Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

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Urbancamo
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Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by Urbancamo »

badlyworntoy wrote:Tommi

Top man thanks for the info, I'm still a little bit confused though...if you lined up the gearbox mounts, the 131 bellhousing will surely sit a good inch or two further forward than its Lada counterpart thus solving the bulkhead clearence and Exhaust/starter motor problems that you have on your twin cam lada. I'm suprised you never opted to do this, or maybe I'm missing something? I know you say they is clearence issues in the tunnel but Guy doesn't seem to remeber having any when they did the Lotus Lada,except for the hole with the Abarth remote. I've yet to offer the 131 engine and gearbox in my Lada and are considering adding a whole 132/argenta gearbox tunnel in but don't want to if I dont need to.


Ian
If you mount your transmission brackets inline, yes indeed your engine moves to forward. This is point that i haven't thought at all. Of course you have make engine mounting brackets because they won't line up anymore with front cross member.

I know couple LHD driven Ladas with 131 gearbox and they all use central mounting points for engine and they have also removed transmission mounting points backwards, which is an easy task.
Transmission tunnel needs to cutted some amount, whether you use Abarth extension or not. Fiat 131 gearbox is much taller than Lada one, and there is not a lot room even with Lada gearbox.

And remember, your Lada is RHD and mine LHD driven. Thus i won't be able to use Fiat 131 gearbox "as is" because there is absolutely no room for starter in left side. Steering box is on the way.
Commonly used practise is to use belhousing from Fiat 131 OHC gearbox, which throws starter on the right side. But this doesn't apply to your case.

But when you fit your package in Lada, you will notice where metal has to cutted and where not..

Hope this helps.

-T
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badlyworntoy

Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by badlyworntoy »

Hi
I've been a little quiet to date as I've been flat out getting this old Lada painted so not had alot of time to do any posts so thought now I've got 5 minuites I'd do an update.She turned out to be a mammouth amount of work Main reason with it being Gloss black and as you'll all know its the worst colour in the world for showing up dints and marks!
Anyway here she is in all the glory painted in Nissan KH3 Gloss black...same colour they paint Pulsar GTI-R's and Fiat Argo Silver.

I'd write more but my fingers are almost to the bone with all the rubbing and polishing! I need to get cracking now and get her put together,I'll try and do frequent posts as I start the main build.

Happy christmas and New year to everybody too.

Catch you all soon.

Ian
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mitch strada
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Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by mitch strada »

Great progress! Well done it looks fabulous.
ace124
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Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by ace124 »

Can anybody detail the Lotus suspension mods done to the original Lotus Lada car?
badlyworntoy

Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by badlyworntoy »

They simply rebuilt the suspension and fitted Bilstein Gas Sport Dampers and uprated the springs to an unknown poundage, with a 6 inch drop. Gavin Henshaw the Lotus driver in the Video explains this to Paul the owner of the car shortly before they take him out around the track in it on the un edited Vdeo I've seen of it.
Guy may know/remember more?
badlyworntoy

Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by badlyworntoy »

I've had plenty of time over the Christmas holidays to put some of the easier stuff together on the Lada. To be honest I've being "pussy footing " around it scared of marking the paint as the gloss black paint is very easily marked.However after spending alot of time with it I'm starting get used to it and have managed to make good progress. Lots of modifications have been done to the wiring harnesses aswell as fitting most of the bolt on parts in the engine bay. This car had only covered 9500 miles from new so most of the components are in remarkably good condition. Lots of the parts which didn't pass my quaility control have so far been easily replaced by new Genuine Lada Parts sourced in Germany for 'Peanuts'. One example you can buy a big plastic bag full of clips with every one needed for a whole car for 13 Euros....Imagine that down your local Vauxhall or Ford dealers.

Also one of the modifications I haven't really being looking forward to is converting the Fiat 131 Racing Bellhousing to Hydraulic. I'm doing this because I simply refuse to delete the hydraulic clutch setup from the Lada Riva, in my experience of running older cars collectively the biggest unrealiability has been clutch cables. So I spent a couple of hours in my local GSF on Christmas Eve opening every box with concentric clutch slave cylinders in trying to find something which would be suitable, but even the closest one would have meant some extensive machining so I decided the only way to do it realistically was to mod the Bellhousing by cutting a section from the Lada one and Tigging it into the Fiat one. Now although it took me all day it wasn't as bad to do as I thought. It was a case of deciding where best to cut and slowly removing metal until it sat correctly. You can see that I made a small triangulated jig from junk lying around the shed to maintain the correct bolt hole spacing. I also moved the fulcrum point for the push action and simply left the other in situ as it wasn't interfering with anything. The clutch arm is Hybrid Fiat/Lada. I've also sanded the welds down on the outside of the bellhousing, this is so they look like the flutes in the casting which gives the factory look.

Next job is to tint the glass and fit the doors back together.

Catch you soon

Ian
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Rishal
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Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by Rishal »

Hey,

Nice work. Like the clutch conversion, it worked out well.

Regards,
Rishal
Urbancamo
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Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by Urbancamo »

This has to be to most sophisticated solution for this common clutch dilemma. I've seen all kinds of variations, but this is the far best, even looked with bare eyes.
Good to see you used Fiat fork end and release bearing. People who try to use Lada stuff there usually end up to huge mess and geometry errors.

I agree you with clutch cable. It isn't always very reliable. Hydraulic cluth is usually lighter to operate and it won't usually fail completely. But with cable, end of story immeadiately.

Keep up the good work!

Fellow Lada bloke
Last edited by Urbancamo on January 8th, 2012, 10:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
GC_25
badlyworntoy

Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by badlyworntoy »

Here is a few more pictures of it.I wish I could mock it up on the bench so I could see it working,but It would mean machining a dummy crank end and something to simulate the engine block,I figured theres not much point as it will be going in the car in a few weeks.All it needs now is bead blasting again so its all the same colour.

Ian
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Guy Croft
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Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by Guy Croft »

Stunning bodywork job on the car, well done! Looks exactly like the Lotus Lada.

G
badlyworntoy

Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by badlyworntoy »

Just a very quick update.... I've been on with the fiddly task of assembling the oil control system but as ever trying to make everything fit in a 'factory look' type fashion is difficult, especially when I have to get everything right the first time because I couldn't be bothered to mock the engine bay up before I painted the car.....not enough time in the day !
Anyway as it happens its going ok and I'm almost ready to fit the engine for the first time next week. Me and my associate have took a week off work so progress should be swift.
I've also dismantled the Front suspension and had some parts powder coated,purchase superflex bushes and GAZ dampers and done various modifications.... details to follow when I start to assemble it.

catch you all soon

Ian
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Urbancamo
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Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by Urbancamo »

Hi Ian, nice to see you have some good progress there.

That dual radiator fan assembly looks like it's been there since factory line! Pretty neat setup. And two-is-better is true if we are speaking of front stabilizer bar...

T
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Guy Croft
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Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by Guy Croft »

You don't need two of those powerful fans Ian!

One should do the job perfectly well.

G
badlyworntoy

Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by badlyworntoy »

Thanks
yes I know its overkill,However I did it for two reasons the first being when I had the radiator re-cored buy my local so called 'radiator specialist' they managed to make such a mess of it that I actually asked them if they had ran it over with their Forklift truck as all the fins where pointing in different directions the side plates where all mangled and the paint had more runs in it than Forth road bridge,so the second fan was needed to try and hide the mess.The secondry reason is that with two fans side by side you dont get the body of the fan motor in the centre of the radiator therfore creating a little more space around the front of the engine...sounds silly but I've had this problem before in a Mk1 Cortina and everytime I wanted to work on the front of the engine I had to take the radiator out.

Ian
twincamspit
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Re: Guy Croft Lada Riva Twin Cam replica

Post by twincamspit »

I apologise in advance for what must be a really stupid question, but I'm nowhere near as experienced as the rest of you on here!
Surely the clutch slave cylinder is going to push the fork lever backwards (i.e. away from the front of the engine and towards the gearbox)?
From memory, the standard clutch cable does the opposite of that, i.e. the driver presses the clutch pedal, the cable pulls the clutch fork towards the front of the engine.
What did I miss?
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