Chatter at 2500 rpm

Wasn't the bracket, though removing it has narrowed down the area of the noise and the RPM range, the noise is now a pronounced rythmn, and only between 2600 and 2700 rpm, it's top end and I suspect cylinder 2, compression test has been carried out and #2 stood out by a long nose. Will discuss tomorrow, but we need that head gasket, I suspect an inlet valve and the smoke is back when held in this rpm range.

Hi Alex , got the gasket, any more news on the engine, Ian is following this thread by the way, it is a bit of a baffle, will be in touch.

Coool, the heads off and I'm draining the intake manifold of the lake of oil that was sat inside it (that's the smoke then) it looks like it was indeed coming from the variator solenoid, haven't had time to do the strip yet as I couldn't get going on the job till the thunder stoped (didn't want the fuel lines open in that), all the cylinders are pretty coked up as you'd expect with that much oil in the air side, tomorrow I'll get the valvesout and start measuring things, #2 does have a burnt exhaust valve so that explains the compression results, didn't realise it was so late when I got started (9 PM) but it was all done by midnight, then I grabbed myself a beer (or 6).

Found the cause of the smoke.

What happened there bud?

I think its the seals at the phase variator solenoid leaking oil between the facing of the inlet manifold and the oil pipelines to the variator itself.

Ahh right looks like a right mess.

It was, I've cleaned that out and some hermatite red should do the trick.

Good bond style smoke screen from it though.

Ahh very good, I am drunk reading this and have no clue what is going on.

Todays update,

The the manifold is CLEAN again and I found where it was coming through the Intake manifold gasket, also did some follow up checks on the Variator Solenoid, to my horror there was no continuity, so the variator NEVER engaged before, this is now fixed with a dab of solder to the pins inside the top cover and when connected to 12V now fires the valve over as it should do. Hurrah, 2 more things sorted.

Must have been really down on power. Anyone have any vids of how the variator works on the Alfas is it only just advanced fueling that happens or is their both cam shifting also??

It's only the inlet cam which gets advanced by 25' when the Solenoid is engergised, this allows oil pressure past the spool valve to act against the spring in the variator pushing the spiral gear accross the hamber rotating the camshaft by 25', the advance or retardation of fueling is controlled by the ECU map and is modified by the signal from the Knock sensor in 2' increments as required to quell the noise.

It wasn,t that down on power, to me it was quite a nippy thing ,certainly faster than the 156 2.0l.
IT might be that this misconnection was troubling the variator and giving the chatter, will have to see. Smaky will check the bottom end just in case.

God dam that is complicated lol Nice one for the write up Smaky so there is an actual cam shifting in the car??

Originally Posted by Damien_C

God dam that is complicated lol Nice one for the write up Smaky so there is an actual cam shifting in the car??

That's right Damien - the variator screws into the end of the camshaft, and the part that screws to the camshaft can rotate slightly relative to the other end of the variator, which is attached to the inlet cam pulley and hence the cambelt.

It's very clear in my mind but I'm not sure I've explained it too clearly, hehe...

Here's inside a variator (actually the one we removed off this engine 2 weeks ago), you can see the twisting gear and the spring the oil pressure pushes against, this is the simplest system on the market for phase timing IMO, and it just works.

The second picture shows you the inside workings of a hydraulic tappet (I was bored and the angle grinder winked at me).

Pictures 3,4,5 and 6 show the faultyVariator solenoid being tested (on my multimeter 1 is NO continuity).
Wear on the pins in the last pic was easily solved by extending them with solder to make the cotact again, thus repairing the valve. By directly connecting the 2 pins of this vale to the battery you will hear a clunk as it throws the piston down opening the oil channels, proving it works.