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Alfa 1.8ts comparability with fiat Hgt/coupe 1.8

3K views 9 replies 7 participants last post by  Fruity 
#1 ·
Hello, my friends. I am on and off into buying an alfa with the 1.8ts motor. But been put off by the oil consumption and engine block problems.
So.. to the question...
1. Is the fiat 1.8 block a direct replacement with alfa head?
2. Or better swap the whole engine? (I dont know, how electrical ecu etc will work.)
3. Or just swap the pistons? (Same bore/travel)
As an owner of a barchetta 1.8, i have to point out after 300.000 km not a drop of oil consumption or any problems, with only regural maintenance.
 
#2 ·
Pretty sure they are completely different engines ..

Alta TS engines don't all burn oil and if they do it's a simple fix ... get the bores honed gently and fit new rings. Did that to mine when it was being stripped after a cam belt issue and it burnt ZERO oil after that. My TS went on to do 210,000 miles (cam belt snap at 72k)
 
#3 ·
Pretty sure that the engine block is the same, the head is different.

Not sure about the crank, pistons etc. 1.8 TS engines don't tend to burn oil at the same rate that the 2.0 versions do.
 
#4 ·
You are very wrong about the engine, mate!

The Alfa Romeo 156 1,8 TS is a great engine.
It is correct, that the 2,0 JTS are known to use oil, because of the original engine construction, and according to the owner’s manual:

“Engine oil consumption
Max. engine oil consumption is usually
400 grams every 1000 km.”

But, an Alfa 1,8 TS usually never uses oil.
I drove my former Alfa 156 1,8 TS (and also my former 2,0 TS, for that matter) for at least 25.000 km.
(respectively 35.000 km). Neither of them used as much as one drop of oil, even though both showed a milage way beyond 250.000 km, when I replaced them.

Also, there are no engine block problems regarding these Alfa engines.
Sorry but, quite frankly, I think it a bit odd even to consider mixing Fiat and Alfa engines. Fiat have very fine engines, but never as great as the Alfa Romeos.
 
#5 ·
Really confusing.
If the ring replacement and honing is the solution.
Then why so many who have done this procedure as I read in the forum, consume oil again (maybe not that much).
Not odd at all the mix and match.. Frankly. the engines as they come from factory have problems.
Power wise the two engines, have less than 10 hp difference and more than 20 percent difference in gas consumption. (that doesnt sound so great engineering results)
I dont know, but so many different opinions.
Maybe it s just a matter of bigger margin of error in the quaility control in the factory. (some burn/others dont)
 
#6 ·
Personally, I have been driving several Alfa Romeo 156’es for a lot of years (and several hundreds of thousands of kilometers) and I have also been an active member of the local Alfa club even longer. I haven’t experienced any such problems with the engine BLOCK, - which in my book would mean the lower part of the engine.

These days it´s at least 15 years ago that the last Alfa 156es were build.

Need for honing etc. is actually pretty common on any engine that age. When you read about issues like these on Alfa pages, like this one, you have to take into account, that people tend to keep their Alfa Romeos alive much longer, than they would for cars like Opel, Vauxhall, Toyota, Renault etc. Those would just have been scrapped when just the slightest of engine problems had been detected.

Cars that age are usually pretty cheap, - at least in this part of the EU. Personally, I’d suggest that you find an Alfa 1,8 TS having a low mileage. Try in e.g. Italy in case you can't get one in Greece.
Should something happen to your engine, anyway, it’s pretty cheap to buy another car. In case the body etc. of your current car is in very good shape, you also have the opportunity to even replace the engine, - and maybe scrap the donor car.
Or you might want to consider getting a diesel - or an Alfa with an V6 engine
 
#7 ·
All the Pratola Serra engine blocks were bored and honed in a single cost saving operation and the bore roughness tends to be something many engineers who rebuild engines have commented on. Some are better than others, and CF2 engines tend to be better than CF3 engines as the CF2 have thicker oil control rings. As already mentioned, some have virtually no issues but when I rebuilt my first 2.0 TS and fitted new oversize pistons, the oil consumption issue was completely eliminated. As already mentioned, 1.8 engines appear to be the best in regards of oil consumption.

The good news is that as the engines wear, the original roughness is polished out so they actually start to burn less oil. It usually takes about 100k miles/160k km to notice a reduction though. The other anomaly is that engines which are used hard fully bed in quicker than gently driven cars.

If you don't fancy overhauling an engine, best advice is to use a more viscous oil such as one ending in 50 or 60. That said, a 10W/60 is probably a bit much for an urban used car in northern Europe. Try to get a proper synthetic oil such as a Poly Alfa Olefin or Ester based oil rather than a rather refined mineral oil which says "synthetic" on the tin. If you want to stick with a 40 weight oil, try Motul 5W/40 X-Cess.
 
#8 ·
Some are better than others, and CF2 engines tend to be better than CF3 engines as the CF2 have thicker oil control rings
Big problem in engine overhauling is the absence of pistons. There is no CF3 pistons in production for engines AR32205 (1.6 shortblock with 1.8 crank) \ AR37203 (1.4 shortblock with 1.6 crank) or AR32310 engines. I mean MAHLE \ KOLBENSCHMIDT \ NURAL pistons, because original FIAT\ALFA\LANCIA parts are pretty expensive.
May be in EU the problem with pistons do not stand as thick as in Russia, but recently i've got to overhaul AR37203 and stucked in search of +0.4 pistons - no parts available.
Also there is no +0.4 pistons rings for JTS 2.0 engine, so I've forced to put +0.4 rings from TS 2.0.
So, the new spare parts problem is pretty thick already. Not every engine can be overhauled. Exception is the 2.0 TS because it was in production for almost 15 years (1995 - 2010) — aftermarket spare parts are easy to find.
 
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