Lancia Beta Montecarlo

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dglitten
Posts: 7
Joined: October 9th, 2008, 3:46 pm

Lancia Beta Montecarlo

Post by dglitten »

First of all, I would like to say how much I appreciate the forum. It is very professional.

I have a Lancia Montecarlo from 1977. I am in the proces of restoring the car which I have owned for more than 10 years. One of the tasks was upgrading the engine and another was making a good gearbox. The engine is based on a Beta Volumex block and head and my gearbox is made out of the best parts from 3 used gearboxes.

The engine and gearbox are now running outside the car. I made an engine stand that made it possible. The idea was that design, manufacturing and assembly faults were much easier to fix when the complete drive train was not in the car.

The engine has the following specifications:
- Head opened up
- Std. ex. cam
- Inlet cam from a Ritmo 130 tc
- Piper adj. vernier pullies
- Special fabricated inlet manifold
- Fuel and ignition controlled by ECU from Emerald. Port injected.
- Wide band lambda sensor connected to a LM1 controler.
- Al internals balanced
- Modified Fiat Croma pistons, 7.85 CR
- Lightend steel flywheel

Gearbox:
Mostly Volumex - converted to hydraulic operated clutch

1st. Startup. At first the engine did not start. After checking I had both fuel from all injectors and spark, I disconnected the injectors and sprayed diesel start directly into the inlet manifold and it started immediately. I then knew that the timing was right and that I only needed to adjust the amount of fuel.
montecarloEngine01.JPG
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From the start I was concerned that the original Volumex did not flow the same on the ports. Number 4 being the worst. I have therefore made a new one. I do not have any numbers on the new one. As I only inject fuel after the supercharger I am concerned about the air temperature in the manifold and the effect on the supercharger's condition.
MontecarloEngineInlet.JPG
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The supercharger is moved down and forward. The throttlebody is now very close to the airduct running underneath the car. Because of tight space, a Denso generator is used. It only weighs 3 kg.

The trigger wheel was first fitted on the end of the crankshaft pulley, but moved behind the v-belt puley. It is a tight fit.
MonetcarloEnginePulley01.JPG
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MontecarloEnginePulley02.JPG
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I have not any pictures of the manifold sitting between the supercharger and 70 mm throttlebody. I made a wooden template and formed a sheet of aluminium around it.

The gearbox is maded to the engine and awaits installation. Even though I have taken a lot of measurements regarding room for the installation, I am quite concerned about it. The only way in is from beneath. By the way, the new engine seems to pick up speed considerably faster than a standard Volumex.
MontecarloEnginebay.JPG
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MontecarloEngine02.JPG
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When the engine is in and the rest of the car is ready, my wife's Corvette awaits an engine rebuild. I have an inlet manifold with 8 55 mm individual throttlebodies designed for alcohol that I plan to convert to normal 13 mm Bosch petrol injectors. It is quite different working on her 7 liter engine compared to my 2 liter. The best thing is how spacious the engine compartment is!

My English is not very good therefore I have not written as long and detailed as I would have liked to, but hope that my description still gives a good picture of the proces of getting my car ready for the road.

Regards Dennis Glitten
Book #004
dglitten
Posts: 7
Joined: October 9th, 2008, 3:46 pm

Re: Lancia Beta Montecarlo, inlet manifold

Post by dglitten »

Inlet manifold:

My initial plan was to convert the original Volumex manifold to take Bosch style injectors. I had a spare one so it was easy to measure. But the more I thought about it the less I saw the solution to be the best suited for the car. The primary reason was the difference in flow between the cylinders documented by Guy. Looking backwards it might have been easier to go for a ECU with 4 individual injection drivers and then set up the injection for each cylinder using a wide band lambda sensor. It might cost a little hp, but it is not a pure racecar I am building. I just wanted a replacement engine with a little more hp than the stock one.

I had a inlet manifold from a beta ie on the shelves. I made a lot of drawings and made arrangement with a firm that was supposed to be experienced in that type of fabricating. As I have 3 small kids I don't have much spare time. Outsourcing seemed to be a good idea. They also lent my sealed off supercharger. The result was not quite good. It did not fit and the Volumex rotors was not parallel with the crankshaft and it took me a lot of hours to clean the supercharger from all the metal debris that now was inside. That was the end of outsourcing.

A new Beta ie manifold was bought and the following done:
1 - The plenum chamber was cut off, but the intake runner was only slightly shortened. Bel mouths were made and welded on.
MontecarloEngineInlet02.JPG
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2 - Holes for the original injectors was taken out to to 16 mm on a mill and 4 converters made on a lathe were pressed in after heating the manifold and cooling the converters.
3 - New plenum was made. The plenum chamber is removable from the intake runners.
4 - Converter for mounting a Fiat Croma turbo fuel rail was fabricated.
5 - Converter/connector between supercharger and throttle body from an Alfa 164 3.0 was fabricated using a wooden template and a mill and lathe for the flanges.
MontecarloEngineAdapter.JPG
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6 - Aluminium oil filter take off block was modified to mount (and secure) supercharger + generator + belt tensioner for supercharger.
7 - Oil dipstick moved.
8 - Some tools for fixture and assembly were constructed.

The Volumex unit still uses a 1" 93T Gates belt

The book ”Modifying and tuning Fiat/Lancia twin-cam engines” has been a very informative source like the forum, not only during the proces of building the inlet manifold, but especially in regards to the engine building process. Unfortunately I bought Guys DVD very late in the process.
MontecarloEngine02.JPG
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MontecarloEngine03.JPG
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MontecarloEngine04.JPG
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As always I am in a learning process, so comments are very velcome.

Regards

Dennis
Book #004
Guy Croft
Site Admin
Posts: 5039
Joined: June 18th, 2006, 9:31 am
Location: Bedford, UK
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Re: Lancia Beta Montecarlo

Post by Guy Croft »

MODEL POST!

This is GOOD!


GC
dglitten
Posts: 7
Joined: October 9th, 2008, 3:46 pm

Re: Lancia Beta Montecarlo

Post by dglitten »

Hi

I have just changed my oil sump. It should have been a easy job taking less than 30 minutes. Having changed oil filter and oil hoses to oil cooler I decided to prime the system after 4 litre of 10/60 Selenia was added. The rest would be added after priming. Of went the cam belt and on with accu drill with a 90 degree angel drive attached. I could only measure 10 psi. A lot less than the at least 40 psi I was expecting.

The day before the engine ran fine with the correct pressure.The oil pump and pick-up is not from a Montecarlo. That is why the oil sump is modified slightly to make room for the pick-up and external pressure valve. My first concern was that I had done something wrong when modifying the sump. An endoscope proved that was not the case. Using the endoscope I verified that 4 litre should be enough oil to prime the engine. To eliminate that my modified sump was the problem I fitted the old sump. Same result - To low pressure.

Next up was the oil pump. I reconditioned an oil pump from a Volumex and changed the existing one. The result was not surprisingly the correct oil pressure. Lessons learned:
- Always prime your engine if you change anything
- 4 litre of oil only covers the bottom of the pick-up from a Beta 2,0 ie or Beta Volumex. The rubber gasket between the "pre filter" is not covered.
- If there is not enough pressure one possibility could be that the oil pump is sucking air between the lower and upper half of pick-up. Because of a defect on the gasket or the gasket is not sitting were it should. On the picture the gasket is just visible. Fortunately it had not reached the gears.

Best regards

Dennis
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oilpump.jpg
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Book #004
Guy Croft
Site Admin
Posts: 5039
Joined: June 18th, 2006, 9:31 am
Location: Bedford, UK
Contact:

Re: Lancia Beta Montecarlo

Post by Guy Croft »

hi Dennis

those pumps have prodigious capacity, this may suprise you, the output is like a fire-hose.

If you cannot achieve 20psi min at idle (cold) or higher, something is radically wrong.

Of course the pump needs to be primed - if you pack the gears lightly with grease and oil (I use moly grease) then she should prime by cranking on the starter - this is how I do it on my test rig. You have spun up the pump with a drill and that is a good way to do it (if the aux driveshaft has been modified by removing the fuel pump lobe and plugging it, otherwise it will likely hit no.2 con rod..)

If you cannot achieve 20psi by spinning it with a drill then either your gauge has not 'bled-down' (which will clear itself after a short period of running) - or you have a bearing problem. I do not think, knowing the care yout take that the latter is the case.

There is always a good case for a new low pressure warning switch on the oil circuit. If, during cranking, that lets the 'red light' go out, you are good for start, though of course it is always a good idea to have an oil pressure gauge in the circuit to give a 'second opinion'. That said - I have started engine after the 'red light' goes out even if the gauge registers nothing at all (at the 20psi my switches are set at) - simply because, all things being equal - I have deduced that the gauge is temporarily 'airlocked'...

Hope that helps some,

G
Guy Croft, owner
dglitten
Posts: 7
Joined: October 9th, 2008, 3:46 pm

Re: Lancia Beta Montecarlo

Post by dglitten »

Hi Guy

Thank you for your input.

My first suspect was in fact the gauge. I use a digital Stack oil pressure sensor and gauge. I did not read pressure and could not feel increased resistance on the (modified) aux shaft through my accu drill due to pressure being build up. Not being professional I never change more than one thing at a time. Having an analogue Stack sensor and gauge I fitted that and tried to prime again with same result. I was not aware that a "gauge could be temporary air locked". With a new reconditioned oil pump installed, the pressure was build instantly and I broke my Chinese 90 degree drive as the pressure gauge went past 45 psi and the torque required to spin the shaft became to high.

My Stack pressure sensor is programmable. I have set it up to go red when pressure is under 25 psi. Because of my learnings on this one I was considering to build a solution that would cut off the ECU if warning signal from pressure gauge was triggered at any given time that would occur after 5 seconds from starter is engaged. The reason for choosing the Stack instrument as a trigger was simply because I trusted that sensor more than my OE pressure warning switch even though it is new. But reading your description I see that the OE sensor can be trusted and that my thoughts of a solution might only contribute to extra complexity.

I was quite surprised to find the rubber seal sucked into the pump with only 20 mm sticking out of the pick-up tube. If the rubber gasket worth 10 pence had reached the gears inside of the oil pump it would have cost a lot of time and money. Attention to detail is important.

Best regards

Dennis
Book #004
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