1977 CS1 imported to UK from California

[pgilling]

This is one of the most exciting restos ive seen on here. You read so much abouy guy croft but to see a documented build is really a treat. Thank you for sharing and yes yes yes on the you tube video!

Many thanks for your comments but I think most of the praise should go to the professionals who did much of the work; Guy for the engine, Nige for prepping the engine bay and Lance for the exhaust. I could have done much of this myself but I didn't have the time and, to be honest, I couldn't have achieved anywhere near the very high standards of work that the professionals did. As someone once said, if you think experts are expensive you should try and amateurs!

I think this is a good place to suggest subscribing to Guy Croft's website. All of these blog sites cost something to run and indeed FiatSpider.com has to do much fund raising to enable us all to have free access. Guy is virtually a one-man outfit, so trying to raise funds for his website has become too time consuming for him. So Guy now charges a one-off fee and it is very difficult to put a price on the extremely high quality of professional advice he offers. In fact, if required he takes time out to personally answer the many requests he gets.

My car is actually at a rolling-road today, firstly to get a power check and also to sort out the carb jetting as it appears to be slightly awry.

The next issue is to sort out the under hood temperatures. One of the drawbacks of that beautiful exhaust manifold is that it acts like a huge radiator because its surface area is far greater than that of the original cast manifold. So consequently I'm looking to get an airbox for to get nice cool ambient air to feed carburettor. I suspect this may be why getting slight pinking (NOT detonation as I previously reported) under load because under the temperature is high, or it could simply be the jetting needs sorting.

Guy did warn me this may be an issue (another indication of his experience) and suggests that I may be at the limit of what power is available with the current under hood set up. I'm still waiting for an air box so I will report back if that resolves the pinking issue. Guy even talked about high-pressure areas under the hood causing problems of heat building up with nowhere to escape and thinks I may even need to consider some additional ducting on the inner wings. Again, once the rolling road results come back I'll have a clear idea if any of there issues remain.

[pgilling]

So the rolling road I took my Spider to is run by a guy who has lots of experience with Formula Fords which is why I took it there because he knows the Weber 32/36 DGVs inside out. He changed a few jets and made the engine much smoother but I am still awaiting an emulsion tube which he didn't have in stock so there is still a slight hesitation at low revs. The great news is that the rolling road proved that Guy Croft produced an engine which has exactly the sort of power I was after, 148 bhp at the flywheel and is very drivable and torquey. I will need to go to a different rolling road that has a digital readout to see the torque and power curves as the one I went to has good old fashioned gauges. He tends to only use his rolling road to test his track cars so I was fortunate he was willing to check my car.

Unfortunately the tune-up did not cure the pinking at high revs under load. So I assumed this had to be caused by the high under bonnet temperatures which, as I said before, must be caused by the much longer primary pipes from the exhaust manifold, coupled with the small K&N filter sitting squarely in the warmest part of the engine bay!

So as you can see I fitted a plenum adaptor from Webcon and a K&N Apollo ambient air intake system that has cured the pinking and is very neat to boot!







I have been having problems with the uprated distributor as the metal trigger ring on the rotor kept slipping, probably due to differential heating, so I fitted a Computronix system from Allison's with a dual coil pack. It is a very powerful system and is a neat installation as you can see:



Here you can see the distinctive trigger unit/distributor:


After the engine was installed I kept getting heating issues as the radiator sits lower than the engine and it was difficult to get rid of air pockets so I fitted a new header tank and you can also see the crank case breather tank on the left.



This left no space for the screen wash bottle so the only place I could find was under the carb area! I'll see how that goes!


It's getting pretty crowded under there!

[RRoller123]

Beautiful work! I have the same issue with locating the WW bottle, so have bought an Azzurra one which I will fit under the windshield cowl, when I get the courage to measure and cut the access hole.

[SoFlaFiat]

What a fantastic looking engine bay!! Great work!!

[PininF]

[pgilling]

Beautiful work! I have the same issue with locating the WW bottle, so have bought an Azzurra one which I will fit under the windshield cowl, when I get the courage to measure and cut the access hole.

Now there's an interesting solution, I guess you mean you would cut am access hole in the cowl for the filler lid. Nice thinking!

[pgilling]

I think I'm getting to the limit of what I can achieve because the extended header tubes are causing a lot of heat under the bonnet (hood). In traffic the engine is running at about 85-90° C which is way too hot. Guy Croft wants it to operate at around 75-80° C. I may have it put some louvres in the bonnet if I can't get the temperature down!

[RRoller123]

PG: Yes that's the idea. The bottle looks like it will fit fine with my 80 FI, i.e. no change in the sheet metal, and I will attach the bottle initially with double sided tape, so I can refine the exact location after cutting the access hole as carefully as possible. Just put a little rubber coaming around the cut and it should be pissah. The only thing that I am disappointed by is that the hole will cut straight through my original "oliofiat" sticker, but that's the way it is. I tried fitting a hanging bag-style WW bag, but there is no location possible for it in my engine compartment.

[Redline]

85 - 90°C sounds perfectly normal. 75 - 80°C seems quite low and perhaps less efficient?

[edit] ah, actually it's more complex than that. Lower temperatures can give higher power, higher temperature can give better fuel efficiency and lower emissions. There is a compromise somewhere on that sliding scale depending on what one wants. Interestingly, I read a few comments about then always running the engine (under load) at the same temperature range, based on ring seating in a given bore shape - thermal expansion will lead to a slightly different bore shape at (perhaps widely) different water temperatures.

[pgilling]

Hello Redline, yes, initially I thought 85 to 90° was fine but I have to defer to Guy Croft's vast experience and expertise on this matter and he insists that engine is running way too hot. Of note, he called me today and thinks he knows why my engine is running too hot, the thinner pipe that runs from where the thermostat housing pipe it's the top of the engine and goes to the top of header tank should not be there as it is pumping very hot water straight back into the header tank! I'm going to remove this and see if that improves things. Unfortunately I'm in London until the weekend so I will have to wait a few days.

[pgilling]

This is one of the most exciting restos ive seen on here. You read so much abouy guy croft but to see a documented build is really a treat. Thank you for sharing and yes yes yes on the you tube video!

Hi georgeramos, I finally posted a YouTube vid of me doing some redline test runs: http://youtu.be/80nEhsJbH2w

[pgilling]

I have added some head shields as those extended primary exhaust manifold pipes were causing everything to get pretty hot. This stuff works a treat and is simply held firmly in place with jubilee clips. Everything is staying nice and cool now.

[georgeramos]

Whoo Hoo! That first shot of the car coming at you is awesome!!

thanks

[Ptoneill]

Very impressive!! I love the exhaust!! Do you have a front spoiler? Some people have said that they noticed a significant temperature decrease due to better air flow.

[pgilling]

Hello 'ptoneill', I haven't fitted a front spoiler but I did fit a splash guard under the front of the engine bay. They are supposed to help cooling in the engine bay as they force the air to flow through and exit down around the gearbox and drag hot air from the top of the engine bay down and out.

The temperature was not a problem when moving at reasonable pace but the splash guard is also supposed to reduce lift at speed. I can't say I've noticed any differences to temperature or lift, but that doesn't surprise me as the heat shields were fitted before the splashguard and any reduction in lift is probably quite small. But I'm glad I have it fitted as that is what the car was originally designed to have. The main job of the heat shields is to protect parts in the engine bay around the header when the car is sat in traffic.