My Craig's List Bargain:

[thechadzone]

I was up late the other night looking at parts online (as I often do), and I found an ad that said "Lancia head: should be rebuilt $20.00".

It was local to me, so I figured I couldn't go wrong for the price. I agreed to meet the guy after I got off work. The place the head was at turned out to be at an amazing high end collector car dealership in Portland called "Northwest Investment Cars". I was glad I was still nicely dressed from work... The guy who placed the ad had left for the day, and the guy who was there took my word for it that the ad said $20 for the head. I practically ran out of there with it under my arm.

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/thech ... .jpg[/img]
Lancia Head 1 by thechadzone, on Flickr[/url]

Not only is the head in good shape, I took the valve covers off and discovered a very nice looking Abarth 068 cam! Strangely, it is on the exhaust side. The intake cam is stamped Fiat, and has a paint stamp of the number 20 circled on it. I noticed that both cams have the drive gear for the distributor, and I wonder why the Abarth cam is on the exhaust side. I look forward to having the intake cam spec'd. The research I've done says that the spec for the 068 cams is 50-68/64-43. I just happen to have an intake cam from a 132 Abarth lying around that has 10.75 of lift. I wonder if it'll come off the shelf and play with the 068 cam? The pics I've included are from my aged original iPhone, sorry for their quality...

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/thech ... .jpg[/img]
Lancia Head 3 by thechadzone, on Flickr[/url]


Lancia Head 2 by thechadzone, on Flickr

From what I've read online, the numbers "134AS 6C on the head mean that the head is from a Montecarlo. The numbers underneath the 134AS6c are 4348553, which I've at least been able to reference as Lancia. Pretty sure it's a 2 liter head?

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/thech ... .jpg[/img]
Lancia Head 5 by thechadzone, on Flickr[/url]

[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/thech ... .jpg[/img]
Lancia Head 4 by thechadzone, on Flickr[/url]

I know that the oiling for the Lancia & Fiat motors are different due to their very different orientations, which makes me wonder about this head's application for my Spider or Coupe. Can I use this for either of them? Valves? Are the valve ports Euro spec? ...? It's clear that whoever placed the ad didn't know what they had, and I only have a reasonably good idea of what I have. I really appreciate any of y'all filling in the gaps here. Things like the valve sizes that the Euro spec Montecarlo head has are of particular interest to me. I've mentioned before that almost all of my wrenching experience has come from having to fix what broke, rather than from building something "nice". I have very little mechanical ego, but please take it easy on me and my ignorance : )

While I'm typing, BIG SHOUT-OUT TO MAGICWRENCH! He sent me some IDF parts in the mail just because he's a nice guy. Thanks, man!

[131]

I'm pretty sure that the Monte Carlo had the dizzy on the inlet cam. From the photos it looks like it's got distributor holes on both camboxes. Interesting casting on the front of the inlet cam cover. As far as using it on a north/south mounted engine, the only difference is the drain holes in the camboxes, the lean on the Lancia motor meant the oil drain holes were different. It'd be worth measuring the chamber volume to see how it compares with a stock 2 litre head. A set of Fiat camboxes with your extra lumpy cams on this head will give your spider or coupe something to sing about.

[So Cal Mark]

the water jackets look good on that head; no erosion. The cam cover casting is for the egr valve. I'd guess someone mixed and matched parts since both cam housings have dizzy mounts. The Scorp/Montecarlo had the dizzy on the intake side using a dizzy that turned the opposite direction.

[BEEK]

i took the drive gear off my scorpion distrbutor and put it on a plex, works awesome. just hard to find reverse cut gears

[thechadzone]

Thanks much for the responses! It seems I now have the carbs and the cams, now for the compression. My BC Coupe will soon have a new workspace that will allow its restoration to continue. It's been damn near a year since anything has happened with it, but not a day has gone by without it being in my thoughts.

I know that Mark has some custom made domed 1608 pistons available, but these plus 11 mm of cam lift may make my car totally inappropriate for the street. No? Thoughts on raising CR enough to take advantage of the cams & IDF carbs while still making a streetable 1608 motor of 130-140 hp are appreciated.

While I'm at it, what's your best automotive Craig's List/eBay bargain? This head wins out over my rust free $1500 BC Coupe, but just barely. I absolutely love parts hunting, and I know I'm not alone...

[vandor]

Looking at the combustion chambers it looks like an 1800 head.
Nice find!!!
If you are interested I have some super-trick 82mm high-dome Italian made 1608 pistons. They were going to go into my 850 Coupe TC conversion, but I just sold the car...

[fiat218]

what did u want for them pistons ? what do u mean super trick, and what sort of cams would i need with them?
i have a 1608 that i intend to have built up and put duals carbs on it .

so a head from a 1800 would be good on the 1608?

[vandor]

>what did u want for them pistons ?

$400. I'll post pics in a bit in For Sale, so as to not totally highjack this thread.

>what do u mean super trick, and what sort of cams would i need with them?

Well, they are 2mm oversize, which would increase displacement to close to 1700cc. However, they might need sleeves, I do not know what the wallthickness of the 1608 is. I know a 1800/2000 can be bored 2mm over (it's only 1mm on each side), but don't know about the 1608.
They also have large domes, for a lot of compression. I do not know how much, it would have to be calculated during the building process. I'm guessing 11:1 or so.
What cams you use depends wholly on what you want from the engine - do you want a more mid range torque, or high end power? I ran my 1608 with a 40-80 cam on the intake side with a 32-36DFEV carb, and it was a nice mild street engine. Denise is running a pair of 42/82 cams and IDFs and says the engine is very tractable, but I'm sure it makes a lot of high end power.

>so a head from a 1800 would be good on the 1608?

I never tried it, but as far as I know it would work. I do not know the size of the 1608 combustion chamber, so I can't say how it would affect compression, but I think if anything the 1800 head might lower CR.

[thechadzone]

I want them pistons so bad... I better buy Christmas for folks first, then hope that they're still available. I've heard that 2mm is the most boring that the bores can take. That's probably fine for a race motor, but I wonder how many miles I'd get with a street motor. I'd like to get at least 40k out of my hot street motor... Still, I'll be thinking of'em...

[fiatfreak]

It looks like the head has air injection ports. The exhaust cam housing looks like it's from a Spider; has the mount for a smog pump, My guess is it's a stock Scorpion head and intake cam with a Spider exhaust cam housing with Abarth cam.

[fiatfactory]

.

[Daniel]

at 2.0mm you would almost certainly be sleeving something.

I heard sleeving all 4 bores is a bad ideal that leaves not enough material for them to sit in place .