A little rain must fall......

[Wolfman2332]

I haven't posted any feedback on the progress of my 85 - it has progressed extremely well, and we are in the home stretch.

After having a little scotch (in 1 16 once glass), I ran into a set of Abarth cam covers - to cool to pass up, and mashed on them. And I got them. And I had them powder coated RED, and painted the 'ABARTH' in yellow. too cool and better than dubs. And today, we tried to put them on.

The good news is they looked great. But they are about a 1/4" higher than the originaals, and the FI will not fit without major grinding and putzing around. Giovanni and his team did their best, and it is a no go. Th choices are; Old covers (painted red), or Dual Webers.

I think the dual webers are out of the envelope I want for the car, so I am thinking about selling the cam covers. I am unable to post images here, but if you are interested, please PM me. I will send photos and we can discuss.

I am legitimately bummed.

[18Fiatsandcounting]

IThe good news is they looked great. But they are about a 1/4" higher than the originaals, and the FI will not fit without major grinding and putzing around.

Wolfie, that is a bummer... The intake plenum isn't too complicated, so could you have a metal spacer made between the top cover of the plenum and the main part below? The cover with the 8 bolts/nuts as I recall. Or find someone who could make a 1/4" gasket for the intake plenum, which would be considerably thicker than the regular gasket? There is no significant gas at that point of the intake, so the gasket would just have to seal the air.

-Bryan

[Wolfman2332]

Bryan, we tried. ground off the plenum in an attempt to get it together, and would have to have ground a hole in it to get clearance, Grinding the lettering off was not on the table. So, we painted the old covers red to match the plenum, slapped them on, and we are done for the year.

Next years projects will have lots to do, and I guess the dual Webers are sort of back on the table. Frankly, now that I have studied the engine, the intake pipe (chrome), covers a lot of the covers, rendering them pretty well hidden, and the bling of the yellow letters is largely hidden. I should have thought this out better, but they looked so cool, and heck - after 4 scotches, why not?

In any case, I drove it home today, and it is wonderful. Smooth, and the mods that were made seem to have achieved the objectives - a little spicy in performance without being obnoxious, totally stock appearance from the outside including quiet muffler, and a very pretty engine. I couldn't be happier.