turbo124.com

I'm going to keep it pretty close to the same colour. I think it suits it...and if i did it a flasher colour people might be expecting it to go fast

124 vs the 131! Bring it on! cant wait

haha yeah it will be interesting. Should be fun finding out which is quicker

Hi Nick
did you have to do any special mods to fit the 131 g/box?.

Hi Brett, I had to modify the tunnel for clearance and shorten the input shaft fractionally. Its shown back on page 2

A couple of pics of the body progress. It looks like it will be done in a week or two and I can start putting it together properly

Painting complete....

Dude that looks mint! well done.

Looks great! Shiny as new..
It seems to sit a litte high and the wheels are very big, any plans there?
Dunno if You seen my post about engine bay bars in Suspension, might something for you too maybe?

Per

Cheers guys. Favourable comments will lighten the pain of paying for the paintjob
Yeah I saw your post about the braces. Its a good idea for sure but too late for me on this one. Things got a bit tight under the bonnet and its only going to be a road car.
Re height; i'm confident it will come down a lot when all the weight is back in the car but will get some new springs if necessary. (has coupe ones at present and 125 hubs have lowered front further).
The wheels were some I had lying around are were going to be a temporary measure but i don't know. They are growing on me...

Congrats Nick!
It looks fantastic and should go to match.

Going through some old posts you have/had some very interesting Fiats!!!
Do you have a list of all the Fiat's you've had and the mods done? I reckon it would make very interesting reading.

orange looks awesome mate, good stuff

Haha yeah, i've always thought it was orange. The paint tin label said "rusty brown match"!! It seems to be a popular colour on here at the moment.
Youngy: The only really modded cars i have are this, the v6 131 and the 850 twincam. I'm currently building another 850 twincam and have a long term 128 sedan project (mid mounted lancia 1800) that i hope to make some headway on again shortly..

Didn't you also have a turbo/supercharged 131? Still quite an interesting list!

Yeah i did have that car but very briefly. Have sold the engine to a guy who is putting it in a 131R.
I've made some progress on the 124 but got sidetracked with the engine swap in the 20VT (NOT a five minute job!!)
Most of trim is back on, glass in etc and its running again. It seems to have plenty of go Hopefully will have some back together pics and decent road test report in a few weeks

Nice one nick.
the 131 gearbox into my niva proved to be a pain just trying to get an adaptor made to suit the output shaft to the transfer case, even worse was the bearing noises coming from the 131 box in third,forth and fifth and it looks like the balance of the three finger bolt on yoke is not good causing it to wobble.
Nice conversion but you cant be having Lada bits in your build hehe.

That looks sinsational!

Cheers guys. Here's a few current pics. Reassembly is proving to be reasonably slow going, mainly due to the car being taken apart so long ago i have misplaced a lot of small bits. After finally locating the front indicators I tried putting them in today only to find i have two right hand ones and no left hand
On the plus side i did a few miles in it today without anything breaking and it goes sweet, so will venture further afield to the exhaust and wheel alignmnent shops in the next couple of weeks.

Whats your plan with the "1400" badge on the back?

its a sleeper

This is all good and well...but I see no skid pics yet...

What does it drive like Nick?.

Need some action shots....... photos/videos.
Looks mean

yeah, i like the 1400 badge on the boot
I'll definitely organise some video when its finished. Hopefully at the next track day.
I haven't driven it all that far or all that aggressively yet (only a couple of small curiosity driven losses of traction ) but initial impressions are good. It has quite smooth power delivery and is very driveable. Mid range acceleration is real good and its surprisingly grunty off boost. I do get the impression its maybe not as strong as it should be at high rpm but i think i'll reserve judgement on that until it has a proper exhaust system.

The power should run out at about 5500rpm. Still on standard boost I assume?

That sounds like what it is doing. The turbo is set up as it was in the Croma. I was curious and hooked up a cheap boost gauge to check boost and it seems to be about 7-8psi. Is that about right? The turbo is by no means new so maybe it has lost a bit.

well nick if i am not wrong 7/8 psi is factory standard boost i think. considering its a used turbo it should smoke white from exhaust if it is in bad condition. check aswell the turbine shaft for exessive play.

cheers & good luck

7-8psi (0.52bar) is standard for a Croma. Lancia's have the overboost circuit which gives a bit more. You could increase boost to 1 bar if you like for more go. I would be interested to know if you have the same boost spike problems as I do. The only difference is the exhaust manifold.

Yeah, i think i'll get one of those adjustable bleed valves and experiment with the boost a bit.
The car is pretty much done now with just a few minor things to do before it can be registered, so i think i'll wait till after its legal

Nice build Nick well done.

Nice build Nick well done.

'Cause I'm french, I'm not sure that I understood everything.
Do yo mean that it wil be a Street Legal Car (Rocket ) ???
In France, it's absolutely impossible !
Any minor upgrade is forbidden (mechanical parts, etc) and, in case of damage, Insurance will be out and against the "Terrorist Driver"

Yes he means it will be street legal. It always amazes me though, (in this country) some people are concerned about the safety of modified vehicles, japanese imports in particular, and have changed laws/want to change laws further. Yet they would not bat an eyelid at the 60 year old driving his big block v8 T-bucket down the road with no roof, no brakes (to speak of) etc. Not that I want it to change, I love seeing stuff like that driving around

In Germany it is possible ...a engineer check if all conversions/upgrades are okay.
But i dont know its possible for you to buy one of this cars here in Germany (with german papers) drive them over to France and bring it there to registration ???

i'd be moving!

Agreed.

The Croma T too had a small overboost function, for 10seconds or so. A magazine here when new tested it to 165hp.
That turbo had a VERY small turbolag for it's time due to it's small size. This also mean it runs out of puff quite early, nothing strange about that.

If you're considering PRV/PBV I'd suggest you check the fuelling first so you don't melt any pistons..

Great to see this up&running anyhow!

Cheers for the positive comments guys. Yes it is going to be road legal. The certification tag for the modifications is supposed to show up in the next few days after which I can register it again.
Unfortunately the motor is sitting on the shed floor after a little bit of a meltdown at a trackday yesterday....
I think there was an airlock in the cooling system leading to the bottom end overheating in a short time. Cruddy sump design and general old age of bottom end (250000km) wouldn't of helped either. Temperature gauge (off sender in head) read normal and first warning of trouble was rattle and power loss
The sump is full of bits of big end bearings and the crank is stuffed but the block will be salvageable i hope.
I took the opportunity to take a pic of the oil squirters for whoever it was that asked
I also noticed an unrelated problem that had solved itself with surprising little damage. The piston recess is not symettrical and i had not noticed and neglected to rotate them 180 degrees. The inlet valves had been skimming the pistons and made their own recesses!
So now it is rebuild time. Not too big of a deal as i was planning to freshen it up anyway. Will rebuild with another crank and pistons, overhaul turbo, put some wings on the sump and fine tune the coolant plumbing a bit. Will try and get the turbo oil drain a bit further from the oil pump pickup for good measure too. Oh and fit an oil pressure and oil temperature gauge!!!

You must have cranked it to have the engine out and in bits by now!

Bad luck Nick. Im surprised the valves touched the pistons with the huge dish like they have, and with turbo cams. Do you mean the piston crown is not symetrical exhaust side to inlet? Maybe using the old head with the chamber spacing issue is the cause?

It sounds like it went like my Tipo. Overheating a little, coolant at 110, oil at 100. No big deal, i'll cruise down the road to cool it down, it didn't cool down. Then I noticed a little knock and a lack of power. Oil temp jumped to 120 odd in a few seconds. game over.