Project Zender 3.0 166 "GTA" - First start with Wizard!
Hey!
My first Alfa 6 years ago was a 166 3.0, in Blu Oddissea. Long time later I bought my current project Alfa from a relative of mine to build the GTA that never was produced. Albeit a pre facelift instead of facelift. In short I chose to use this as the base of my GTA because it's one of the rare Zender 166's and it has a sun roof which I had been searching for during a long time! (Plus the AC works! )
As you can see it looks good from far, but in reality far from good. Worst part (I thought) was the part below the left rear door.
As you can see a fair bit of poking around led me from one thing to another. The floor pan has been mostly taken back to clean metal with flapdiscs (a truckload of them), the rear suspension was pulled, the gas tank dropped, exhaust went as well and the whole floor is now in good nick again.
New brake lines were made for both sides (they were SHOT!), suspension turrets were rust fixed all around and the brackets for the rear bumper were created from scratch. The original brackets were close to non-existent.
As a side note, John's old Wizard exhaust is now waiting to be mounted to my GTA.
The suspension then got a refurbishment by... well basically by not using anything that was on the car when I bought it. Strongflex bushes in the rear, bilstein b8, 30mm lowering springs, merc bush, new strongflex ARB bushes and generally a good old cleaning. The rear suspension also got a camber adjustment as of today.
The struggle then continued with.. all wheel weels. Left rear was the worst. After thinking all the rust had been cut out I then found more lurking beneath (or is that above) the rear subframe mounts. Cut out 35-40cm and made new parts.
Do excuse my poor welding skills, this is my first ever.
The front wheel wells both had the same rust spot. And then a whole lot of corrosion around.. everything?
When the rust treating started to get done I had to crack on with the paintwork because temperatures were plummeting. The front doors both had around 30-50 major stone chips needing attention and the lower 2cm had started to let go (paint, not metal)
All of the doors, around one handle, both rockers, front part of bonnet were all treated and then paintwork was painstakingly redone. Quite happy with the end result so far but knowing myself I will most likely redo the paint when spring comes. It took 4-5 tries to get no more than OK colour match which was a nightmare.
To keep my spirit up a "few" extra bits were needed so the engine got a multitude of coats of 8c rosso competizione which came out magnificent!
I also got the chance to take parts from a parts car so a complete cream interior is getting swapped. Current is dark blue momo. Not my thing so the cream interior is way better in my eyes.
Fuel rails got a few coats of gold and a lot of clearcoat.
I also bought a set of extra headlights to start a GTA mod. (I did this easily on my old 156 and I can tell you the 166 headlights are a nightmare to separate!!)
I just had to show my inspiration shot of the GTAstyle headlights. Menacing!
Of course, I can't call it a GTA and knowingly run around with 226bhp so it has the following:
- GTA inlet cams
- Ragazzon straight through middle pipe
- Wizard back box
- ported inlets
- Porsche 78mm throttle body (currently on my GT3.2 and man it does wonders for the feel of the car)
- ACT carbon fibre plenum with internal bellmouths
This engine with a remap really should make GTA power. Oh and must sound lovely with the wizard exhaust! :rofl:
Now that my project is getting closer to completion I guess I'm going to need some help to locate parts gone missing etc so best to give a heads up to you first.
Since it's a Zender 166 I just couldn't do without Zender Sienas. One needs welding but they're finally mine! 18" of pure beaty.
Lots of work has been done already and still to do is to refit the rear subframe, suspension, exhaust, cams, engine work, cam belt needs changing and the interior is one huge pile of parts next to my VW Camper project.
So basically a few weeks, that's all.
(I've said that since June though!) :rotate:
Still to come is fitting and recolouring a set of GTA front seats (will be black/cream), recolouring the back seat to match, colouring the headliner black, customizing the ICS console and I'm insisting on building a folding back seat. Collecting parts for that right now.
Yes the paint is all me. To get it looking good you just have to apply it as thick as you possibly dare. There are some minor runs but they were all clear coat so they will come out with some wet sanding paper and a polish.
It's all rattle cans though so the amount of colour that dissipates into the air instead of actually sticking to the car is silly. We're talking 2 component spray cans here so they do harden and don't just evaporate to cure. Good stuff but quickly adds up to the cost of buying a compressor....
Keep in mind it took me two tries this time with a wet sanding in between (1000grit paper) to get the finish I wanted so it takes forever.
A couple of hours in the garage today resulted in a rear subframe mounted to the car. It's quite heavy to fit when you're on your own.
The rear hubs and brakes where fitted, a wishbone got some minor welding done and the remnants of the old drop links where cut out with a dremel. It's become some sort of tradition of mine to cut drop links at least twice/year the last 3-4 years it seems..
The gigantic heat shield got fitted (so much easier than on 156/147/GT!)
Then the repaired front downpipe was fitted, all new exhaust hangers fitted, the ragazzon middle pipe fitted and then the icing on the cake got fitted - wizard back box!
Well I don't have much coffee left in the garage so it has to be soon.
Can't wait to hear it. I haven't heard the car running for almost 6 months now and I've never heard a Wizard exhaust in person. I just have a friend's word for it being magnificent.
I'd say I'm a week or three (with a little luck) away from firing it up and sorting out the issues that unfold when half a car gets torn down. Yes I have FiatECUscan available..
Bravo, top man and great work! And a million other praises :bow: Please please promise to keep us updated on progress, this is exactly the sort of thing we need here in the 164/166 forum, there was a project drought until you came along. And you must put up a vid of the Wizard when it's fired up (I will be giggling like a school girl).
Since I got rid of my 166 I've often dreamed that if I were to get another it would have to be a big project as I found the standard car too compromised for my liking. And you know what? You are building yours almost exactly as I have done in my head. If only I had the time, money and the means.
EDIT: Just realised you've not posted this in the 164/166 forum! I arrived here from your link in the "Show us your..." thread. Get it posted over there man (in the meantime I'll add this to my favourites).
Why thank you! :happy: my first alfa was actually a 166 that met it's fate just a little too soon so this is me doing right by myself. This is supposed to be built to make the 166 all it can be in my eyes. I see it as a fast tourer so that's what I'm aiming for.
Say what would you change if you were doing the same type of project?
There will definitely be videos of the exhaust note when I'm done building and I'll have a hard time to keep from giggling myself I think.
(I was thinking of posting in the 164/166section but I thought most folks posted here. I'll get something going in the 166lounge as well. )
Nice to hear Alan! Thanks. Your threads have been read top to bottom many times.
I'm hoping to see 260 but anything over GTApower means I've built my GTA in terms of bhp. I also need to have my ecu mapped by a good tuner but I'm unsure of who can do right by my ECU here in sweden. The engine will likely run well with my mods and no mapping until I get the ECU done but it sure won't produce 260 without some ECU feddling.
A chap in holland built his 3.0 with the same specs as me except the carbon plenum and his dyno showed 258 horses so my hopes are to squeeze out another 2-3bhp to crack the 260 line.
If I don't, Kartalamakis will get an order for 10.0mm cams. That's for sure.
Yeah it does have some room for improvement now that it's been around for almost 20 years! (Only 10 more years in Sweden until it's tax exempt, cheap to insure and only MOT every other year)
My main concern is the fact that the rear seats aren't foldable so that will have to be sorted. I've had a look at it and it's rigid as heck back there so there should be no problem what so ever to enlarge the ski-hole and make the seat back foldable without loosing noticable rigidity. I've started to collect the 156SW parts for the back seat so original products will be welded in place. "Tried and tested"
Other than that the headlights will probably see some sort of improvement in the future. The ICS would benefit from being more modern but electrics aren't for me so I'll consider thd ston age ICS a novelty factor and just update the knobs and buttons.
After timing everything up correctly a few times to be comfortable with me knowing what I'm doing I locked everything in place.
First off the belt itself had started to come close to the edge of the sprockets which would've been no good.
It seems as though the front bank cams where spot on while the rear bank was off by quite some.. good in one way because that explains the lack of power I noticed on my drive home when I bought it.
And then the tensioner. This caught me by surprise. It didn't line up at all with the marker which could've been a nightmare on the drive home. Good thing I tried my best to keep it under 3-4000 revs.
Time for another update. Albeit from yesterday but nevertheless:
It took way longer than I expected to swap the 3.0 cams for the GTA ones since apparently the large bracket for the upper engine support had to be in the way. Why didn't I forsee this? Another giggle was when I hastingly thought I had loosened the cam cap nearest the belt but nono.. the Italians had obviously had fun with the grappa bottle and hidden not one but two more screws in there. Oh joy.
Anyway, the front bank inlet cam was removed first. The GTA cams waited eagerly to be dropped into place.
A little suction thingy dowacky made good use of the oil left around the cam followers so bearings and caps and cams got their fair share of oil. Drink my pretties!
New cam shaft fell into place rather easy on the front bank but on the rear bank the cam was standing proud over the bearings since the valves were pushing it up. Sorted it after some time spent bent over the engine feeling like an octopus using all my hands that I could gather at once..
However! Murphy made his debut in my engine build. The distinct and hateful sound of a metallic "ping" was heard as I felt my fingers slip on a washer for the rearmost cam cap and frustration set in.
Quite some time (and much more profanity) later the magnet picked up the rogue washer in the spark plug hole! A bit of victory dancing and shouting later I took the lower cam belt covers back to bare metal and gave them anti rust treatment.
All in all an eventful evening in the shed. Could've gone a whole lot worse.
Going a bit slowly right now due to the last bolt taking the threads with it. The last cam cap obviously has one repaired thread since one screw is an M8 but they should've repaired the threads for the other screw as well as I didn't even start tightening it when the threads went poop. aranoid:
Cam belt seems to be well timed, might adjust a little bit but not necessary, just me being overly picky.
A few days of downtime before the project continues. Hopefully with a M7 v-coil thread insert and an engine back in one piece.
I've also painted the lower cam belt covers and started to change the roof linings colour from light grey to black. Can't have a light grey lining with black&tan interior. I tried but it didn't look good so the colour change has begun.
So fixed those two ruined threads and replaced the damaged screws which seem to have led to this disaster in the first place.
Then loosened all the pulleys, sprockets and belt and realigned everything and timed the whole shebang once again. Much better
Then fit the lower cam belt covers with their new shiny paint and finally had the lower pulley for the aux belt repacked with new grease.
Then couldn't restrain myself from temporarily fit the valve covers to see what the engine soon will look like. 8C Competizione Rosso with carbon fibre does suit the busso very well I'd say.
So had a few hours to spend on the engine today.
Btw: thanks Chris for the cam belt guide of yours. Golden! (Owe you a cold one if you're ever in Sweden!)
Mounted the crank pulley and then decided to route the aux belt. Fit the left idler for the aux belt and someone before me has decided to destroy the threads for the idler as well and swapped out the screw for a threaded rod "adjusted" with a hacksaw or a chisel. Never seen an engine as unloved as this..
So decided to move on and do more amusing stuff.
Fit the cam covers with rtv silicone and new seals and my brand spanking new stainless bolts and washers with a dab of grease.
Then fit the cleaned inlet mounting plates. Yet again with new bolts, washers and a bit of grease. Wonderful. Much more entertaining than spending all my time repairing every other thread on the engine!
Couldn't help myself and ran to fetch the fuel rails and started mounting these as well. Starting to look like an engine. And what an engine it is! Hat's off to Sr. Busso.
Thanks! :thumbu p: it's getting even better with the coming add-ons.
Fixed the two damaged threads, got yet another one in return! :ranting:
Someone's done a real trick on this poor engine.
I've put thread repairing to the side for now to work on more entertaining things.
Stay tuned, more to come!
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