1982 GTV renovation

[GTVeloce]

Looking great! Well done.

[bonno]

Good job Anth. It sounds that you're a fair way into the V6 engine transplant and have her finished and on the road in no time.

[HAZRDS]

Looks great, nice finish 😁

[Anth73]

Looks great, nice finish 😁

Thanks HAZRDS. Who knew a Weber Q barbecue could be put to such good use in curing the wrinkle paint!

[Anth73]

Good job Anth. It sounds that you're a fair way into the V6 engine transplant and have her finished and on the road in no time.

Thanks Bonno. Monza haven't yet started to freshen up the engine yet and with the new stage 4 COVID restrictions they're unsure if they're allowed to stay open. Hopefully they can put all the parts I've bought to good use soon but do have one car ahead of mine.

In the interim I'm doing a few odd jobs with relays, cooling systems fans and ECU config.

[Anth73]

My GTV currently runs what I'm told is a modified Alfa 33 radiator tucked under the custom radiator top panel. Why the different top panel? I'm guessing the original succumbed to rust as they often do in the 116 cars. My GTV is also devoid of the original rust-prone bottom radiator support panel. Guessing that also fell victim to rust.

When the car was stripped bare by Rankins Panels in 2006 they devised the current arrangement by using 1" square tube across the top to act as a radiator support. Plus I would think it would help stiffen the front end a bit too. Here's a couple of photos to illustrate the difference between a standard GTV6 radiator setup (first photo) and that on mine (second photo). My radiator actually sits slightly lower and closer to the engine.

[Anth73]

Though I've never had any cooling issues with the current radiator I didn't feel comfortable not addressing cooling capacity with the V6 upgrade. I also want to recommission the A/C setup so the current cooling fan setup wouldn't suffice. My other considerations were radiator size, fitment, correct diameter inlet / outlet pipes and a new parallel flow A/C condenser.

I had a fellow Alfisto on the AlfaBB forum provide me the measurements of the EB Spares GTV6 aluminium radiator. With some minor tweaks to its top mount I worked out it can tuck in under my radiator top panel and the lower hose outlet should clear the lower subframe. I also ordered the widest and tallest aftermarket parallel flow condenser I could fit with the A/C hose fittings on the correct side from Australian Auto Air.

Next challenge was cooling fans and I spent hours looking at various SPAL fans and mounting options. My personal view is that a fan shroud should always be used to maximise the surface area the fans draw air through. Getting a custom shroud made plus the cost of two fairly powerful SPAL fans was making my eyes water. Plus the standard 65A alternator was going to struggle with any half decent dual fan setup. I found Sportiva's 120A alternator upgrade on this forum and promptly ordered a reconditioned 120A Bosch alternator from the U.S. which put out 70A at idle. So I now had enough juice to power a reasonable dual fan setup.

Looking further into fan options I wondered what fans were fitted to the 156 2.5 V6 I used to have? With a little research I found all 916 V6 cars including the GTA's were fitted with GATE dual fans with a steel shroud. Only the mounting points appear unique to each individual model. The fans are setup to run as a 25A low speed setup via a resistor per fan or 50A high speed setup. The circuit switching was controlled via the thermo switch in earlier 916 cars and by the ECU in latter cars. Most importantly the shroud and mounting points from a 916 GTV fit my GTV beautifully!

A quick search on eBay and I found a 916 GTV V6 setup with the factory wiring loom for $120 delivered. Hell for that price I bought a second set as spares.

With some handy work with a wire wheel and some enamel rattle can paint they turned up really nice. I cleaned up the fan motors with some metal polish for a little bling factor too. Given I've now got 70A to play with at idle I decided to simplify the wiring and bypass the sometimes troublesome resistors so the fans will run only at high speed now. Fellow AROCA member GTVeloce pointed me to Jaydee Auto Cables and they were able to supply factory grade waterproof cable plugs rated at 30A each. I also installed pinchweld from Clark Rubber around the edge of the shroud to protect it and the radiator cooling fins from damage.

Here's some photos showing the dual fans fitted to a GTA radiator, the cooling fans as delivered to me, my simplified wiring and the end result awaiting installation.

Next instalment...wiring up some relays for the cooling fans.

[Anth73]

With the cooling fans finally sorted it was time to look at how I was going to power them. Reading through a few AlfaBB forum posts it was clear the factory fan wiring and relays were not going to be up to the job. Hence I decided to bypass the factory fan wiring except for the ignition enabled power source for the thermo switch for my new radiator.

I looked at a few smart cooling fan controllers however reliability seemed to be problematic and they cost several hundred dollars a pop. I initially bought a Davies Craig fan controller that was setup out of the box for dual fans with an override for the air conditioner. However I didn't want to use the dodgy thermal probe in the radiator fins. They stupidly use an NPT specification thread for their thermo switch adapter and despite trying three different adaptors they all failed to screw in properly due to incompatible NPT and BSA threads.

So I decided to learn more about relays, studied a few thermo fan wiring diagrams and then designed my own setup using standard 4 pin 12V relays and holders from Jaycar and suitable gauge wire.

I will install a 3-way Tridon TFS205 thermo switch in my new radiator as this allows fan 1 to come on at 87C and fan 2 to come on at 92C. The standard V6 thermo switch comes on at 85C so the TFS205 is a good match and allows me to stagger fan startup to avoid the alternator having to supply a lot of amps in one hit.

Each fan is powered by its own 30A fused relay with power sourced via 12G wire from the power terminal block on the passenger side that is supplied directly from the alternator. The trigger for each relay comes via the TFS205 thermo switch. A third non-fused relay is used for the AC trigger (the green coiled wire in the photo below). This is spliced into terminal 86 for the fan 2 relay. I went with this approach so that both fans would be used if the cooling system was above 87C and the AC compressor switches on, further taxing the cooling system and getting maximum airflow through both the condenser and radiator.

Power to the fans is supplied via 12G wire to the Jaydee sourced plugs and all earths are routed to the 8mm bolt normally used for the engine earth strap in the GTV6. I also sourced some PVC cable sheaths to give everything a tidy factory look. With all the wiring done I made a neat looking bracket to keep the relays and their holders locked together and fitting nicely between the washer bottle and the front valance panel.

In the photo below you can see the relays in their holders affixed to my custom bracket, the power terminal to the left of the relays, the earth bolt above the relays, the plugs for the dual cooling fans resting on the alternator and the two trigger wires for the fan relays resting near the existing thermo switch. The coiled green wire will connect to the AC compressor. I also included a really handy wire gauge reference chart I've used to help select the correct gauge wire.

[GTVeloce]

Great work mate! It's coming along nicely.

[Anth73]

With the COVID lockdown still delaying a start on my V6 conversion I've focussed on the little jobs I can do myself. Next on the to do list was getting my ECU configured correctly. You may recall that the 3L V6 going into my GTV was originally from an Alfa 75 running Jetronic.

My preferred upgrade path is to bring it up to SZ specification with 10:1 pistons and Motronic injection. After doing a lot of homework on the various chipsets and some great advice from Hugh Harrison and forum Motronic guru Festy, I settled on getting a standard 164 Bosch Motronic ECU and fitting it with the BF43 chipset as was fitted to the 75 Potenziata and SZ cars. This particular chipset is known as the dual personality chipset whereby grounding pin 11 enables the more aggressive SZ maps.

Thankfully it's a 5 minute job with the instructions provided Festy though you still need to be careful installing the new EPROM so that all the pins are pushed into the socket correctly. The instructions I followed are in the attached images.

[Anth73]

Dealing with 30yo electronics requires a light touch, so I cannot emphasise enough how being careful pulling apart the two circuit boards and remember to wear an earth strap on your wrist or at least ground your hands on a metallic surface.

The original EPROM lifts out with some delicate upward force with a small screw driver. I had a few nervous moments getting all the pins lined up for the new EPROM however it went in without a hitch as you can see below with the chipset with the BF43 label on it.

[gtvsix86]

Great work there.. loving the way you are doing so much of the work yourself and helping us here learn along the way. Wish I had the time and skill to do some of the work you are undertaking (Hats of to you buddy).

[Colin Edwards]

Hi Anth73,

Is it an EPROM or an E²PROM?  Re EPROM's (with the glass window), in addition to a bit of static protection, work on any EPROM should not be carried out under fluorescent lighting unless the EPROM label is foil backed.  Repeated exposure to UV will corrupt the memory.

[festy]

Is it an EPROM or an E²PROM?  Re EPROM's (with the glass window), in addition to a bit of static protection, work on any EPROM should not be carried out under fluorescent lighting unless the EPROM label is foil backed.  Repeated exposure to UV will corrupt the memory.

The original memory ICs are EPROMs in the Motronic ML 4.1, with a metallic film sticker covering the die window.
The replacement IC that was installed is a flash type, so is pretty hardy.

[Colin Edwards]

28CXXX series in lieu of 27CXXX series?