What to do?

[dalvis]

I have a 83 Pininfarina and would like it to go a bit quicker. I've decided that I could spend between $1000 and $1500 this year. The car is in generally good condition. It smokes when it initially starts, so I think that means the valve seals need to be replaced. I don't know how to work on the car myself, but I'm willing to learn. I'm thinking that replacing the head with one from an 1800 would fix the smoke and get a little more compression. Maybe next year replace the header and exhaust.

Thoughts and opinions?

Thanks

Dwayne

[TX82FIAT]

Dwayne,
I'm a learn as you go mechanic that has owned a few Spiders and offer some comments to help improve HP.

Firts, what color is the smoke? If Bluish gray puff then I would suspect oil is dripping into combustion chamber when sitting because of a valve seal. If it is Blackish than unburn fuel. If white then coolant leaking into chamber. I'm going to assume it is a valve seal and you will need to take the cylinder head off. I would take the head to someone to get it checked out and then while you have it off if all is good have someone that knows what they are doing open the ports and polish.

If you have basic maint items such as good plugs, wires, timing, timing belt, dist, fuel filters with a good head-open polished ports you can see a few HP increase and fix your issue without spending to much money. You can buy an 1800 head and some folks here would encourage it. However, you have an 83 FI and I bet the head you have on it is still very good. Depending on the emmissions in your state consider a test pipe or free flow cat combined with a K & N air filter. I think these things will be well under $1000 combined and you might be suprised how much better your car runs.

I had an 83.5 that I sold a few years back, opened and polished ports with K & N filter and magnaflow cat. All maintenance up to date. Car ran like a champ. While not dynoed I would bet on 15 to 20 hp gain. The sound is much better too. Ray

[boxdogracing]

Have you considered Megasquirt, or another after market F.I. system. Mark is working on one right now. His would probably be the easiest to install but no word on price yet. I'am in the processes of a Megasquirt build. Should be about $600 for everything involved, but many hours of research and design. The idea with any new system on a spider is to eliminate the restrictive AFM. Offer better performance now, and allow you to tune for performance parts later.

[TX82FIAT]

Boxdogracing, Agree fully with the MegaSquirt. I'm actually doing one right now on my 82. However, I will say there is a tendency for folks on this forum to oversimplfy the MegaSquirt process. You do mention the hours of research and design. I am humbled by the electronic prowess of many on this site and if you have the electrical skill set I would say go for it. However, the Bosh FI that comes with the car is pretty sturdy and offers good performance up to a certain RPM. The benefits of a MegaSquirt system increase substantially as you alter an engine build with items like porting, cams, HC pistons, lightened flywheel..... For a base engine and a small budget I would spend money getting the system to run the way it was designed. In the states we were shortchanged by emission standards but we can fix that. A good tune up and allowing the engine to breathe would be a quick goal. Then... if you want more HP over the modest gains achieved, move into other areas such as mega Squirt.

[So Cal Mark]

before any perf mods are considered, the engine should be in excellent running condition. If you have smoke, I'd look at repairing the engine to good condition first. A free flow exhaust and larger afm or tweaked afm can provide a nice little boost without affecting driveability or requiring opening the engine.
If you go back to the dyno day thread, you'll see we picked up 7hp on a couple of FI cars just by tweaking the afm. There are some larger afms out there that will flow more and bolt on. Getting a perf advance curve on the dist and again, using a larger free flow exhaust system ends up with a noticeable improvement in performance

[dalvis]

I definitely want to get the engine running well. I don't like having it smoke in the morning. At this point that means reconditioning the head. A local mechanic has quoted a price of $700 to send the head off to a machinist and install a new gasket and timing belt along with tune-up items. I thought that it would cost $300 to $400 more get a 1800 head from Vick's or some other place and have that installed. The end result would be an engine that ran well with more HP potential for a few hundred more than it would cost just to fix the existing head. Since I am a complete novice my thought process may be flawed.

[81SPIDERMATT]

before any perf mods are considered, the engine should be in excellent running condition. If you have smoke, I'd look at repairing the engine to good condition first. A free flow exhaust and larger afm or tweaked afm can provide a nice little boost without affecting driveability or requiring opening the engine.
If you go back to the dyno day thread, you'll see we picked up 7hp on a couple of FI cars just by tweaking the afm. There are some larger afms out there that will flow more and bolt on. Getting a perf advance curve on the dist and again, using a larger free flow exhaust system ends up with a noticeable improvement in performance

is there more info on the tweaking of the afm..tools required....step by step...... 81 spider.... engine runs well

[wikkid]

Look to the Force = Mass x Acceleration formula. Increase force and/or decrease mass for greater acceleration. Take off the heavy bumpers (see red car at top of page). Is your car equipped with A/C, and if so, are you ok without it? There's a good deal of weight in all the A/C components.

+1 on getting your engine running as well as possible stock. Then, look at small changes for cheap that, combined with decreased weight, will give you improvements.

Here are some tips for power gains from this excellent tuning article for the Bosch FI system:

Valve adjustment: "The intakes never really get out of adjustment which is good since you have to remove the cams to adjust them. The exhausts however can be easily adjusted. The book calls for a clearance of .0089" to .0098". That means set them to .0089"! Any extra clearance means reduced lift and duration which means lost power. Extra clearance can also shorten the life of cams and other valve related components. This is a little thing you can do that costs nothing and improves power."

Aux Air Valve fiddling: you can adjust the AAV for more power but at the expense of cold starting ease, or vice versa. Depends on your climate/location, if that works for you or not. See details in the article.

AFM adjustment: "It's fairly easy to adjust the AFM to signal the ECU to send in a little more fuel. This mod gives a minor increase in power and better throttle response. It does not effect fuel economy but it can increase emissions. It's a simple reversible procedure. The AFM's door is held shut by spring pressure. We can reduce that spring pressure which will cause the door to open farther for a given amount of air volume. This will cause the AFM to signal the ECU for a little extra fuel. The procedure is simple. With the cover off look at the workings of the AFM and find the large wire shaped like a "W" and secured with a little bolt. That wire secures a gear and keeps the gear from turning. Mark the gear where it is secured by the wire (that's where my screwdriver is touching it in the photo below). Try to make the mark with a sharp knife so it will not wear off. Now hold the gear still and loosen the bolt securing the "W" shaped wire. Once the wire is free of the gear's teeth rotate the gear counter clockwise five or six teeth and secure it in that position by bolting the "W" shaped wire back into place. That's it! put the cover back on, secure it with silicone and you are done with the AFM."

Ignition timing advance: "When setting ignition timing there is a nice opportunity to increase the engines power output when emissions are not a concern. The factory setting is ideal for emissions but not power. The timing can be advanced about six degrees for a nice improvement in engine power and response with no increase in the engine's octane requirement. Six degrees is an easy amount to see on these engines. On the early cars six degrees is about double the width of the letter R on the pulley so advance the timing about that distance away from the line. On the later cars six degrees is about equal to three times the distance from the "P" line to the "F" line. Visualize where that would be on the pulley and set the timing there. When you advance the timing the engine speeds up, be sure to advance, not retard the timing. Since the timing effects the idle speed and vice versa you may need to slow the idle after you advance the timing and then check the timing again and adjust as needed and so on. After a two or three cycles you should have it just right."

[TX82FIAT]

Wikkid great detail on the AFM adjustment and ignition timing advance. You are a little more aggressive with the adjstments to both then I have been. However, these are great adjustments and i think you are on point. Take these tweaks with less restriction of air in and out and the engine will absolutley run better with little money invested.

The only other thing I would offer in these considerations is what is it you want to really acomplish. The 1800 head is a better head for the car if you have other performance mods. I think the stock head is just as good for a stock engine slightly modified as described. +20 hp with a well tuned engine is a huge win. On a HP comparison level the car will never really compete with the SPORTS cars of today unless serious money is put into it. A 30 year old spider with 120 HP will be a hoot to drive no matter who you are. It may not be as quick but you have all the other folks beat in fun as well as cool.

[wikkid]

I concur - some weight reduction if possible, along with a tweaked and well-tuned engine and flowing engine will give you good bang for buck.

Those adjustments on ignition timing and the AFM are not mine, they are quoted straight from the article I linked to. YMMV

So, Mark, what options do we have for exhaust mod's/changes that would give a boost without blowing out the eardrums too much (a nice, growly Italian sports car sound is fine, just not too loud!)? I have no emissions inspection, so no cat requirement. I am really not versed in all the different components' functions and how they affect things: muffler, middle resonator, larger diameter pipe, cat vs. no cat.... Is there a good overview you could give, or point to, to cover this?