Japawagons Alfa Romeo 156 - Money Pit

[japawagons]

It's been some time since I've been in possession of an Oldschool vehicle, but I thought I'd post a thread covering my Alfa Romeo 156. My Non Japanese, Non Wagon, Non Oldschool "Race" Car.

I'm hoping to keep a record of this beast, and gather advice / inspiration from the oldschool.co.nz population as I see some really good tips and ideas coming through for others on their build threads.

Brief History.

The car was a standard road registered 2.0 Litre Twin Spark with the Infamous Selespeed Transmission. (Manual Gearbox with an Electro-Hydraulic "Robot", e.g Semi Automatic Gearbox). Just like most European cars it was poorly maintained and arrived at my then work with a rod hanging out the side of the block, the customer was uninterested and sold it as a parts car to the workshop.

 Around this time, I was going through some big personal life events, just out of my apprenticeship and I was broke as hell and had an unexpected son not far away.

The workshop was doing quite alot of Motorsport orientated Fabrication and Mechanical work, as well as being the NZ OMP Distributors at the time, the plan was to convert this 156 into a Clubsport orientated car that was effectively used to show customers what we can do. They could try out seats, harnesses and steering wheels and we could gauge a persons requirements size wise prior to commencing a build on their car. So I foolishly offered to build the Rollcage Nights and Weekends as I wanted to learn to do this work for myself, I also had a serious itch for projects and this way I didn't have to fund the progress.

Anyway from memory it took about a year or so to get the initial build completed. XYZ Adjustable Suspension. Rollcage with Incorporated Tube Seat Mounts. Converted the car to Conventional Manual and Rewired the Car to operate purely on the original Engine ECU sans Selespeed ECU whilst retaining Fly by Wire, No easy feat considering I couldn't find anyone else who had ever done it but alas like all these things the solution was quite simple in the end. Other than that the car was pretty much standard other than OMP Front Brake Pads and Motul Brake Fluid.

It was at this point that my boss said to me, that since I built the damn thing, I better be the one to go race it. So basically for the next few years I taught myself how to drive(if you could call it that), competing in local hillclimbs, Dual Sprints, Clubmans Grid Racing, Producation Race Series, slowly developing the car into what it is now.

Luckily for me, my boss basically came to me, indicating that over the length of time I had been running and modifying the car, he felt that the car was more mine than his and sold it to me for a price that I most certainly couldn't refuse. At this point I went a bit batshit, and the last big transformation took place. 

Unfortunately the car has barely been used for the last 2 years and has been living with 10-5, gathering dust mostly, I even attempted to sell it, the market then proceeded to let me know that no-one actually wanted the car and that it was effectively valueless to anyone but me. So now I have moved to Blenheim and for the 1st time in my life have my own garage at my own house. I will proceed to spend even more money on NZ's most useless 156.

Sorry, that almost bored me to death, so I can't imagine how you feel, so here's the photo's of me trying to sell her.

 

 

 

 

 

[japawagons]

 

 

 

[japawagons]

Anywho, she arrived with me on Thursday evening, thanks to 10-5, Archetype and my partner's Best Friend & her Husband.

Finally living back in the same place as I am. Beefed up the shed security, still need to do a bit more, I'm hyper paranoid but honestly I really don't live in the best neighbourhood.

 

A very long To Do List.

The No.1 Goal really is to make her road legal again, just to make life easy. The big barriers at the moment are LVV Cert Update, Lock Diff replaced with LSD or Open Diff (Fuck this idea), New Harnesses, Speedo, Hydraulic Handbrake (Has None atm) and MSNZ AUthority Card.

 

But 1st an easy job, repair the Intake Air Temp Sensor wiring, torn out by the ham fisted wanker who came to look at the car when it was for sale. (I'll save you from anymore of that rant).

Luckily I carry these terminals and plugs around in the ute for my new Field Service job, handy.

[Valiant]

Id like to hear the story about the ham fisted wiring damaging wanker

[Yowzer]

It's still lacking a spoiler

[Truenotch]

19 hours ago, Valiant said:

Id like to hear the story about the ham fisted wiring damaging wanker

Ditto. Love a good rant. 

[Roman]

1 hour ago, Yowzer said:

It's still lacking a spoiler

[Roman]

Man I love this car. 

I'm not heart broken that you couldnt sell it to be honest. 
Glad you managed to get it down there with you. 
Hope things going well.
Look forward to seeing what new iterations develop. 

Expecting graphs of new cold tune start efficiency 

 

[japawagons]

5 hours ago, Yowzer said:

It's still lacking a spoiler

You'll be happy to know it's on my To Do List. 

The bad news is it's till in 10-5's garage, totally forgot to get it put in the car.

I've also never seen Forrest Gump, so that may very well have been a spoiler.
 

4 hours ago, Roman said:

Man I love this car. 

I'm not heart broken that you couldnt sell it to be honest. 
Glad you managed to get it down there with you. 
Hope things going well.
Look forward to seeing what new iterations develop. 

Expecting graphs of new cold tune start efficiency 

 

To be honest, selling it would've made life easier, especially considering I know live as far away as you can get from a racetrack.

But I'm glad I didn't manage to sell it, I think seeing this car go would've been harder than selling my little 105.

I've already checked MS Paint is calibrated and ready for copious amounts of graph drawing.

[Snoozin]

This is awesome.

I've been looking longingly at 156's of late, manual V6 sounds like a thing I could happily own.

[kws]

Looks like my old 156 v6/6spd was dereg a couple of years ago. Guess it finally gave into the horrific rust problem it had. 

I'd still love a GTA, but hard to find them at a good price now. 

[japawagons]

2 hours ago, kws said:

Looks like my old 156 v6/6spd was dereg a couple of years ago. Guess it finally gave into the horrific rust problem it had. 

I'd still love a GTA, but hard to find them at a good price now. 

Rust problem? That in NZ? They're electro galv bodies, the only rust I've ever seen is in cars that have clearly had big prangs at some point in there lives.

[kws]

UK import, front and rear floor pans were basically Swiss cheese. Could poke your finger into holes and touch carpet. 

It did look and sound awesome though. I miss it. 

[Roman]

Hey @japawagons,

Do you have much of a yarn to share about what you've done with the car so far in terms of developing it for track purposes?
Like, there were a few times when the stars aligned and we both had cars at the same event. 
It was cool seeing this progress and make some decent lap time improvements. 
Remember you saying that locking the front diff made a crazy big difference, in a good way.

Is there anything that sticks out in your mind as having been a really big "wow" moment for a difference in how it's gone so far? (Or expected wow, but, no wow)

Also, apart from there being no local tracks is there a local motorsports club that does hillclimbs or anything like that?

[japawagons]

Dear @Roman

I probably have far too much to say about the developments I've made over the years, I usually hesitate to start getting into this, especially if I have had a beer or 6. I tend to start ranting. 

The majority of the big birthdays have been to simplify and lighten the vehicle. (The car has almost no original wiring left at all)

Luckily the car started life with XYZ Adjustable suspension, the springs rates which came with them actually turned out to be really wellsuited to the car, so I pretty much would tune the shock adjustment for weather / track /  road. 

For the entire life of the car, I've only run R888's, so I've had a static compound to develop the car on, honestly I would highly recommend this to anyone, rather than chasing a compound / tyre which can happen when using 2nd hand tyre supplies etc.

The most interesting back to back test was switching from the end of life R888's to a brand new set. 2.5 Secs. That was unreal. 

No.1 Best Mod - Locked Diff.

Downsides

- Pushing the car around is hard.
- Driving out of the pit garage it feels like a locked diff.
- Hearing other people hammer on about how much of a terrible idea a locked diff in a FWD is, when you accidentally mention it. (Do Not Tell People at a Race Track)
- Not Road Legal
- When you lock a front wheel whilst braking, both wheels lock together. (Good and Bad but obviously when you're right at the limit, you are well and truly there.)

Upsides

- Cheap. Fun to Modify.
- Absolutely transforms the Corner Exit Grip.
- Allows very direct throttle steering.
- In the wet, braking performance is absolutely amazing, it prevents the lightly loaded wheel from locking early, or a wheel in a deeper puddle. Of course when they do lock, both do, so you need to be very conscious of this and pulse / threshold braking needs to be instinctive.
- In the dry, braking performance is amazing.

At no point have I ever felt that the locked diff causes any negative driving characteristics, e.g causing understeer in slower corners or feeling like it was binding or fighting me in anyway, my thoughts are that when driven in anger the weight transfer is unloading the outside wheel enough, and having driven plate LSD's they feel pretty much the same under acceleration and slow speed manoeuvring.

Also if a NZV8 on slicks runs a Locked Diff then surely anything can.
 

 No.2 Mod - Twin Master Cylinder Pedal Box

If anyone is building a track orientated car then I absolutely stress that you need to go down this route, as once you get it set up right, it will have the biggest enhancement to driving technique and allows you to really work on improving it. A large number of factory type set ups especially vacuum boosted and ABS types,  don't allow the modulation of the brake pedal to be precise enough to really use Heel / Toe, Left Foot or Threshold Braking to the level that is possible.

I won't claim for a second that I'm a genius and sat down, calculating the perfect Master Cylinder Sizes, after carefully measuring the Callipers and Rotors etc etc, although Rhys did give me all the required Math to do so. I rang Evan at Speedfactor, who has alot of experience with DC2 Type R's, which are a very similar type car (except better in almost every way), he gave me the sizes he uses. I fitted those. Took it to the track, wound rear brake in until they started working. I ended up with an adjustment that actually allows the rear to lock just a fraction before the fronts do, which I found in a front wheel drive to be a lifesaver.

Usually when the fronts lock, you're trail baking into or towards the Apex, so you're loading the front tyres with the steering and brakes, if they lock here, chronic understeer occurs, no braking, no steering.  If the rear locks, oversteer occurs, rotating the car towards the apex / corner, you can unwind the steering (unloading the tyres), wrestle the car and even get on the throttle to drive your way through and out of the corner, it's by no means tidy, unless you are very instinctive but I found it so much better than just understeering wide. I have had this happen numerous times in the wet, it is very manageable, I am able to pass cars around the inside or outside due to being able to balance this. 

(Told you I start to rant)

Braking in a pedal box allows Pressure Modulation rather than stroke modulation, this means that you can quite easily maintain even brake pressure whilst rotating your foot and blipping the throttle whilst changing down gear. This has made corner entry significantly smoother and has also allowed me to keep driving on a gearbox that is well overdue for a birthday. You may also notice the gigantic Throttle pedal, this is an Unable to Miss Throttle. Very Important.

Left Foot Braking, I am still mastering but around Taupo is a god send, being able to keep it flat and just dab brake over Turn 4? if needed, prevents the Chronic Lift Off Oversteer that can happen through there, also being able to keep the throttle partially in or dab the throttle under heavy brakes is very helpful for balancing the car out when on the limit. 

But pressure modulation, is by far the biggest gain, simply being able to relax your foot and then reapply pressure rather than trying to lift your foot up or down when threshold braking is an enormous positive, the brake feel is night and day, you almost feel like your supporting yourself and then just squeezing or relaxing your foot. This feel just gives you the confidence to take it right up to the limit and then just sit right on it. 

Did I mention this car is amazing in the wet?

It's probably the fact it only makes 90kw ATW and I'm not going very fast.

 

My apologies to anyone who took the time to read this.

On the next episode, I explain why I have a AE92 Corolla Gearshift Mechanism fitted to this car / gearbox.

[Roman]

That was a top notch rant.

Cant wait to try out pedal box setup too.

[Snoozin]

Thanks for pedal box yarn. This is something I'm likely to go through pretty soon on the red car.

 

[yoeddynz]

Yeah that was awesome. I'll be doing a pedal box setup on my imp site to the massive weight difference front to rear. Way too easy to lock the front currently. Which also means I'm missing out on better braking to be had from the rear which has so much weight on it.  Reading what you've posted has got me all fizzing about the fun aspect of setting it up. 

Cheers for the rant. 

Please rant some more. 

Oh and it's been noted that you've still not told us about the hamfisted tyre kicker. 

[japawagons]

Damn, whilst half of the country is on forced project progress leave, I've been classified essential. My partner too is essential and so I have volunteered to take on our 12 Hour Night shifts over the grape harvest, that way someone is at home with the youngling during the day (albeit sleeping). 

Anyway updates will remain few and far between and generally completed at unspeakable hours of the morning.

Today I ran over the Wheel Stud situation, and I've just completed my order for some of these bad boys.

Originally this lovely European machine was fitted with wheel bolts, which although does reduce unsprung weight at the wheel, is just completely impractical when wheels come on and off as often as they do on a "race" car.  The ones currently fitted don't have a shoulder between the two threads to tighten up on.

They have been a royal pain in the ass ever since I fitted them. Supply for decent wheel stud / extensions is dismal in NZ. So I desperately tried to make what I could find work, tack welding them at the back of the hub to attempt to secure them. The thread quality of those and the wheel nuts I used also leaves much to be desired, so I'm hitting the reset and hopefully the replacements will be a permanent solution.
 

No idea when these will arrive in NZ, could be a week, could be 3 months, fuck, could be 12 months in our current predicament. 

Finished removing the sound deadening in the boot area. I also wondered why I didn't finish this. Shortly after starting with my painfully monotonous manual removal method, I understood why. Next time Dry Ice.

Anyway the car has finally had all it's sound deadening removed after nearly 7 years.

 

Bam. Door Off. (The quick release hinges on modern cars are fucking sweet, 2x 6mm bolts and the door just slides up on off)

The 2 Rear Doors have perviously had the lightweight treatment, and are really fucking light, they even have Lexan Windows, which were cut down out of a rolled Fiat Uno Club Car. My goal is two Lexan the 2x Front Windows and Fit a Slide Window on the Driver's Side. But current estimates are about $900 for a sheet of Lexan. So that may not happen for while. Just wanted to put in on the Authority Card really.

Anyway the wiring has been disconnected for quite sometime so I started the Nip, Tuck and Liposuction, to remove all the redundant internals and extra weight.
 

[japawagons]

Door Trim Off.

Used Jumper Pack to wind window down to enable removal. Fuck these are handy.

Bam and the Steel is gone.

If in Doubt, Chop it Out.

 

Well on the way, still go a bit to tidy up before starting on the other side. Will weigh it tomorrow and see how much came out. Enough to justify a beer anywyay.

 

Used one of these Emery Tape Flapper Wheel Disc things for the 1st time on this door. (On Panel steel at least). Fuck they're awesome, they remove a surprisingly large amount of material and are really good for creating round radius edges, also great for trimming the burrs from the cutting discs. A+. Would trade Again.