Hello everybody,
here is an Alfa freak leading an "Illuminati crusade" to open eyes to the Germans here in Berlin, on how Alfas are good cars in reality
had several of them in my life, see attached photos:
as you can see from the photos, had installed BRC LPG on first 3 cars and last one (trying to afford this life-style), only one giving me a problems was the 2.2JTS engine (sometimes problem with overheating). find out that afterwards BRC stopped offering the equipment for JTS engines. Similar with the Landi Renzo, Viale, Prince.
It seams that JTS engines have few minor problems with gas:
All this indicates that something special with the extra cooling has to be done, if we want to make JTS running on LPG.
Company Viale (Netherlands) is having the solution to similar lean burn direct petrol injection engines from VW group (TSFI), but they still do not have dedicated solution for the JTS (unfortunately, JTS itself is not produced any more and ARs are definitly not manufactured as bloody VWs, so not great business case). But it seams that they have sorted out the problems.
My dealership in Berlin told me that they still offer BRC system with pre-warning that there are some troubles to expect (over-heating) and that they do not recommend it.
As you can see, am interested in converting my 3.2JTS since only thing that hurts me with it is the consumption (which I knew ahead, BUT with the prices and all of the technical benefits that LPG brings, still makes quite an improvement opportunity).
I have started slowly to research more on this topic (Wikipedia). It seams that LPG gives some 10% more heat energy (in total, meaning simply speaking that we need to improve the overall cooling for min 10%). Since most affected is the oil (due to WCOC principle), there are few ideas how to sort this out.
First seams to be the simpliest: increase the volume of the water cooler body for 10% and more. For this there might be few sub-options.
Second idea (technically, my personal favorite) was to fully de-couple the OEM WCOC (red colored bit on schematics) from the water cooling circuit (which should already increase the cooling effect itself) and add some sport aluminum alloy oil cooler (for example MOCAL), oil filter off-take (enabling using easy to remove/replace more standardized filters, by using bigger size filter we could reduce drag in the oil circuit and airwashed wall size could be increased for further improvement of the oil cooling ==> saw somewhere that some special ribs are available on the market that could be wrapped around the oil cooler to increase the cooling). Oil flow control thermostat and potentially some electric fan might need to be installed. In this case, idea would be to increase the cooling volume ONLY of the oil cooler (since we allready gained something by decoupling the oil system from oil system. With this we might get even better cooling all-in-all.
BUT, the biggest problem of the ideas 1B and 2 is the space for adding that additional cooler. Idea 2 requires smaller cooler (volume increase relative to OEM) and I would really like to play more with the oil system directly since offering few more benefits.
Initial idea for the option 2 was to (somehow) make the air off-take above the port side headlight cluster by removing part of the sealing between the bonnet and the cluster (see blue colored schematics). This approach has additional benefit on the overall car's aerodynamics, since those beautiful headlight clusters ain't the most aerodynamic features of the car (Cx of the SW is 0.32 which is quite high for the modern cars). So: by off-taking that "trapped" air, we might improve the aerodynamics on that side. You might be asking what about the other side? Well, my idea was to use similar principle of the off-take and replace the OEM cold air intake circuit with an custom made airbox and some high-flow air filter.
Unfortunately, everybody who once opened the bonnet of an 3.2JTS noticed how cramped and busy the space is behind the headlight clusters, especially on the port side. Which introduces the first minor problem: port side is not ideal for installation of the additional oil cooler. By the way, I made some investigation on how big the oil coolers have to be for the V6 3.2ish liter engines. 3L GTV uses 19 row 115 mm wide Mocal oil cooler while GTA 3.2L V6 uses 19 row 230 mm wide Mocal oil cooler !?!?!?! Ok, to stay on the safe side, might be good idea to use the 230 mm wide one (bear in mind that we want to increase the cooling capacity and that >10% rule is not simply linear when doing this ONLY on the oil system).
So this leaves us to either some more complex air extraction from the port side (not impossible, but more complex), relocating some electrical units (not desirable), installing the oil cooler at BDC in front of the mail water cooler (behind the Scudetto, Fast & Furious type ) or installing it in the space where OEM air filter box was before (GTAs have this installation type, but this requires your final decision to go for airbox).
Hope that this explains a bit the problems and could ignite some brainstorming here how to sort this out. Bear in mind that I want to do all this changes WITHOUT any impact on the optics of the car (I simply love it (what "love it"? I adore it) just the way it is!
Additional option is to start "molesting" VIALE with multiple requests, maybe they decide to help us. :cheese: :thumbs:
here is an Alfa freak leading an "Illuminati crusade" to open eyes to the Germans here in Berlin, on how Alfas are good cars in reality
had several of them in my life, see attached photos:
- 146 1.3 boxer (man I loved that car!)
- 156 1.6TS (sold it only since I wanted more power )
- 159 2.2JTS SW (sold it only since I wanted more power )
- now driving 159 3.2JTS Q4 SW Ti (oh God what a machine! this one is the topic of the thread)
- now driving 146 1.6 boxer (shopping trolley and daily enjoyment in boxer engine sound)
as you can see from the photos, had installed BRC LPG on first 3 cars and last one (trying to afford this life-style), only one giving me a problems was the 2.2JTS engine (sometimes problem with overheating). find out that afterwards BRC stopped offering the equipment for JTS engines. Similar with the Landi Renzo, Viale, Prince.
It seams that JTS engines have few minor problems with gas:
- since having WCOC (water cooled oil cooler) if mostly running on LPG, oil does not contribute enough in cooling engine and overheat happens
- LPG has bigger energy value than petrol, therefore by burning is developing more heat
- JTS engines run on so called "lean burn" principle, which means higher temps (even with the petrol) then the normal TSs and other engines
- am not sure if the fuel is used in engine head for cooling valve seats (like on, for example, Ford Z engines), any clue?
All this indicates that something special with the extra cooling has to be done, if we want to make JTS running on LPG.
Company Viale (Netherlands) is having the solution to similar lean burn direct petrol injection engines from VW group (TSFI), but they still do not have dedicated solution for the JTS (unfortunately, JTS itself is not produced any more and ARs are definitly not manufactured as bloody VWs, so not great business case). But it seams that they have sorted out the problems.
My dealership in Berlin told me that they still offer BRC system with pre-warning that there are some troubles to expect (over-heating) and that they do not recommend it.
As you can see, am interested in converting my 3.2JTS since only thing that hurts me with it is the consumption (which I knew ahead, BUT with the prices and all of the technical benefits that LPG brings, still makes quite an improvement opportunity).
I have started slowly to research more on this topic (Wikipedia). It seams that LPG gives some 10% more heat energy (in total, meaning simply speaking that we need to improve the overall cooling for min 10%). Since most affected is the oil (due to WCOC principle), there are few ideas how to sort this out.
First seams to be the simpliest: increase the volume of the water cooler body for 10% and more. For this there might be few sub-options.
1A would be to check with the AR dealership if bigger standard sizes are available (for example for south Europe or Australia markets). OEM size is shown on one of the attached pics. Maybe also the WCOC bigger size is available? Need to check this with my dealer. Maybe some hint from you guys?
1B would be adding some additional water cooler (volume of >10%) either at the feed line to oil cooler or in parallel to mail water cooler.
1B would be adding some additional water cooler (volume of >10%) either at the feed line to oil cooler or in parallel to mail water cooler.
Second idea (technically, my personal favorite) was to fully de-couple the OEM WCOC (red colored bit on schematics) from the water cooling circuit (which should already increase the cooling effect itself) and add some sport aluminum alloy oil cooler (for example MOCAL), oil filter off-take (enabling using easy to remove/replace more standardized filters, by using bigger size filter we could reduce drag in the oil circuit and airwashed wall size could be increased for further improvement of the oil cooling ==> saw somewhere that some special ribs are available on the market that could be wrapped around the oil cooler to increase the cooling). Oil flow control thermostat and potentially some electric fan might need to be installed. In this case, idea would be to increase the cooling volume ONLY of the oil cooler (since we allready gained something by decoupling the oil system from oil system. With this we might get even better cooling all-in-all.
BUT, the biggest problem of the ideas 1B and 2 is the space for adding that additional cooler. Idea 2 requires smaller cooler (volume increase relative to OEM) and I would really like to play more with the oil system directly since offering few more benefits.
Initial idea for the option 2 was to (somehow) make the air off-take above the port side headlight cluster by removing part of the sealing between the bonnet and the cluster (see blue colored schematics). This approach has additional benefit on the overall car's aerodynamics, since those beautiful headlight clusters ain't the most aerodynamic features of the car (Cx of the SW is 0.32 which is quite high for the modern cars). So: by off-taking that "trapped" air, we might improve the aerodynamics on that side. You might be asking what about the other side? Well, my idea was to use similar principle of the off-take and replace the OEM cold air intake circuit with an custom made airbox and some high-flow air filter.
Unfortunately, everybody who once opened the bonnet of an 3.2JTS noticed how cramped and busy the space is behind the headlight clusters, especially on the port side. Which introduces the first minor problem: port side is not ideal for installation of the additional oil cooler. By the way, I made some investigation on how big the oil coolers have to be for the V6 3.2ish liter engines. 3L GTV uses 19 row 115 mm wide Mocal oil cooler while GTA 3.2L V6 uses 19 row 230 mm wide Mocal oil cooler !?!?!?! Ok, to stay on the safe side, might be good idea to use the 230 mm wide one (bear in mind that we want to increase the cooling capacity and that >10% rule is not simply linear when doing this ONLY on the oil system).
So this leaves us to either some more complex air extraction from the port side (not impossible, but more complex), relocating some electrical units (not desirable), installing the oil cooler at BDC in front of the mail water cooler (behind the Scudetto, Fast & Furious type ) or installing it in the space where OEM air filter box was before (GTAs have this installation type, but this requires your final decision to go for airbox).
Hope that this explains a bit the problems and could ignite some brainstorming here how to sort this out. Bear in mind that I want to do all this changes WITHOUT any impact on the optics of the car (I simply love it (what "love it"? I adore it) just the way it is!
Additional option is to start "molesting" VIALE with multiple requests, maybe they decide to help us. :cheese: :thumbs: