Every journey begins somewhere, and this one starts with the purchase of my car. I acquired the car in August 2015 after seeing it at the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix. It's a 1977 Spider (California-spec) with 24,000 miles. As you'd expect with an almost 40-year-old car with so few miles, there's been a lot of deferred maintenance. I knew this going into the purchase, but the car has zero rust and very nice original paint and interior, so I decided that I would turn this into a rolling restoration, tackling one large area of the car every winter and enjoying it during the sunny months. Going over the car, I noticed that the suspension parts all looked to be in fairly decent shape, so that could be put off for a little while longer. I also noticed that as I drove the car more and more, the engine was getting oily-er. The exhaust would throw a puff of blue smoke on start-up after sitting overnight. There was a smell of oil burning off the exhaust manifold while sitting at idle. There was the compression test that revealed 105psi in the cylinders and a leak-down test that revealed two cylinders with 25% and two with 65% blow-by. I think that I figured out what my winter project for this off-season would be.
So, knowing I was doing a rebuild on an engine which had a lot of performance potential that was unfortunately corked up by emissions regulations and 1970's quality fuel, I decided to go for a mild-to-moderate performance build. A hot street setup, if you will. I wanted to bump up compression, add some cams, port the head, lighten the flywheel, and just really wake this little Lampredi up. My final plans were as follows:
Auto Ricambi 84.4mm pistons with 4mm domes for a static compression of ~9.8:1
Vick's 40-80/80-40 cams with Allison adjustable gears and Isky springs
Mildly ported head (porting in the bowl areas only; nothing on the runners so velocity stays high) with 43mm/37.5mm oversize valves
Weber 32/36 DFEV carb on stock single-plane intake (came with the car; will eventually be changed to IDF's)
Lightened stock flywheel (~12lbs) using Miller's Mule blueprints
Auto Ricambi aluminum crank pulley
Balanced rotating assembly
Marelliplex ignition
Vick's stainless header and full 2.25" exhaust routed in the same fashion as the original, under the passenger seat.
Removal of all emissions-related equipment
Before I go any farther, I'd like to thank Auto Ricambi, Vick, and Allison's for being great parts suppliers and everything they helped me with. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I can't recommend them enough. They're all great people to work with.
I started tear down right after Christmas, and everything went smoothly. I took the block, crank, new pistons, rods, flywheel, crank pulley, and head to a local machine shop that comes highly recommended by many people. They did a great job on everything - boring the cylinders, lightening the flywheel, balancing everything, decking the head and block for flatness, porting the head, and fitting the oversize valves. Also, they told me that three of the main caps had excessive side-to-side movement - like 4 to 5 thousandths. They built up the edge on all of the caps, then fitted them to the block tightly, and then align bored the main tunnel. They said it's very rare to have that happen, and basically chalked it up to being built in 1970s Italy. Not sure if anyone else has heard of this issue, but I thought I'd bring it up.
So while the machine shop had my engine, I decided to partially disassemble my trans and re-gasket and -seal everything, along with cleaning out the almost-certainly original tranny fluid. Everything went smooth, and all of the guts looked to be in fine shape. I then installed a Holley 12-426 electric fuel pump in the spare tire well, ran the power wire through the fuel return line, and wired it to work with an oil pressure cutoff switch installed in place of the original oil pressure light switch (I figured that I wouldn't really miss the light since I have an oil pressure gauge also). I cleaned up the engine bay by removing all unnecessary wires (mainly all of the emission-related switch/solenoid wires). I noticed while working in the engine bay, the bottom of the brake master cylinder was wet. So I changed that, and then while bleeding the brakes I noticed that all of the rotors were in varying stages of what I'd call "crap." So I took the calipers off, sandblasted and rebuilt them, and changed the pads, rotors, and added stainless brake lines. So now my engine rebuild was slowly morphing into other areas (remember what I said about deferred maintenance?). Also, the front wheel bearings felt a little bit sandy, so while I had 3/4 of the front torn apart anyway I just replaced the bearings, seals, and nuts. The metal heater lines at the firewall were a little rusty inside, so I removed them to sandblast and noticed the bottom of the heater valve had some green fuzz on it. Instead of waiting for it to blow boiling fluid all over my wife's legs, I decided to change it while I was there and also remove the heater core and flush it out. Everything was working out well... more expensive than I had planned, but that's how it goes. It was about this time I got my engine back from the machine shop.
OK, so here's where the story starts getting interesting. I get the crank in and while installing the pistons I break two connecting rod bolts. Shortly afterwards, I find out that the service manual lists the incorrect torque. It's too bad that you have to find this out after breaking a few $17 bolts, but that's what happens. So, being annoyed up to this point and probably not in the best state of mind for delicate work, I get three of the pistons installed and I'm working on the final one. I'm sliding the piston down in the ring compressor and, unbeknownst to me, the center ring pops out between the compressor and the top of the block. So I'm pushing the hell out of this piston and it's not going in. Instead of just taking everything apart and restarting, I decide to go all caveman and grab a rubber mallet. You see where this is going, huh? Yeah, I went there. I tried persuading the piston into the cylinder via persuasion device, and not surprisingly it didn't work. It didn't work at all. I ended up breaking the center ring into about 8 pieces, and also succeeded in crushing the ring land between the top and center ring into the space previously occupied by the top ring. Luckily I didn't mess up the block at all, but that's now the least of my worries.
Now I'm screwed. I called Csaba at AR and asked about getting a single piston, and he said that's probably not going to happen. And just to add the cherry on top, those pistons are on back order for an indefinite amount of time, so even buying another complete set is now looking grim. Like I said, Csaba was extremely helpful through the whole process, but even he can't make things appear out of thin air. So I start scouring the web for comparable replacements, and they are tough to come by. Everyone sells the 8.9:1 flat-top pistons, but the 4mm dome ones are difficult to track down. I did find another Texas-based Fiat parts reseller (whose name I won't name right now because I haven't been totally boned by them yet) who claims to have a set of 84.4mm pistons with a 4mm dome in stock. Score! I ordered up a set and emailed Csaba to let him know I think I found a comparable replacement. He sends back that said company occasionally buys these exact pistons from AR, so there's even a good chance I can leave the three previously installed slugs in place and just add the final one to complete the set.
The piston set arrived via FedEx man (who is probably getting tired of making trips to my house every third day) and I tear open the box like a kid on Christmas. But, like the kid on Christmas who opens their gift only to find a dead guinea pig, my joy turned to terror. Not only were these pistons not the same as a comparable AR set, but they weren't even dome pistons. They were flat-tops that I just paid approximately twice as much as anyone else sells them for. I check the invoice, and the part number and description is correct. So I call up establishment, hoping that maybe the wrong pistons were shipped and that they would have the right ones sent out right away. The phone transcript went like this, almost verbatim:
"Hi, I just ordered a set of your dome pistons and I received a set of flat-tops in the box. i was j-"
"Yeah, we don't have the dome ones, they're on back order right now. But you don't want those ones anyway, the flat-tops are better."
"But I-"
"If you go with the dome pistons you'll have to use aviation fuel because it'll ping really bad if not. You'll make more power with the flat-top pistons because of that. You'll have to advance the timing too much with the dome ones to keep it from pinging."
"I'm not really sure-"
"... 25 years ago some guys got arrested breaking into an airport to steal fuel because they had too high compression."
"OK, but I really wanted the dome pistons that were on the website when I ordered them. Can I return them? They're not what I thought I was ordering."
"Yeah, think about it for a few minutes, I have another customer on hold, just call back and let me know if you still want to return them."
"OK?"
As you can imagine, I called back almost immediately and definitely stated that "yes, I don't want these." This was followed by a couple more lines about how I should really just use those pitons instead, and that I can send them back. Not even getting into everything that was technically incorrect in the conversation, I just felt like they knew they screwed me hard on my order and were backpedaling to convince me to use something I didn't want.
So here's where I'm at. I have 3/4 of my engine together and can't go any farther. Parts are littering my garage and basement. The hood has taken up residence on my spare couch. As someone who is somewhat of a neat freak, having things scattered about is really messing with my brain.
This is the part where I ask for the advice of all you Fiat experts out there. Here it goes: Is there anywhere to acquire a set of 84.4mm pistons with a 4mm dome to fit into my 1800cc engine? Do you or anyone you know just have a spare set (or hell, just one) sitting around waiting to be put to good use? Because if not, I have some interesting choices to make. I can get a set of forged pistons custom-made, but they're going to be expensive and take 3-4 weeks to receive. I can try to have my broken piston repaired, but I'm 99% sure that this isn't even possible to have done. This brings me to the easiest option, which is to go with a set of flat-top 8.9:1 pistons. But, I feel like I'd be wasting the rest of my modifications going with such a mild bump in compression. Is there going to be any discernible difference in power output between a set of 8.9:1 pistons and a set of 9.8:1 pistons? Should I even be worried about it? I understand it will definitely have less power, but is it going to be 5 horsepower or 15? I'd be OK with 5, but giving up 15 is a big loss for literally no reason.
So as always, thanks for taking the time to help...
and really, if you read that whole thing there's probably something wrong with you. Get that checked out
