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Testament’s Fiat VX 131R Racecar


Testament

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My new lego technics set!

Pretty much my xmas present from me to me. A friend had to get rid of the car and it's a much more sensible starting point to get ridiculous from than the nice and original 124.

It's a Fiat 131R, certed for a Volumex engine and a bunch of other stuff, ride height (hence the plate), uno turbo calipers and a few other things. Oh yeah and it has a cage 8)

Just some assembly is required......

some bodywork and paint on the front end

rewiring the front

putting an engine together

putting all the other stuff back together

2008 is going to be a busy year in the garage

124 full of 131

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Truck full of 131

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well I managed to get all the bits stored tidily enough in the garage and Finally started attacking it, pulled the doors and front guards off again (they were only on the car for transport) and then pulled the struts and crossmember off too for easier access. So now to deal to what rust there is, probably do some seam welding and prep for paint.

Dodgiest part - RH front guard/around A pillar, pretty common for 131's

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Not so low 131 haha

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most of the other bits

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empty inside, thinking about getting rid of the sound deadening but don't know if I can be bothered

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  • 1 month later...

Finally got some time back at home to get stuck into this thing

started chipping out the sound deadening, which despite what I'd heard isn't too difficult in this case. Just slowish took 2 hours or so to get this far, comes off ok without a heatgun or dry ice. Done the drivers side floor in a couple of hours, hopefully get the rest out over the long weekend.

Only bad thing is finding more rough as rust repairs around the place the more I look at the damn thing. Going to have to put a few kg of weld back into it probably :rolleyes:

partly naked floor

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A ffew kilos gone

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Ugly rust repairs.....

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  • 3 weeks later...

Today:

Awesome - 124 Got a warrant :D

Finished chipping the sound deadening out of the 131

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1&1/2 buckets full of tacky crap ~ 15-20kgs worth

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Rude

Found more rust :(

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then found what was undedr the dodgey looking bog in the drivers footwell :(

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Just as well i took all that weight out....need to put a bunch more steel in.

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  • 3 months later...

Hmm only 4 months since the last update - yeah I've been pretty lame although there were a number of weekends up and down to auckland sorting out the delta and putting that back together.

So since then, stripped paint and a ton of bog off the drivers side sill to find more rust to add to the stuff I found when I chipped out the sound deadening, and the stuff in the drivers side wheel well, and the stuff in the corner of the firewall. yeah I love rust. not.

Although I must say there is alot of steel in the car, since there is still a car left and I have an actual bucket of rust that I've removed.

Cut out almost all of it now and about a third of the way through patching it up now. But then I still have to strip the passenger side sill and fix up a couple of bits of surface rust which i can probably just clean up/por15/bog or something.

so will have a fair whack at finishing the patches this weekend.

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Ghey welder ran out of gas so didnt get welding done. patches prepped up and cleaned up the front footwells of the last bits of sound deadening. definitely starting to contemplate getting a full repsray now. frustrating having put in a heap of work and it doesnt really look like much progress. get some more gas for the welder tomorrow and hopefully glueing in some metal with make me feel more accomplished.

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  • 1 month later...

Been a while since the last update, making some good progess now but I dont have any pictures as I left my camera at a freinds place in auckland :rolleyes:

I found yet more rust in the drivers side sill and had to cut out some sections and welded patches in. quite a bit of gusseting and repairs to the driver side innner guard as ths has had some pretty average looking repairs in the past. some more gusseting to the inner guards and the firewall inside the engine bay to go and some plates to help tie the inner guards to the ! pillar as there is some rust that has weakened that area a bit also. And a bunch of smaller cosmetic rust holes to be filled in the passenger side floor and at the rear of the car.

hopefully I will get all the finished this weekend and then I can start moving onto prep for painting. Really looking forward to getting the inner guards sewn up and por-15ed so i can put the front suspension in and have it rolling again!

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  • 1 month later...

Mocked up an engine block, cylinder head and supercharger last night - The carb will have to be an IDA or IDF, there is only about 120mm clearance from the supercharger to the shock tower/inner guard. You could maybe face a DCOE forwards at 90 degrees to the supercharger inlet - but the change in direction would be tighter than going with a downdraft where are least you can get in a decent radius elbow.

A few specs on how the thing will be

-VX rotating assembly in an argenta block ~ 7.5:1 compression

-block drilled and tapped to take M12 bolts

-OE Thema turbo headgasket

-Mildly ported argenta head with 44mm intakes/38mm ex.

-130TC cams 10.03mm lift approx 276 deg. duration

-VX blower (1130cc)

-48IDA carb

-Programmable Megajolt/Ford EDIS ignition system (no distributor)

-1m long 4-1 extractors

-Custom steel flywheel with integral ring gear ~5kg

- 6 puck solid centre clutch with uprated pressure plate to 2100lbs

-131 gearbox

-132 disc brake diff (removable 3rd member type, i think this is the same as a 125 diff?) ~ 7" ring gear

flywheel and clutch

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  • 1 month later...
  • 4 months later...

Some progress on the extractors over the last week, it's really not so easy I must admit. I've had to make a few compromises in favour of getting the job done with what I have (e.g. I could have done with some larger radius bends), and making the fabrication more straightforward since it's the first set I've made.

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So #3 and #4 almost done, although will still need a couple of small adjustments to get the collector location where I want it. #1 should be straightforward but #2 is going to have to snake over and then back under 3&4

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  • 6 months later...

Finally did some work on the 131 again - got to an impasse with the suspension on the 124 as the rear shocks in the spax kit I am installing are too long and the rear springs are not captive.

So I stripped some more paint off and gave the bare metal a zinc phosphate treatment.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

tigged up at least half of the extractors after work today (at work), a big mung to start with as it's my first real go with a tig but got better as I went along, probabyl be half decent by the tie I finish.

worst was a few places seemed to get gas pores usually when finishing the last section of a join. wouldnt have thought there would be pressure buildup with the ends of the pipes being open. could easily just be something else 'm doing wrong though.

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  • 2 weeks later...

have to get some more gas for the welder tomorrow then I can finish the extactors (going to mig the manifold joins) and keep going with the rest of the sill repair. also been reading through all the megasquirt docs and thinking about starting to put that together soon too......... hmm soldering cant be harder than welding surely.

Also a couple of shiny things for the engine arrived a little while ago 8)

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