Purple Cams!

[boogiedude]

Those look like 4.5 domes to me. The 9s are much pointier IIRC

[djape1977]

I do agree, well some what. Don,t use the head gasket that comes with the whole engine kit, unless it is the felpro/gotez. No need for the turbo gasket either with this build. Use 93/94 octane fuel and you will be fine. Head gasket failures are from detention, warped head or cylinder block not from the increased cylinder pressured from higher compression.

actually, i was running that particular engine on LPG so no detonation issues there. it's less prone to detonation than any petrol. i didn't bother to take pic, but if you saw that gasket, you'd know that only reason for failure was increased pressure. head and block were fresh from mahine shop and problem didn't reoccur after gasket change.


gasket for turbo/volumex doesn't need to be any thicker than regular one, just reinforced.

[spiderrey]

Subscribed. Best of luck here maytag.

[lanciahf]

In an effort for you to enjoy your car this summer I am going to be brutally honest.
Stock 1800s will rev to 7000 all day so I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish?
Ralph's 5 easy steps to enjoying your spider.

1. Throw those regrind cams away, replace with stock cam wheels from a FI spider and stock cams. We will worry about hi-po cams next year. **** Not Regrinds ***
2. Get some proper OEM valve springs & OEM Valve keepers + retainers.
3. Larger Single carb preferably a real Weber, Suggest a 34 ADF. Keep the duals on the shelf so you can look at them and say they are pretty.
4. Keep the bottom end the way it is.
5. Electronic Ignition, be it the OEM system or Crane
Drive your spider. Remember it is a 30 year old car and it was never intended to be embellished with tons of torque. If you need more power aim for euro specs.

I don't know of any builder/machinist that doesn't check valve spring pressure. It's crucial to know what the pressure is at the correct installed height. Do a search for Ventura Aces' thread about the race springs he tried and you'll see some of the potential damage improper spring pressure can cause

I'm not a builder. Nor am I a machinist.
I'm just a guy trying his best to get this damned thing back on the road before I lose so much momentum that I throw-in the towel.
Some of y'all may remember that every moment and every penny I spend on this is time & money I am NOT spending on the car I REALLY want to be working on. (Don't hate me, she's also Italian )

Manoa:
I'd love to find some top-hats for the valves. I don't know anyone still doing that. do you?
But as for proceeding with the spacer under the shim; I don't see how it'll fail, really. It's true I was nervous at first glance, and I guess if the clearances were very wrong, the shim could pop-out. But the more I look at it, I don't see it happening. I'll post some better / more detailed photos with some measurements; see if you agree with my assessment.

[maytag]

In an effort for you to enjoy your car this summer I am going to be brutally honest.
Stock 1800s will rev to 7000 all day so I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish?
Ralph's 5 easy steps to enjoying your spider.

1. Throw those regrind cams away, replace with stock cam wheels from a FI spider and stock cams. We will worry about hi-po cams next year. **** Not Regrinds ***
2. Get some proper OEM valve springs & OEM Valve keepers + retainers.
3. Larger Single carb preferably a real Weber, Suggest a 34 ADF. Keep the duals on the shelf so you can look at them and say they are pretty.
4. Keep the bottom end the way it is.
5. Electronic Ignition, be it the OEM system or Crane
Drive your spider. Remember it is a 30 year old car and it was never intended to be embellished with tons of torque. If you need more power aim for euro specs.

I appreciate the input, but no.
I pulled-off the 34adf. it's on the shelf.
I'm already running the OEM electronic ignition, have been for 2 years.

in another thread, I described how I got here. I was getting OUT of the Fiat Spider world... because I acquired my "dream car", (my first Ferrari) in need of a little love. So I started selling everything. EVERYTHING had to go to make room. I had a fire-sale on cool parts... sold a parts-car, a rust-free-shell... even threw a bunch of stuff away 'cuz it wouldn't sell fast enough...
And then it came to this car... and I couldn't part with it. It is STILL in my garage, so the TR is STILL in storage, untouched, because I can't get this thing DONE. (now can you feel my urgency? )

In short, though, my other car needs me. So this is the last time I open this up for anything major for at least 5 years. The IDF's and Mark's header are going on it, or I'm selling it, 'cuz I can tell you that right now I am not loving the car the way I was when I decided not to sell it.

If I determine this weekend that I cannot make these cams / springs etc etc work NOW, then I will table them and buy something more "conventional", cam-wise, that has been done enough times that all of the surprises have been vetted-out.

So.. Stayed tuned!

[maytag]

Alright:
I've measured-up the springs. I've got an installed-height of 39.5mm (including the retainer). At that height (so "seat-pressure") I've got 105lbs. with a lift of 10.795mm (.425") I get 225lbs of pressure.
So that seems to be plenty (from what I read, maybe too much?).
However: compressed to that point, several of the spring coils are touching. I'm not okay with that. Additionally: I'm becoming more uncomfortable with the loose fit of the spring at the base. it has far too much room to "dance".

At this point, if I decide to go ahead and use these springs, I need to do a couple of things.
I think that if I were to add a couple mm to the installed-height, it would solve the coil-bind issue. I think there's still plenty of spring pressure if I do this (I haven't measured, but I think we'd be fine). But there's only a couple ways to do this: have the valve-seat machined so the valve sits a little deeper in the head, or machine the spring pocket. (unless someone is aware of a modified retainer or keepers that would add this much to my height?) One of the advantages to machining the valves deeper is that it will increase valve-to-piston available clearance.

As for the other issue, I think I can get the original inner-spring locator (see photo in original post where I call it a "centering-base") turned-down so it fits inside the spring. Not sure how I feel about this, as it could also be bounced around inside the spring.

[maytag]

Pistons:
Here's the pistons I purchased:
http://www.fiatplus.com/840-mm-std-pist ... 02018.html

But I measure the dome-height to be 7.8mm. very strange. I'll contact the vendor and see what they know.

[So Cal Mark]

it sounds like you might need to use different springs. The cams you have are a full race grind and power is in the 7500-8000 rpm range so stock springs might not be able to handle your situation. With the adjustable gears you may be able to move the power range a bit lower. Reground cams are fine, they need to be broken in properly just as a new cam does.

[maytag]

After speaking with Daniel again, I've decided to let someone smarter than me work with those springs. I'll be sending them back to him. I have no doubt that these are great springs. I just think they are wrong for my application. He recommended the Isky springs that Csaba sells, and I think Ted also made the same recommendation. Now that I've measured-up the valvetrain, I'll get with Csaba and see if he has information on his Isky springs, so I can verify fitment prior to ordering.

In the meantime, I've found (and ordered) some top-hats for the valves so I can use a more standard-sized shim. This is the same method Guy Croft uses. He wants £8/ea, plus frt from UK. I found 'em at Jegs for $2.95/ea. Ships tomorrow.

[So Cal Mark]

look carefully at the top hats from Jegs. They may be too deep for the height of the valve tip. If so, the outer edge will push the retainer down and allow the keepers to come out. I don't think I have to tell you what happens next

[Daniel]

The cams you have are a full race grind and power is in the 7500-8000 rpm range

No these Cams are more of a autocross setup not sure where your getting full race Cams from
I've tried many cams from many people including yours Mark . These profiles i've worked with
have broard power band good pull from 3000 on to 8000 .


Dan I wouldn't cut your valve seats to solve shim adjustment issues this isn't a good ideal imo
I'll see about finding you some lash caps this should be a simple solution .

A little food for thought on the comments about regrinds being bad choice, I've never had a single
regrind go bad on me not that it's never happen to anyone else but the first time i purchased a
regrind was over 20 years ago for a fiat tc . People will be winning races around the country this
weekend on regrinds a lot of companies and tuners use them . I can order Cams in Billet as well
but the cost is more then double . I do like the profile options at these price points it makes
rebuilding an engine less stressful on the wallet .

[BEEK]

ok my turn to chime in i have run into this problem when using reground cams in the past. the solution i had was pretty simple. have the machine shop remove (machine) material from the bottom of the cam box. this brings the cams closer to the head , thus eliminating lash caps. we ran lash caps first, used alfa shims, tried and true hardened and all, and one broke, go figure. so this was the easyest solution, remember you are removing .030 or .040 not 1/4" you will need adjustable cam pullies, but im hoping that you already have them or have ordered them, they are necessary no matter what your solution. my .02 worth

[maytag]

ok my turn to chime in i have run into this problem when using reground cams in the past. the solution i had was pretty simple. have the machine shop remove (machine) material from the bottom of the cam box. this brings the cams closer to the head , thus eliminating lash caps. we ran lash caps first, used alfa shims, tried and true hardened and all, and one broke, go figure. so this was the easyest solution, remember you are removing .030 or .040 not 1/4" you will need adjustable cam pullies, but im hoping that you already have them or have ordered them, they are necessary no matter what your solution. my .02 worth

'preciate the suggestion. I looked at doing that, but decided to try the top-hats (I also looked at Alfa shims, and Ducati shims, either of which would probably work). One of the reasons is that I only have this issue on the intake side. the base-circle was reduced significantly so that the lobe could be a little fatter on the ramp-up. I gotta say; this cam profile looks great! Almost what I would've expected from a roller-cam from back in the Big-Inch motor days. fast ramp-up, stays at full-lift for a long time!
When I get it all degreed-up this weekend, I'll draw the lobe and see if I can overlay it to the stock one, just for kicks.

[BEEK]

I have built many fiat race motors in my life. Many with reground cams, only a few of those presented a problem with the base circle being too small. Obviously base circle has to be compromised to achieve higher lift and vastly different timing from used oe cam cores. I will say that I used billet new cams for all of my serious motors, but price wasn’t considered. Reed cams ground me a few (regrinds) back in the mid 1980's that were awesome. I see no real problem using reground cams. We tried using the thinnest shims we could as well, trying to reduce valve train weight. Even shaved the sides of the shim bucket tops so a 2.0 shim could be used.

[So Cal Mark]

even brand new cams will need a reduced base circle if you want to increase lift. Since the Fiat cam housings don't have removeable bearing caps, the cam has to fit through the bearing saddles. That limits the amount of cam lift possible