250 83 Twin Carb Sud Ti's

[Frank Musco]

Colin, sorry about the bad news. At least it had a good life being well looked after.

[Sportscar Nut]

R.I.P. Sud

Paul

[DAMO1A]

Very sorry to hear that Colin.  Please pass on my condolence to your brother.  I am sure that it will be missed.

[sud83]

hello, well here are some pics of my 83 Sud Ti QV which is still on the road and going strong
Mark

[colcol]

Great car Marc, never owned one, but use to be the spanner man on my brothers twin carb, he owned it from 1984-2011, most likely my favourite Alfa Romeo, always looked forward to driving it, look after yours Marc, if you are in Victoria, bring it along to Spectacolo, or an Alfa Cruise, Colin.

[Frank Musco]

Very nice Sud Mark. Good to hear its still on the road and going strong.

[Sheldon McIntosh]

Resurrecting this thread, as it appears that I seem to have acquired one of these 'last 250' Twin Carb Ti's.  I'll have a thread on it's resurrection and it's transformation into a desert warrior here...  http://www.alfaclubvic.org.au/forum/index.php?topic=9264.0

I know very little about it's history, other than that it's last rego was in 2002 in SA, and that it's apparently been sitting at an Alfa specialist in Hawthorn for a fair few years, and had quite a bit of work done in that time.  Obviously someone gave up though, as it was flicked off quickly to a wrecker, and I bought it off him for under $1000.

Interestingly, it appears that it used to be red (the interior paint is still red, and bits of red can be seen in the engine bay where grommets have loosened up over time.  It's had a very good respray in the silver though, hard to fault it at all, and it's clearly not a recent respray.

It certainly seems to have most of the bits that would mark it as a Ti QV; the twin webbers, yellow instrument needles, red heart, pepperpot wheels etc.  The only part that confuses me is the carpets and seats.  I believe the carpet should be red, and the seats should have 'Ti' inserts?  This has black carpets, and red vinyl instead of the Ti inserts.  I guess the seats were re-covered and Ti material was too hard to get, and maybe the red carpets were completely knackered and also too hard to replace?  Doesn't matter too much to me, I like the black carpet.  The Ti seats would be nice though, I always liked them.

It would be great to see what VIN the 250 83 Twin Carb Suds were.  Does anyone know where to find this info?

I was doing a bit of research on this tonight.  I sent off my info to Marco Fazio at the documents repository at Alfa Romeo, but unfortunately he's on leave for a month, so I won't hear back any official info for a while.  But at another site I discovered that all the 1983 Ti QVs had a chassis number between     ZAS901G50*05094000 and *05102999  ref  http://alfasud.alfisti.net/indexe.htm

Mine falls in between those numbers, and makes it about 240 from the last.  And it has a Nov 83 build plate.

I look forward to learning more about these cars, and can't wait for my first decent drive of it.  Not looking forward to rebuilding brakes, fixing the rust, and sorting out the electrics.....

[colcol]

Sheldon, the genuine twin carbs had 'TI' printed into the seats, as they are old, and the material is unobtainable, [except on ebay], they usually just get the seats retrimmed, in an easy to obtain color, the original carpets were red, most likely not been available for 25 years, may have been a repro or off a wrecked single carb Sud, very poor quality carpets, just like the 33 and 156.... , i don't know why you would respray it another color unless you are going for a full resto, in my opinion, the silver and red look good for different reasons, a fair bit of stuff for these available off ebay, particulary in Italy and Greece, where the hard times at the moment are forcing people to clean out their spare parts stock, i bet the combi switch isn't working properly, they usually burn out as there is too much current running through them, relays will sort that problem out, and the front brakes and handbrake, the most unreliable and hard to work on part of the Sud, even i hated to work on the brakes, Colin.

[Sportscar Nut]

Sheldon

Great buy and you will have a lot of fun in a well setup Sud (and great investment - ha ha). Car sounds like a genuine QV and chassis number matches as mine is 050102690 (think your number is 050102999).

My understanding is that two shipments of TiQV's were brought to Aust and the build dates were July 03 and Nov 09 - all were painted silver, red and black (rare) so red paint sounds original. FYI, Alfa built circa 9,100 in total and engine should be a 95hp (go the Euro 105 hp or better still, the 8v 1.7).

The body is where the $'s are spent on these cars due to poor drainage on internal panels and not due to steel quality as is commonly stated (was an early Sud problem). Parts are cheap including NOS and heaps on the net (as per Colin) due to the low interest in these cars (and not many left due to rust).

Safe motoring
Paul

[Sheldon McIntosh]

Thanks Paul.  Yeah, looks like it will need a bit of bodywork done, which is a bit of a PIA to be honest, but I really like the car, so pretty sure I'll commit myself to just getting it done.  I've always wanted one of these, so could be worth keeping and getting it right.  What I paid has gotta be rock bottom for one of these in saveable condition, so at the very least it should hold it's value (ha!, but we can always hope..).  That said, this one being resprayed, and with non-original seat and carpet material makes it a bit of a mongrel I suppose.

I'd been toying with the idea of getting a Peugeot 205GTi recently, and was very close to getting one actually, but this is probably even better as one of the iconic hot-hatches of the 80s, and the spiritual father of them all really.

The idea of an 8v 1.7 is certainly appealing, since I'm gonna have to drop the engine to fix the rust anyway.

Great buy and you will have a lot of fun in a well setup Sud (and great investment - ha ha). Car sounds like a genuine QV and chassis number matches as mine is 050102690 (think your number is 050102999).

Hmmm, nope, mine is definitely 05102657.

The two numbers I provided would make a run of 8999 cars.

[Mika]

Sheldon, having owned both a 205gti and (still) a twin carb sud I would suggest the sud will provide a lot more enjoyment and be easier to work on. I like the 205 but personally I think the sud has it all over the 205 for character of its engine, the note especially on overrun and it's great ability to heel and toe, the twin carbs also have great throttle response. I also think the sud has a nicer gearbox. The 205 will have more road holding but the sud won't throw you off the road if you go into a corner too hot. Suda are extremely chuck able.

Build quality is not great on either and the 205 should have less rust.

Don't listen to these people who say you should have a 1.7L, they're best balanced with a well tuned 1.5L and a close ratio gearbox as fitted to the earlier suds IMHO.

Good luck with it

[colcol]

If you were planning on keeping the car and you had a 1.7 sitting on the floor, then put it in, but the 1.5 is highly satisfying, as it has no torque, and you have to use the gearbox more, the 1.7 has buckets of torque, but that just makes you lazy, and you don't get anymore power out of a 1.7 in a Sud, but you do in a 33, why?, because the Sud has a restricted engine pipe that suits the 1.5, but not the 1.7, the engine pipe is restricted by the gearbox and inboard disc brakes getting in the way of bigger engine pipes, the 1.7 has bigger pipes than the 1.5.... for good reason, Colin.

[Sportscar Nut]

'Obviously' I agree with Colin's comments re 1.7 but appreciate Mika's comments. Standard TiQV with Koni's/ good suspension rubbers etc has fantastic balance with little torque steer and the great boxer motor. But IMHO the 1.7 twin carb engine transforms the car due to the engine's torque and power compared to the 1.5 (circa 25% more hp ATW's). The front suspension does need a few mods though to minimise torque steer.

Colin, re your comment about the exhaust, I used 8v modified header flanges and had a custom '16v' exhaust made to fit around the inboard brakes (basically a copy of the 1.5 exhaust). The exhaust studs out of the cylinder heads needed small bolt heads but just fitted on the 8v motor (joy)! Only then did the 1.7 produce the correct HP.

Sheldon, will re check the numbers!

Paul

[Sheldon McIntosh]

The 1.7 did sound pretty tempting, but just because I thought I read somewhere that this model had slightly higher gearing?  So a wee bit more torque and power would make it a slightly more relaxed cruiser (not that I bought it as a cruiser, but you know, sometimes you've got to put up with some motorway on the way to the good roads).

I'd also been looking at options for outboard brakes, but I'm thinking that (since I haven't even driven the bloody thing yet, and probably won't for quite some time (sigh)) I'd like to keep it as standard as possible for a while, just so I can see what they're like as a standard car.  If I get this rust fixed properly I can see myself keeping the car for a while, so plenty of time to upgrade it later on.

[colcol]

Sheldon, it depends on how long you intend to keep the car, and the 5hiibox rally, the car cannot be worth over $500, there goes your new 1.7 engine pipe, and the outboard brakes are definately do-able, but lots of time and money for not a big benefit, and if you have to get a roadworthy on a modified car, might prove difficult, the standard twin carb Sud gearing is quite high, pain in the nether regions at times, revs high at 60kph, put it into 4th at 60kph and it struggles, Colin.