altezzaclub

So, is it OK at normal running temp when you first arrive at the lights? Is it just the extra 10 degrees of temperature from sitting without the fan running that makes it rough?

haha! yeah, just phoned my Mum, her birthday... April 1st, must have been hell when she was a girl!

Can't put a 2" long spacer tube in the bottom mount at the bell housing?? Push the outside of the tube 2" back and leave the inner just the right length. If you take up that 2" slack, does the clutch work OK?? Fork moves correctly, clutch disengages? I'd make sure of that before changing cables and then finding another problem.

I've got a set that need the holes drilling out to 18.5mm with a fair degree of accuracy, so I'm interested too.

Well, that makes it cheaper- Buy the halfcut for $2K, drop the stock motor and box straight in, fit a radiator somehow, make up the mounts yourself, then all you have to do is sort a diff and driveshaft. Should make a mean paddock-basher. You don't need to worry about brakes or suspension or roaworthy/scrutineers, so it becomes pretty simple.

Actually, you're right in getting a ratchet ring and trying that. They are a great idea, just get a 12/13mm and a 14/17mm if they have combinations, or one of each of those sizes will do most things on a car. If I was 40years younger I'd buy a set, but its just not worth it these days.... I've got a 40year-old Koken socket set!

Well.. standing at the front of the car and looking at the starter, you turn it downwards, or clockwise. Lefty-loosy righty-tighty only works if you are looking at the nut or bolt directly, so if you were lying on the floor behind the starter leaning over the bell-housing it would be righty-loosy...

Seriously, I can't see it being either of those problems. What sort of airflow meter? I have a MAF on the Altezza that needs a spray of cleaner every year as the oil vapour from the motor coats the element. That's just a little plastic plug with a couple of wires sticking out, and the car is sharper in response afterwards but nothing as bad as yours when its dirty. So, you don't have a warmup cycle problem. It could be fuel starvation, it seems as though the pump can't supply enough flow... Fuel line blocked, filter blocked, pump dying... Wiring problems would involve a computer somewhere, some component gets hot when working and dies, cools off when you stop and starts working again.. Unless some wire is jammed against a sharp edge and it can short out while running, then somehow free itself when stopped. Do they have error codes in the system? You'll have to wait until the 4AGE gurus answer I think, some of the guys on here know all about them.

The killer strippers had some pretty toxic chemicals in, so they went to chlorinated hydrocarbons (perc & tric, drycleaning fluids really) then the Govt wanted to ban those so the new ones are environmentally friendly but as weak as shit. Try a couple of small cans and then buy the best one in bulk. About $16 for a Lindbide, but copies might be cheaper & just as good.

I don't think it matters, so long as the pump can pick up fuel from the tank is should run at the same output pressure. Whip the Weber off and strip it to clean it, and do the pump test while the pipe is floating there.

Nothing you can do to the bottom ed to give more power, but you can make the power more efficient by lightening the flywheel and balancing the whole rotating system. If you were building a racer I say lighten the crankshaft too, as lightening the rotating mass means the motor spins up faster. The increases in power come from the breathing, so better carbs & inlet system, a better cam grind, a better exhaust manifold and pipe system, and higher compression. Same thing, if it was a racer you could change the porting, the combustion chamber and re-shape the valves, but its not worth it for a road car.

Clockwise as you look at it from the front of the car. The KEs greatest fail I'm afraid, a tilted engine woth everything crammed on the worst side and the started under it all... I remember using long socket extensions and doing one bolt from underneath. Another good way is a ring/open spanner on the bolt (with the ring!) and another ring/open with its ring on the first spanner's open end. Kaffir job, but it doubles the length & leverage if you have room to swing it. If not, can you hold the ring on and tap the open end wth a hammer under the exhaust manifold somehow?

Well on a flat smooth garage floor, pull some heavy cotton or fine hard string around the car under the tyres. Draw along the string with fine chalk or a thick pencil or whatever. Drive the car out, extend the drawn lines to the corners of a rectangle and measure the two diagonals. That will tell you how far out that wheel is, and how it may be an optical illusion in the guard. There's probalby other ways to get a line down the center axis of the car, or paralell lines down each side, and see if that wheel really does stick out or not. Its certainly very odd if everything is matched side to side.

Paint stripper & a Lindbide scraper that you pull towards yourself, with replaceable tungsten blades. Be very careful of the edges of the blades digging in, but it does a brilliant job. We did the top edges all down one side.

If the oil leaks out past the seal, do the wheel bearings run dry? I assume you fitted a new seal with the last lot of wheel bearings, so maybe the axle is grooved where the seal sits and it can't seal. You might have got it slightly sideways when you put it in, or distorted the seal rim, or a bit of dirt where the seal sits... All you can do is pull the axle out and inspect the seal to find out where the oil is getting out- outside the seal outer or past the seal inner.

Grab a $10 multimeter at Jaycar and check the resistance going back to the battery -ve from the tail lights. Check the bulbs for any corrosion, as towe said there's a bad connection in there somewhere and the lights are trying to earth out back through the system. The dipswitch might be the problem in the headlights, I'm having the same problem myself. It has low beam only, yet full beam comes up correctly when I manually short out the wire under the bonnet. The dipswitch works OK on the bench with a meter, but doesn't seem to carry current in the car. The bulbs have power as soon as you turn the lights on, both high and low, and they earth to complete the circuit back through the dipswitch. Dip is 'default on', and full beam needs to be switched.

Manual gives it instant sparkle and go! Swap to a K50 later on when you find one, I'd expect the auto diff to be a lower ratio if it is like the KE70.

Only if they're gas and one has gone flat, or if a shaft is bent and jamming... What did the wheel alignment guy say? He should have measured the paralell track on each side. Are the cambers the same?? When you say the springs are the same height, that is measured from the base cup tp the spring top in car?? Can you measure from the base cup down to the bottom of the strut accurately? I'd say mismatched struts and/or lower control arm, the sad alternative would be a bent chassis mount.

that's quite a dilemma, as my crimping never seems as tight as the factory ones and I worry about loose joints in the crimped tabs. Mostly I crimp them to hold them in place while I solder them!

Nearly half that budget could go on a pair of DCOE Webers and a manifold, so there is not a lot left for a rebore and a crank grind, lightened flywheel, maybe the crank lightened, a full balance, new pistons, new bearings, new cam chain setup, a cam grind, a porting job and a high compression skim, a set of extractors and a new exhaust.... It all depends on how lucky you are at getting the carbs, if you can get machining done at "mates rates", and if you can buy parts at wholesale. It doesn't really cost any more to make it a race motor than a well-built street motor as you do the same things to it. Did you keep the hydraulic tappets Philbey? How much grunt do you reckon?

hmm... you better join the other gentleman with fuel problems and do a flow test. Take the fuel line off the carb and put it in a jar, take the coil lead off and crank the car for 15seconds. Measure how much fuel it pumps. I can do the same and we will see if your fuel pump/lines etc are delivering enough fuel. Actually, you need to be dead sure it is running out of fuel... could it be too rich and it dies? Are the jets correct?? You should whip the jets out, check that they are clean and post up the sizes of the airs/emulsions & fuel jets on here. Some of the guys with Webers can tell you if they are OK. Most likely I'd say the secondaries are blocked, so it will run on the primary throttle but when you boot it up a hill & open the secondaries no fuel goes in, just air. Strip out al the jets (idles too) note the sizes and push petrol through them and the drillings with a syringe or blow compressed air through it all. Float level is another point- I don't know if it is adjustable in the downdraughts like the DCOEs are, but if it is too low it will lean out. Something to check when you have the top off the carb.

..leaf in the fuel tank keeps floating over the outlet and getting sucked down onto it & blocking it. Then when you turn it off it floats away... true story! Ok, does it seem like a lack of fuel at all?? Can you wind it up in 2nd and 3rd to the redline, or run it up a hill at full throttle just to check that you are getting a full flow of fuel through? Can you turn it off immediately it starts to splutter and pull the plugs out, then decide if they are rich or lean?? Maybe it floods from too much fuel & dies.. injectors sticking open or something like that. I've seen a wire break off a coil and every now and then it would float away and the car would die, then it would drop back onto the coil and the car would start fine. Check as many electrical connections as you can. When its spluttering, pull over and pull the plugs off one at a time. Is it one cylinder midfiring a lot, or is it all of them missing a bit. Does it do it when cold only, or hot only, or both?

Might pay to drain the tank, remove it and wash it out with petrol.

So... $2k for the motor you reckon? and a budget of at least $15k for the car... Start adding up a full rebuilt and race prep of that $2k motor, a gearbox conversion & a rebuild of that, a diff with an LSD and a rebuild of that... All this is 20year old knackered shit or older. Then start on the suspension, which should be a bit better than a Corona front conversion and 3" lowering blocks, some decent brakes and the obligatory balance system and you can see that $15k vanish. Just hot up a 5K and drive the wheels of it until you have everything else done and it will blitz 2L cars with its handling. Then put a 4AGE in it. All those motors you mentioned will be too much for those Roman-era cart springs you have without some serious money spent on the rear end. Every successful race car's story.. build the car first, build the motor last! Oh- and go grab one of those close-ratio K40 race boxes the guy overseas was selling! Move NOW!

I'd say just get it running on stock gear Zak, mainly to make sure everything is working fine. Then change springs to get the ride height you want, and as Dave said, when you lower it the springs are usually harder than you want... and once you have the ride feeling good with springs and shocks, look around for rims last. I can tell you that going from 13" stock tyres and rims to 14" 205/60s has slowed the acceleration noticeably and lowered the revs at 100kph cruise, so that's another factor in rim size you will have to think about. Bigger tyre diameter means less acceleration and lower cruising revs.. it depends on what you do a lot of.