Oh My God I Need a Moment.

Driven5 wrote: In reply to DaewooOfDeath: At least an S2000 engine is more befitting the car than an SR20.

Someone did that about 10 years ago, and was shown on the alfabb. Very hard fit. I never saw pictures of the finished car.

Alfadriver: You have to figure that something like this is a labor of love - or insanity, which some would say is the same thing. RE: making all that power out of an Alfa motor: wouldn't that be uber-expensive and potentially unreliable? What's the skinny on those mills?

In reply to Kreb:

No more expensive than what he spent for similar results. Heck, I did a turbo Alfa motor for the Challenge and it was very reliable. What broke was the trans. 500 hp is closer to $30k, but it was done to do 230mph- not short bursts of 500hp.

I get the whole labor of love thing- it was the justification ideas. Just say you like it better, then the reasons don't sound hollow. Calling the GTA fenders over done to slap on that, and then use the very over done engine.

This car comes across as someone pointed out- a Nissan with a different body.

If he pointed that out, and then said that he loves the body style- which is similar to what NOHOME is doing with a Volvo and a Miata- that makes more sense.

Compare it to the Canadian who stuffed a 5.0l into a GTV- which forced a TON of fabrication. Done for the sake of doing it.

Still, part of the Alfa love is the powertrain.

Great fabrication. Probably interesting to drive.

From the outside I love it, but I am also in the "would be better with an Alfa motor" camp.

alfadriver wrote: And the deep alloys that could have been used. Actually, I really like this car. I sometimes think that my GTV (the racer for sale) could have gone this direction pretty easy.

I just read more about this car- it's actually a recreation of a GTAm- and even sold as such. 2000 GTV with a modified eninge, some other mods, and to LOOK like a GTAm- sold for OVER $65,000.

Good lord. Maybe I need to make some changes to my race car.

Kill the "mad camber, yo" and add an oil cooler to those exposed lines and I'm in.

holy scrub radius!

This is the one I modified for a customer.

I learned to hate Alfaholics during this build but the car was awesome when it was done. Quaife 6 speed and LSD, Twinspark on Redline throttle bodies run with AEM infinity, Alfaholics TS head and cams, H beam rods and custom JE pistons. Managed to get 200 to the wheels out of it. With wilder porting and cams I bet you could squeeze 250 out of that motor and still be almost streetable.

After being around the car constantly for almost a year I grew to not like the GTaM flares as much. There is a deflated marshmallow look to the car.

In reply to Jumper K. Balls:

Great looking car.

(Interesting injector location, since there were bosses down stream for a more typical location)

I had a '67 GT Jr that was slightly lighter, and also had some damaged flares, with the intention of running the $2006 challenge (having run 02,03 and 04). It would have looked similar, but I'm sure not nearly that nice.

You in England doing that? Or was Alfaholics the only ones could get TS parts from?

You comment about the look is more acceptable than "over done". At least you have your own opinion.

edit- coulda, woulda, shoulda- I still regret going the path I did. It would have been the same effort to build that car as it was to "renovate" the car I got. And cheaper.

Forget the OP, that car is fantastic, Jumper.

I'm not a fan of the GTaM flares either, looks amazing from the front or back, but deflated marshmallow is a great description of the side view. The OP car looks great, surely cheaper to get big reliable power out of that SR20 than a 50 year old Alfa designed engine? The Alfa engines do sound amazing, but all of it looks well done.

alfadriver wrote: (Interesting injector location, since there were bosses down stream for a more typical location)

The ITB setup from redline was designed for that injector location. The fuel rail and mounts were all off the shelf items. Had I plugged those holes and drilled the mounting base I would have had to make everything custom. It wasn't an issue with tuning, so I just rolled with it.

alfadriver wrote: You in England doing that? Or was Alfaholics the only ones could get TS parts from?

We are in Oregon. The customer sent us a list of parts and pieces he wanted and it was clear he just went through the Alfaholics catalog and picked the most impressive pieces. Almost every piece had to modified (some very extensively) before it would fit or work. Oh well at least it was ridiculously expensive and took a long time to arrive. I got sick of hearing their excuses.

The twinspark was a cool motor but I can't justify the extra expense over the regular 2 liter. We make the same power out of those. The Alfaholics stuff deletes the variable cam timing which IMO is one of the biggest improvements the TS offers.

FWIW, the only references I've seen are GTAM or GTAm.

Just helping.

In reply to Jumper K. Balls:

Ah.... I have friends who do some TS stuff, too. I'm sure we have some of the same friends in your area. Or maybe once removed.

It's a lot easier to make 200whp with a TS vs. a base 2.0l. But I also have a friend who is doing a lot of welding to the single plug head, and has made 220hp.

As anything in life- it's as much who you know as anything else. My friend's 500hp TS motors started life in a 75...

Great job on the car. I'd love to have had that one.

(and IMHO, the part that the TS is better- the ports are more straight forward, and the actual combustion chamber is much smaller )

Jumper K. Balls wrote: This is the one I modified for a customer. I learned to hate Alfaholics during this build but the car was awesome when it was done. Quaife 6 speed and LSD, Twinspark on Redline throttle bodies run with AEM infinity, Alfaholics TS head and cams, H beam rods and custom JE pistons. Managed to get 200 to the wheels out of it. With wilder porting and cams I bet you could squeeze 250 out of that motor and still be almost streetable. After being around the car constantly for almost a year I grew to not like the GTaM flares as much. There is a deflated marshmallow look to the car.

I do like those gtam flares, but I can also see how they'd get old.

I agree with Alphadriver that the guy's rationale is weird, simply don't care.

I've never seen a GTV, which is one of my favorite designs, look that good.

I wouldn't have done that motorswap because I'm not rich enough to cut up classics, but if you gave me a choice on what to drive, I'd probably pick the Nissan because it's the only sr20 GTV in existence.

Not what I'd do, but I'm glad he did it.

The black car looks good simply because the fundamental shape is so excellent. Very few of the alterations improve on that.

But that shape! Ooooo.

I've always thought that they kinda phoned in the rear arch shape on the GTVs; the almost squared off top just does nothing for me. They absolutely nailed the front arch, but the rear has always left me feeling pretty meh.

Side by side, I think the constant radius of the bolt on flares looks much better in the rear, but I can't condone the route he took to get there. At the top of the list of things I will do to de-value and ruin my GTV when I start building it is to "fix" the rear arch shape.

Maybe next year...

I can see your point.

The flares and wheels on the black car would look good if the car were lifted enough to center the wheel in the opening. The arc of the rear half of the front flares isn't right, though, and a functional ride height would probably make that more obvious.

Ethnic Food-Wrap Aficionado wrote: I've always thought that they kinda phoned in the rear arch shape on the GTVs; the almost squared off top just does nothing for me. They absolutely nailed the front arch, but the rear has always left me feeling pretty meh.

I understand what you are saying, but I would suggest an alternate to them mailing the rear design in- it's a structural problem.

Even with the flat arch- with some more metal in the wheel arch- it's pretty easy to bend that- a full tank of gas and some good bumps will put a very noticable crease in the top of that arch.

With that fully rounded, there would be less metal there, and it would be weaker.

The outer metal plus a little inner metal does most of the work holding the trunk up. If the rear glass was glued in, it would help a LOT- but it's not.

This isn't seen on the Spiders or Berlina design, just the GTV body. And a LOT of them have the crease (including my gold car). So the "failure" is common.

The flat top rear arch was just the style at the time

About 60% of Italian designs from the early to mid 60's era have it.

I think the GTV design pretty much just fixed everything I dislike about the Maserati 3500 and then scaled it down to the perfect dimensions.

Really hate the cartoonish wheels, cheap ass played out poser drifter-yo, hard parker, stance style flares and idiotic camber on the black car. The engine bay is overdone as well.

Don't like the huge Bride seat logos either.

It's like the car is screaming - "look at me. I bolted on all the parts that you and every other ricer out there think are "cool""

Hard to get more poser than putting on autocross stickers, building a functional and powerful drivetrain, and installing sports seats.

In reply to amg_rx7:

Are.... Are you an.... Automotive hipster?!?!?!? Get off your high horse, "bro"

I must be diseased: I can see the awesomeness in everything from a Heavy metalflaked and muraled Lowrider G-Body to a sky-high F350 to a restored 60's MB.

And when I don't really love a car or parts of a car, I can still be ok with the fact that my taste is not always congruent with the owners and that's ok!

(Rolling coal is still the trademark of idiots though)

Never noticed it before, and it might be particular to this picture, but the picture looks like two cars tacked together at the B post.