Alfa Romeo Forum banner

Adrian's Silver 1999 GTV V6

4K views 19 replies 6 participants last post by  Adrian_Bravo 
#1 · (Edited)
In 2016 I purchased a Silver 1999 GTV V6. It replaces my much loved Ink Black 1996 Fiat Bravo 1.8

My GTV is a Phase 2 that came with red leather, red carpet, black Plastic.
Rear spoiler
17" Teledials
Quaife LSD
Single mass flywheel
3.2 GTA Clutch Kit
Cybox Stainless Steel cat-back Exhaust
Autolusso Mocal oil cooler
Powerflex rear suspension bushes
Lots of other new parts

I have added;
330mm Factory Brembo Brake upgrade
Alfaholics Sports cat

After owning two Fiat Bravo's, there where a couple of things I wanted to avoid in a replacement. I hated the sunroof's, mostly from a styling point of view but also from a waterproofing point of view. A gutter inside the car that always holds water, four drain pipes that block, all silly really. The petrol tank obscuring most of the rear subframe. Very little room at the back for the exhaust. On the motorway it was great, plenty of power but it needed a 6th gear or something to bring the revs down. The aftermarket upgrade availability was poor. Overall a brilliant car that I greatly improved and really enjoyed tweaking.

I almost purchased a Toyota GT86 but went for the GTV instead. Obviously I decided on a GTV for the V6 engine. I loved the unique look clutter free styling and pillarless doors.
I will document my odd jobs and upgrades over the next few days. Really enjoying the GTV V6.
 

Attachments

See less See more
6
#2 ·
In 2016 I purchased a Silver 1999 GTV V6. It replaces my much loved Ink Black 1996 Fiat Bravo 1.8

My GTV is a Phase 2 that came with red leather, red carpet, black Plastic.
Rear spoiler
17" Teledials
Quaife LSD
Single mass flywheel
3.2 GTA Clutch Kit
Cybox Stainless Steel cat-back Exhaust
Autolusso Mocal oil cooler
Powerflex rear suspension bushes
Lots of other new parts

After owning two Fiat Bravo's, there where a couple of things I wanted to avoid in a replacement. I hated the sunroof's, mostly from a styling point of view but also from a waterproofing point of view. A gutter inside the car that always holds water, four drain pipes that block, all silly really. The petrol tank obscuring most of the rear subframe. Very little room at the back for the exhaust. On the motorway it was great, plenty of power but it needed a 6th gear or something to bring the revs down. The aftermarket upgrade availability was poor or probably I was 5 years late to the party. Overall a brilliant car that I greatly improved and really enjoyed tweaking.

I almost purchased a Toyota GT86 but went for the GTV instead. Obviously I decided on a GTV for the V6 engine. I loved the unique look clutter free styling and pillarless doors.
I will document my odd jobs and upgrades over the next few days. Really enjoying the GTV V6.
looks lovely in silver really shows of the lines :clap:
 
#3 ·
Bought an early Bravo 1.8 HLX back in 98, nice car but expanding family forced the change to our first Alfa - a red 2.0TS Lusso 156, then a JTS, then one of the last 2.5 V6s. Swapped for a Volvo in 2011 which lasted until last year when I purchased a GTV V6 as a long term keeper. Needed another Busso engined Alfa in my life.
Yours looks great with a lot of desirable upgrades, good luck with it.
 
#4 · (Edited)
As the new owner my first job was realigning the door glass. Lots of trial and error but it went very well, after a year I have not had any problems. I may upgrade to auto-drop in the future, I already have the correct control module.

My second job was looking at the rear heated screen wiring. Sure enough the fuse and fuse box had melted. Probably a good job the relay had been put in the wrong socket.
Fortunately the brown and white wiring that goes through the yellow G73B connector pin 9 had not melted.

I like my wiring to look factory and where possible leave the cars original wiring alone. I took a fuse and relay holder from a scrap Fiat to give me those stackable sockets Alfa use. I Purchased new pins then made up a simple high current relay circuit that can be connected without cutting into the cars wiring. By using '1 Way Multi Connector 6.3mm Terminals' The cars original heated screen wiring connector simply unplugs from the glass then plugs into my relay circuit trigger.

A forum thread on rear screen heater fixes.
http://www.alfaowner.com/Forum/alfa-gtv-andamp-916-spider/196619-gtv-rear-screen-demister-fix.html
 

Attachments

#5 · (Edited)
My bonnet open light did not work. I replaced the micro switch in the mechanism with a brand new generic part that claims to be waterproof. The micro switch has 2x M2 clearance holes with 10mm between hole centers.

Its hard to see in the picture but I added a spacer made from 1.5mm thick stainless steel wire behind the micro-switch leaver. I though adding a spacer would prevent the very strong spring in the mechanism from smashing down hard on the teeny tiny micro switch button. To finish off I wired the correct '2 way AMP Superseal' connector on.
 

Attachments

#7 ·
Thanks for the kind comments so far everyone.

Next I decided to fit a battery cut off switch for the winter months when its hardly used (I will not drive on salted roads). I was tempted to fit the switch where i could turn it off from outside the car, say through the boot floor but decided against drilling a hole through the car body. Instead I fitted the cut off switch in the boot. From the switch to the cars body I used a short Audi cable that had two M8 ring terminals on each end. For the battery to the switch I used a Porsche negative battery cable because the ring terminal had a 90 degree bend in it. You can see a bit of grey plastic thats shaped like the corner of a box. I made this part as an extra safety measure, it acts as an insulation barrier between the car body and the negative cable ring terminals just in case the cables where every to become loose or knocked out of position on the back of the cut off switch. Each terminal also has locking washers.

To make the holes I used a step drill. this is a great tool that most tinkerers should have in their tool box. I made a template for the holes using Microsoft Word, it is amazing how accurate and detailed you can make things in something as humble as Word just make sure you set it to print 1:1 scale. I often draw a 1cm square square in the corner to check the scale is correct after printing. I added 45 degree lines from the center in case I had to lay the template using something like a combination square. Ignore the mad hole out on its own, that was a previous owner thing.

I also fitted a CTEK batttery maintainer/charger adapter cable to the cars battery. (CTE-56382 Comfort Indicator with 8mm terminals). It is claimed you do not have to disconnect the battery to charge it without damaging the car. I opt not to take the risk on the GTV I always turn the cut off switch off before charging.
 

Attachments

#8 · (Edited)
I wanted a way to stop the radio aerial from going up every time the radio is turned on. I could not find a head unit that claimed to do this so I simply decided to interrupt the signal sent out of the radio to the aerial unit.

The main problem here is finding a place to fit a switch without ruining the cars interior or styling. I decided to fit a switch where a sunroof switch would go, thankfully my GTV does not have a sunroof. Unfortunately an original sunroof switch does not latch from one position to another so that is useless for this purpose. I noticed the foglight switches are the same profile as the sunroof switches so I purchased a second hand phase 2 fog light switch and hazard switch assembly. I cut down one of the foglight switch mounting brackets to make it fit into the new location with just three tiny self tapping screws to hold it together. I melted part of the fog light switch to remove part of the logo.

EDIT: I used an ISO extension cable to add my wiring in without damaging the cars original loom. If you have a keen eye you might notice the cable I wired up has three wires when two would have been enough. This is to make use of the LED inside the foglight switch.
 

Attachments

#9 ·
I wanted a way to stop the radio aerial from going up every time the radio is turned on. I could not find a head unit that claimed to do this so I simply decided to interrupt the signal sent out of the radio to the aerial unit.

The main problem here is finding a place to fit a switch without ruining the cars interior or styling. I decided to fit a switch where a sunroof switch would go, thankfully my GTV does not have a sunroof. Unfortunately an original sunroof switch does not latch from one position to another so that is useless for this purpose. I noticed the foglight switches are the same profile as the sunroof switches so I purchased a second hand phase 2 fog light switch and hazard switch assembly. I cut down one of the foglight switch mounting brackets to make it fit into the new location with just three tiny self tapping screws to hold it together. I melted part of the fog light switch to remove part of the logo.
waw it almost looks like an interrupted aerial on the button lol

very good, keep it coming
 
#10 ·
Hi Adrian, good work - this is tinkering on a much higher level than mine! Electrical mods are something I dont normally get into, although I did build myself an electric bike that does 50mph recently from scratch. (Lots of electrical theory homework was required!)
 
#11 ·
When I was messing about with the fusebox and glove box I noticed the car had cut outs for footwell lights but none where fitted. I decided to retrofit foot well lights and bought everything I needed. First I made up some wiring that takes a positive feed from the fusebox connector H Pin 4 (same as earlier cars). For the negative side I disconnected pin 1 from from the G73 connector then plugged that pin into a 1 way connector block. The negative wire from the footwell lights goes back into pin 1 on the G73 connector.

The footwell lights come one and off with the door puddle lights and courtesy lights. Before installing these I never even realised the remote central locking turns all the courtesy lights on and off as the car is unlocked and locked.

if anyone knows of a supplier for the 6,3mm female pins on the fuesbox connectors please let me know.
 

Attachments

#13 ·
When I bought the car the drivers door open LED was not working. After a lot of testing I figured out it was the actual LED on the instrument cluster circuit board that was at Fault. I decided to find an original second hand circuit board or even a broken one for a few reasons. First the replacement LED should be a guaranteed colour and brightness match so I would only have to replace one LED. I would have something to practice on first because I have not got much experience with soldering on circuit boards with fine traces. Lastly I would have a few more spare LEDs and components.

I am 100% happy with the soldering job I did but I am very happy I had a part to practice on first because I found; Something on the board melts with too much sustained heat quite quickly. I ripped a trace on the practice run trying to remove an LED. A solder sucker is well worth buying.
It felt like a very high risk job because with one wrong move I could have lost my odometer reading.

I never took any pictures of the actual soldering work but here are some pictures of the instrument cluster disassembly. Can your spot my reassembly mistake?
 

Attachments

#16 ·
I wanted to remove the upper air intake resonator simply because I do not like the look of it. The rest of the car is very sleek and clutter free yet the resonator clutters up the engine bay.

I bought an 83mm oustide diameter aluminium pipe. Which turned out to be a frustrating process, the first pipe I received was 80mm OD the second was 87mm OD. I cut the pipe to length (121mm) and rolled a bead around each end to give a more positive seal.

To finish off the part I decided to use a silicone hose simply to cover the aluminium pipe and increase its outside diameter to match the other pipes. I bought a 'Samco straight coupling silicone hose 83mm ID classic black 76mm long' I had to cut this to 61mm long. The hose took a month to arrive, I think they make them to order but the quality was really nice. Classic means they are matt black.

In the future If my stock intake pipe splits I will change the rest of the intake pipes to gloss black silicone to match the Autolusso pipe I am keeping as a spare.
 

Attachments

#19 ·
Just before Totaly Alfa announced their reproduction phase 2 grills I had already gotten a mesh insert cleaned and powder coated.
I bought a new badge cleaned up the old parts and put it all together. An easy job was made a bit harder because someone had glued the old badge pins into the chrome grille.
 

Attachments

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top