took this on (actually an imported 24 valve 3.0lt engine) but was told not to bother.
I thought to check with Vic Roads first. They put me onto their preferred Engineer, who told me it's not worth the cost. If the car didn't come with a V6 then it would cost many thousands in compliance and maybe even then he may not allow it, if he feels the car is not capable of talking the power.
I thought not to risk it in the end.
Sam
Sam
What right does anyone, apart from the owner of the vehicle in question, to make a judgement on whether any project is worth the cost. What has cost/value got to do with anyone except the owner of the vehicle involved in the project. I would be tempted to find another engineer. After my experience with VicRoad's so-called approved engineers I came to the conclusion that some of them do whatever they can to justify their existence. When I had to find one of these engineers a few years back I tried to contact one that VicRoads recommended and discovered that he had not been at that address for 6 years.
Barry
When I bought my first Alfa in 1991 I took it to an approved RACQ inspection station and the mechanic there told me that if I bought an Alfa Romeo I may as well take my $4000 and "throw it off a cliff". He told me that I was nuts to buy an Alfa and that I should go and look for a used Ford Laser instead!
I have a habit of getting into things that aren't strictly worthwhile if you start counting hours and dollars. I call it character building!
Shame about the Laser hammer, you missed out on something big there. Just imagine, you could have been president of the Laser club by now :)
Hi Barry,
Yes I agree the value vs. cost is up to the owner.
The engineer gave me an indicative figure of a 'few grand".
He was non committal, so I guess that price could turn out to be anything once I was 'locked in' to his services.
Given that I was doing all the work and he only had to approve it, I thought it was a bit much.
Vic roads only approve of a handful of these engineers, so there isn't much competition between them.
I don't know if it's mandatory to use a VR approved one or not, be interested to fine out.
Bottom line, if the engine has a larger displacement then the original one, it will need an engineer's report.
I was hoping to hear of a more sympathetic engineer, does Victor's friend found one?.
I presume he is aware an enginer is needed.
hi i know this is prob to late but a friend of mine got his reg as a 2ltr then changed it to 2.5 v6 after a couple of years he went in and said he blew the motor and put another in they did not inspect it he just gave them the eng no
this may work again the other way is do not tell them
Hi Dahine,
In my case the car was not registered at the time.
I would have had to take it to VicRoads to register and get the car on the road.
I'm sure they would have picked it then.
BTW, don't you think your friend is taking a risk?
What happens if he wants to sell the car?
Doesn't the Rego sticker mention the engine displacement? What if a cop pulls him over?
Sam
he has had it that way for years now the cops where i live dont know where the engine numbers are so you dont tell them if he gets caught they will only put a canary on the car and he will have to get it done then i toldhim if that happens just race it
Hope he has told his insurer about the minor change as he wouldn't be covered for himself or more importantly the damage he does. Just because the roads corporation mucks up or doesn't check it doesn't mean that you are covered in the event of an accident and in fact this is where most people come un-stuck causing a great deal of pain, sometimes many years after you've got one over the authorities.
1750GT
no where does it say this car is intended for the road- there is a lot of wild assumptions here. Maybe the owner enjoys fiddling and is going to have a fun track car? Who knows.
Mat, last few messages were about Dehne's friend. The car we are reffering to is on the road :-)
Thanks Sam, glad someone is keeping up. On reflection I was getting a bit serious so I can see the point mat was trying to make, but only out of concern. From your earlier comment I presume you were talking about converting a 2lt to a V6? With the cost of 2.5's versus 2lt's (sometimes the 2lt present with higher prices because there more likely not to have been mucked with and many of them have been driven as a family car and looked after), I reckon your better off just buying the 2.5 and I would have thought that the jump from a 2.5lt to 3lt wouldn't be so much of a problem? if done legally.
1750GT
my mistake, i think i follow now.
Yes, I actually had the chance of getting a very good, Quad Cam 3.0ltr from UK, landed here for just over $2K. I thought it would go well in my Alfetta GTV
I guess it was just a pipe dream.
Once I considered all the other expenses, including the Vic Road engineers cost, etc, etc, etc ....
I settled for a Twin Spark motor instead.
The engineer said there it would be much easier going from 2.5ltr-V6 to 3.0ltr-V6, but going from 4 to 6 cylinder engine was the problem.
If I had a GTV6 to start with – probably wouldn't be a such a problem.
Anyway, I was just trying to make people aware of this before someone goes down the path and finds out they can't get the car registered, or that they need to spend more than they thought. (Assuming they want to get it registered)
Spot on Sam and in any event shoving a bigger cylinder engine into a car is always an issue. The other thing that people don't realise unless they undertake a careful conversion of the whole car is that invariably like most manufacturers including Alfa, the four cylinder spec model model wont have the right weight bearing frame, cross members, torsional rigidity, bakes package, springs etc. etc. of the six model, so unless your doing a "whole of car" conversion, your always going to have issues, that's probably why the engineers won't even look at a car unless it's been properly engineered all over, especially if it's going to be registered.
1750GT