New project. 1987 Lamborghini Jalpa. There's no easy way out.

Alright, seeing no pitting. Got the piston out. Was stuck in there good. Got my air compressor up to 100psi and it wouldn't go. Got some penetrating oil in there and tried again. BLAMMO, shot right out. Piston is in good shape. Looks like it should be a piece of cake rebuild. I lost the original retaining clip but bought a kit quite some time ago of metric snap rings, so I should have something that'll fit. Throwout bearing will be here saturday, as will the rebuild kit.

Have a friend coming over sunday who wants to learn about megasquirt and was going to show him on the trackday project and let him drive the car. He's got a little AE86 he's working on and wants to go EFI on his with some ITBs. So I said, "Well come over and let's show you how this works."

ooohhhh...please take pics. I imagine an ITB'd 4AG EFI conversion would be pretty sweet to be part of.

Well, it's cold as hell outside so we said nope today. I did, however, get the slave cylinder rebuilt and the used throwout bearing is a fit. Going to measure all the dimensions before i put it in the car so i can hopefully find someone to make another.

Hi I've been following this build. Quite interesting, I'm starting to understand the complexities of Italian supercar engines. I hope everything is alright and you are just to busy to post.

Opened the page and my eyes immediately landed on

Got the piston out. Was stuck in there good.

...aaaaand mini panic attack. Guess I had few pages to catch up on. What a scare. Glad to see it's coming along. This thread has been great fun to follow.

Hey everyone, sorry I haven't posted in a while. Life has been busy as hell.

Tomorrow my friend is headed to a car show with his RWB, and I'm also going for moral support. Afterwards he's heading over to my place and we're going to try and mate the engine with the subframe, as well as get the transmission installed.

The slave cylinder is rebuilt, the factory throwout I ended up going with finally arrived, the clutch is installed. Everything is pretty much ready. I do need to do some oil lines and stuff like that, but that can be done after it's all finished.

I did find one interesting thing, which is that upon taking the headers off, cylinder #8 was perfectly clean on the exhaust, zero soot. Which tells me it wasn't firing on dyno day. After checking the cap, it was actually just barely not making contact. I've re-routed things to fix this.

I'll post some pictures later, very long week, I'm going to go relax with a glass of scotch and have a cigar or two and look forward to tomorrow.

Well, one friend was supposed to come over from the car show with his RWB. Another showed up. And then 3 more people from the show showed up... so we ended up with a full pit crew. We got it tackled no problem.

My garage is messy right now, don't judge.

Me and my friend Josh (on the left) working on the mounts.

So i couldn't find a mallet or a sledge to get things in place. Our buddy kyle had a hammer hatchet in his car. Why? I have no idea. But it worked.

I'm a mature adult.

Finally, engine, transmission are mated. Clutch is good to go, and everything mounted to the subframe. (transmission not in this photo)

Next stop... get it in the car. Going paragliding next weekend with the local flying club for the first time in over a year, so in a few weeks I'll work on it.

In reply to corsepervita:

That engine is so pretty, are you going to clean up the trans a bit too?

Pete Gossett wrote: In reply to corsepervita: That engine is so pretty, are you going to clean up the trans a bit too?

Yeah, it's pretty dirty, i do plan on cleaning it up best i can

I also have a factory seal kit and plan on button the back back up, i inspected it, and it's good. but fresh gaskets will make me sleep better at night.

Engine goes in from the bottom?

codrus wrote: Engine goes in from the bottom?

Yeah. It's a bit odd. Basically the suspension and entire drivetrain mount to the subframe, and it goes in from the bottom. Like a 911, but... with a lot more ridiculous complexity.

Here's a photo of a factory setup from an urraco (the same, different heads):

I'd forgotten the Jalpa was white!

Unbolt subframe, remove car from subframe. Sounds familiar. That's an interesting way to lift the engine with straps around the heads. Not sure I've ever seen it before. I'll have to remember it.

Ok i got the clutch adjusted with the arm released. When I had installed it, wasn't paying attention and the adjustment screw wasn't in far enough. What a bear to get out. It's 6.5mm end, and all I had was a 7. Using the 7 wouldn't hold it well enough with as tight as it was. A penny and an 8mm did the trick.

This is the first car I've seen that adjusts the clutch in this manner. Talk about weird. Instead of adjusting it at the pedal and having the fork in one place like most cars, the fork/arm is actually adjusted in and out, and then everything else is adjusted after.

I understand the idea behind it, it's just a bit of an odd way to do it. Thankfully I got it backed out enough to get a plunger in, but the one that came with the clutch kit is the wrong size, and I cannot find the factory plunger rod. I may have to spring for a new one, or maybe fab one up. It's $50 from the factory but I can probably make one with my welder out of the one that came with the kit.

Fits the actual slave cyl just find, and pushes on the fork, but the hole at the end of the fork is larger in diameter than the end of the rod itself, so it goes right through once any form of pressure is applied. I'll use some putty and make something similar with a ball on the end with some white lithium to lubricate and should be gold.

You can slightly see here where the fork pushes on the adapter, which the throwout is then pressed onto (already did that).

Here's the adjustment screw. Basically there's a ball on the other end that has a retaining clip that goes into the release fork.

The rebuilt slave cylinder you can see the rod is already though it, as there's no pressure on the fork.

Crap keeps coming up but the good news is, tomorrow we're going to try and get the engine in at last.

The deal was my friend will come help me put the motor in on the Jalpa if I helped him fix his Ultima GTR. So we fixed it, took it for a test drive and now I'm sitting at home relaxing.

It was an honor and a lovely time working on it. Except the part where I had to become a contortionist to work on the steering shaft.

Talk about a quick car that handles like it's on rails. Sweet-baby-jesus-help-me-oprah-winfrey-help-me-tom-cruise damnnnnn. Quick as hell and holy hell it grabs. I had never rode in one before so it was nice of him to take me for a spin.

You're back yay.

Good luck with the install. Tell you're buddy the GTR is purdy and his taste in Porsches is impeccable.

Wow. You're building a Jalpa and got to drive an Ultima GTR. I'm ashamed to say the most exotic car I've ever driven is a C4 'Vette. Hopefully you've cleared enough schedule to get that motor in and sort the car for the summer.

Jerry From LA wrote: Wow. You're building a Jalpa and got to drive an Ultima GTR. I'm ashamed to say the most exotic car I've ever driven is a C4 'Vette. Hopefully you've cleared enough schedule to get that motor in and sort the car for the summer.

Well he did the driving not me but it was still a wonderful ridealong.

Currently hunting down all my mounts and bits for the engine. Fingers crossed this goes well.

let's do this https://www.facebook.com/derek.mccallister/videos/10154379110096744/

There is so much thinking going on in that live stream. You guys look fun.

Wait, you mean to tell me that the Ultima GTR is a real car, not just some videogame fantasy?

I was jealous of the jalpa and all of its awesomeness, now I I don't even know how to describe it.

There were two Ultima GTR's on One Lap in 2015. I got to spend a bunch of time poking around in them. They're clever. And beautiful. And fast.

It began

Then it was a matter of picking it up off the blocks and figuring out how to get it turned around and clear the Jalpa.

My friends ended up bringing over some truck jacks and stands so we had TONS of clearance.

Once we actually got it under it was a matter of verrrrry slowly and carefully getting the car down.

And then, magic!

Wow, you've got to be feeling pretty good right now.