After experiencing Sandown :), Winton ??? and Philip Island ;D sprint days in my road car, I am now looking for a track car so that I can return in something more suitable and push a bit harder. If you have a well sorted car that has a record of doing better than about 1:38 at Sandown or 2:05 at Phillip Island and would let it go for under $5000 please let me know. My preference is for a GTV, but a 105 or 75 would also be fine. I grew up with Alfas and have a passion for them, so rest assured your car would be going to a good home.
I can be contacted on john.toomath@nab.com.au or 0411 280 599
Hey John,
Good to hear the bug has well and truly bitten! Robin Doherty has the perfect candidate for sale, it is in the current club mag....he has $4500 on it, you should check it out.
Robin's car has been sold. Brian Canny has an excellent candidate for under $5000, a GTV with all the good bits and a roll cage, but it needs some assembly apparently. Sorry I don't have his contact details, but if you're interested, PM me I'll try and find them for you.
or you could buy my 90, and sort out the suspension and put in a Twin Spark gearbox for under $5000. It's doing 2.09 at PI now, with those mods it would easily get under 2.05. And then i 'll buy brian's car :)
Hmm, John, I seem to remember telling you before Sandown that you would be after a track car before long. it's highly addictive isn't it?
The kind of performance you are looking to achieve is not that difficult and everything you need is available off the shelf. You could:
Buy a std Alfetta GTV for around $2000
Add Koni yellows
Add torsion bars, sway bar, rear springs
Add R spec tires
Plus a bit of clean up work and fettling......
2:05's for well under $5000 and very little work!
And you are also well on the way to having a group s car as well!
A little bird tells me that Michael from Ital Motors is going to sell his well sorted and very fast Alfetta GTV early in the new year, no idea on the asking price though
Ooohh. who bought Doherty's GTV ???
Thanks for the enthusiastic responses guys. Robin's car was probably the perfect answer. I wonder if the purchaser has had second thoughts? (Hope, Hope!) Thanks for the other leads. I will follow them up.
I think my preference initially is to look for a completed car so that I can have a full year starting with the Winton training day in March. Unfortunately my mechanical skills, time and facilities are all lower than I'd like to enable me to experience the pride of building a weapon myself.
Sheldon, I knew you'd be in there with a generous offer of the 90 ;),hence the 2:05 requirement. Presumably the only mod really necessary to get down from the 2:09s is the addition of the flame stripes :).
Guys, please keep your ear to the ground for cars that may be out of circulation or need to go for someone to start their next project. Hopefully a car appears sometime soon that makes me smile everytime I look at it in the driveway and then gives me huge enjoyment chasing you on the track.
What about Marcus Hancocks old car....is he still looking to sell that?? I might try and get in touch with him for you.
Hanncock is turning it into a Grp S car for himself so he can stop running the Porsche
Just keep running the new GTV 3.0 24V !! We need more newer cars going round!
JimN~
Jim,
Seems they can also be modded to come in custard too!
http://www.lmaperformance.com/motorsport/racing_team/Soper_GTV_2007.jpg
A thing of beauty is a joy forever...
John,
If you are willing to move to a Sprint, I know that Bob Whitehouse in Brisbane would look at selling his "Stealth Bomber" sprint. This weapon is quicker than anything else in the Qld AROCA division and took out our championship again this year. It's a mean looking beast and goes like stink! This thing out-runs all our 105s, Alfettas and even hot 3 litres.
Regards,
Brent
There are pics of it somewhere on this site. Mighty mean car!
What's he going to do next then? A stealthier stealth bomber?
Well folks, I'm in. :) I have gone the route of starting with a cheap base car and building from there. A week ago I picked up a 250k 1987 75 2.5 V6 that had a pretty straight body and only minor rust. It has lived outside for a far chunk of its life so the paint and exterior plastic trims have suffered a lot. Not sure that the engine is very lively, but it will be fine for now. One day in the future a 3.0 164 engine may find its way in. :o
After a busy few dedicated days, it has had a cut and polish, repainted grill in body colour and I have made it down one side sanding back the pitted moulding strips and painting them in body colour. I have kept a log and have removed 90kg of weight from the interior. Second hand 16 inch wheels and R type tyres are waiting for some slight adjustment to the hubs and then its off for its Pace suspension makeover. :-*
Hopefully I will be ready for the MSCA driver training day, then the Winton Sprint on March 30. For those of you who don't know me, I'll be easy to recognise...I'll have the ear to ear grin! ;D
So, team Cheap Thrills Racing is born. Anyone wanting a 6 Hour rookie teammate?
...and then the obligatory baby photos...
As purchased...
(http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r176/myalfa/IMG00146.jpg)
After a clean and painting the side mouldings...
(http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r176/myalfa/IMG00207.jpg)
With repainted grill...
(http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r176/myalfa/IMG00208.jpg)
Congrats John, I'm sure you will have a lot of fun!
Nice one John, that'll be lots of fun.
What have you removed for the 90kg? It adds up pretty quickly doesn't it.
Great stuff John, 75's seem to be the go at our sprints of late. So super modified over 2L then? I know of a 3L 24V engine ready to bolt in if the budget will stretch (I was thinking of putting it into my 75, then reality set in!).
In terms of weight reductions the biggest items have been:
Aircon pump and radiator 14 kg
Spare Wheel 15 kg
Passenger Seat 15 kg
Door Cards 10 kg
Carpet 9 kg
Rear Seat Back 8 kg
Rear Seat Base 6 kg
Felt and tar from firewall 3 kg
Boot carpet and linings 6 kg
Stereo and speakers 5 kg
Jack and Wheel Brace 4 kg
I gather there is about 10 kg of tar-like sound deadening stuck to the shell if you can be bothered with the arduous task of chipping it off. I have heard that dry ice helps make it brittle but would welcome any techniques people have discovered to make its removal easier.
Offsetting this is the increase of 3.5 kg per wheel in moving up from 14 x 6s to 16 x 6.5s, which adds 14 kg.
The goal of 100 kg looks within reach, which represents approximately 8.5% of the starting weight. Now if the engine was producing anything like its original 110kW (which it isnt) the power to weight ratio would have improved from 10.6 kg per kW to 9.6 kg per kW. With the weight savings retained, a switch to a 12V 3.0 motor instantly gets you to 7.7 kg per kW, which produces a pretty quick machine in skilled hands. (Not mine at this stage) For comparison, a standard 156 GTA comes in at 7.9 kg per kW.
A 24V 3.0 would be wonderful (and continuing my datafest above gets you to 6.5 kg per kW !!!), but with it would need to come things like a LSD and bigger brakes, so not this year. Its a fantastic engine in my GTV, especially now that a couple of mufflers have been removed. Of course, in an exercise in value destruction I could always swap the 24V 3.0, brembos and wheels out of my GTV ! Would the rarity of a 12V 2.5 2001 GTV make it a collectors item?? I think not.
I know I'm gonna regret this, since it looks like we'll be in the same class this year, but you should check out this thread on the BB......http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/milano-75-1987-1989/27358-roxanne-budget-milano-75-track-car.html (http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/milano-75-1987-1989/27358-roxanne-budget-milano-75-track-car.html)
Oh yes , I know this well. It made pretty gripping reading for about the first 1,000 posts. It has been so tempting to name my car Roxanne II, but other than the colour and interior stripping, I cant even vaguely compare to the mechanical feats achieved in his garage on Roxanne.
Yeah, I love how it started out as a 'budget' race car!! Didn't stay that way for long. I guess it's all relative though.
Can't wait to see you out there in a car you're not (so) scared of scratching. Wasn't going to go to Winton in March, but I may have to now.....
John,
I chipped out 14kg of that hard black crap from teh interior of my 75 Twinspark. I actually took my time and did it whenever I had a spare half hour. I used a chisel and mostly just pushed it by hand. I then cleaned it up with a wire brush on my grinder. My brother then gave it a quick spray with red killrust and she's come up a treat - well, almost.
I'm even considering chipping away at the black tar under the car and then just giving it a spray with chassis black for rust protection.
If you don't need your rear electric windows, pull the motors, wiring and mechinism out and save a further 4kg. I adapted the existing bracket and bolted it in place to hold the window up.
I also ditched my power steering to save a bit of weight and a bit of power drain. Had to have the rack adapted slightly but it now feels great on the track.
You're definitely right about weight being the king when you don't have a lot of power.
Good luck with it.
Brent
To quote Jim Nielson
Aerodynamics is the poor sister of weight reduction
;D
Hi John,
I chipped the tar of my car with a screwdriver and hammer. I did the boot with a heat gun and paint scraper but the fumes were horrible even with a mask.
I'd wait till winter, or I did mine in the early mornings when it is hard and brittle and just hit a bit off at a time. I'm sure the dry ice would work really well to harden it and make it come off.
After I got it to the stage of the first photo (you can see the individual chips where they came off) I just use prep-sol or any old pre painting oil and grease remover and the bits that were left over just dissolved.
The second photo is the finished result.
Quote from: Phil Baskett on February 07, 2008, 11:21:29 AM
To quote Jim Nielson
Aerodynamics is the poor sister of weight reduction
;D
reducing weight = cheap horsepower
I have chipped black deadener crap from many cars, the best way is with a chisel and hammer trying to get right under it and break off large chunks at a time, the cooler and hence the more brittle the better. Clean up with wire brush on a grinder or drill. Maybe a little solvent to get the last little bit of residue off.
The Alfetta/GTV/75 etc based chassis's are heavy and there is lots of metal that can be cut out - depends how far you want to go. Cutting wheel, grinder and off you go. Inside doors, rear fire wall (between boot and cabin - cut out and then replace with ally), are all fair game. If you ever put in a roll cage then the intrusion bars inside the doors weigh a ton. Cut them out! And don't forget under bonnet and boot deadening. Also (maybe further down the track) removing the brake booster and all the crap that goes with it, and replacing with pedal box and twin masters also saves a heap plus gives better brake feel.
Go nuts!
probably a little late now, but it might be good for future reference. i got all the sound deadening crap out of an alfetta using what dad called the air chisel. dunno if thats the official name or not. its a chisel that vaguely resembles a jackhammer the size of your hand. like a rattle gun with a blade in the end of it that goes backwards and forwards rather than in circles. anyway took no time at all, it cuts about as fast as you can move your hand. definately a huge time and grief saver if you can get your hands on one.