Yes there will be racing this year!
Come and visit me at the Copenhagen Historic GP in august.
Right now in the garage, I am doing some body work.
And some remaining fiddling in the interior.
The engine at rest after some angry driving last fall.
While Steffen is working on 'the other engine' ...
There's another engine?! - yes, why not?
Carburetor innards - all shiny.
CROWD-funding now at a total of 455 EUR
Pick-up after using the Notruf phone number (2009).
Between Metzgesfeld and Kallenhard.
Not so proud passenger, but memorable drive!
At Rent-4-Ring with broken petrol pump.
Stranded at RSR Nürburg with failing alternator (2016).
Handing over car to Bongard for SOS International return to Denmark.
This is what the carburetor clearance looked like for the 1600 engine.
The lower 1300 engine sits deeper in the engine bay.
A new cleaner deck is welded in.
Retaining the structural strength.
While also leaving room for the suspension.
Much cleaner result - leaves room for the clutch housing under the car.
The transmission tunnel has been hammered out - and brake lines moved up.
Finally, the engine is going in for real.
Now there is clearance between bell-house and bodywork.
Proper room for good aerodynamics around the trumpets.
Now the engine sits "level" at 6 degrees.
2016 has been the most exciting year ever in my car life. I finally got around to do some actual motor racing and I drove up and down the Alps and criss-crossed the spectacular island of Sicily. But it has also been ridiculously expensive. This craziness has to stop!
As you might know, I like honesty. I just show it as it is, and in my videos I don't mind showing how difficult I find it, to get things right. So, here's to honesty: Let me show some numbers. I write down all expenses in a spreadsheet during the year, and I have done so since I purchased the Giulietta in february 2013. Back then the value of the car consisted of the 15.800€ I paid for it. I have bought components for 17.100€ over the the 4 seasons an now, I have 53.400€ invested in the car. During 2016 I spent 9.200€ on improvements on the car, and luckily the prices for Giulietta Sprints out there are going up. But the car is getting awfully valuable; I don't owe any money - but it sure would be a shame to see it burn behind the armco of some boring danish race track.
Running the Ultimostile Experience has cost me a total of 11.500€ this year, and that is just crazy! I spent more or less the same amount on racing as last year, 2.400€, but this time I actually went to three races, whereas in 2015 it was all spent on license and race gear. I had a wonderful outing at Padborg Park for the long-distance night race with the Sixtyfivers, and I raced at the Munkebjerg Hillclimb and in the season-closer at Ring Knutstorp in the south of Sweden. In the two latter events I even got on the podium (for what it is worth).
Part of the Ultimostile Experience is my internet activity. I am a sucker for the attention, and I actually love when people get what I am doing. It all cost me 265€, but I got a 190€ refund from advertisements on my Youtube videos. So 75€ for all that? That's okay, I think.
I am paying 490€ for Tax and Insurance and Club Memberships cost me 100€. This leaves 8.400€ spent on the three journeys I went on in the Giulietta during 2016. Okay they were epic! I will never forget the early spring drives in the Alpine Dolomites and the fantastic places we stayed - and the wonderful company. And obviously I enjoyed the Sicilian trip in late autumn - with my wife, even! And in summer I went to a full-day track event at Spa Francorchamps, where I sadly had to leave the car behind at the Nürburgring. But that was also an epic experience. In early spring I went to the Bremen Auto Klassik and in late summer I visited the Auto e Moto d'Epoca in Padova, Italy. Tremendous fun with charming people and good friends; gentlemen trips.
Anyway: This has gotten out of hand. Right now the car is sitting, gutted, in Steffen Madsen's workshop. He is refurbishing the worn (abused?) three-shoe drum brakes and he is building a race engine. This will probably add another 8.000€ to my expenses. Terrible!
But the car will be so delicious and I can hardly wait to take part in the final tuning. It is so much fun to be part of the restauration/rebuild, where Steffen and I spent several minutes on the phone every day. I love that.
The question is: "Do I even dare take this precious little car on the track in 2017?" I am not exactly poor, but I don't have the kind of money it takes to run such a circus. Maybe the Ultimostile Experience has eclipsed, and the rest will only be legends and anecdotes?!
Well, see you out there ...
Racing adds a new depth to the reality of owning and driving a classic sports car. As I have already mentioned, there is no room for bullshit; you either go or you don't go. Fast, I mean. And it stresses the equipment in a whole other way. I was, if not surprised - then satisfied with the robustness and stamina of the Giulietta. The only thing that over-stressed the car was in fact my clumsy driving. But there is a cure for that, and it is called experience.
Last weekend the european classic racers ran the Spa 6H. I couldn't even find time to go as a spectator, but several of my friends went, and I got plenty of reports from the Belgian Ardennes. It made me think about when I will be ready for putting the Giulietta SV in that particular race?! It is the most epic of classic car races these days, and I suppose I would have to approach it by taking part in one of the supporting races first. But just think about how well the car must be prepared: Six Hours of Spa Francorchamps! This spring I did one and a half hour of trackdaying there - and it has grueling.
The last couple of years has seen a Giulietta ti participate - I also cheered for it when I watched the 6H back in 2013. It ran again this time - as I was told by one of my friends. And other than this car, only two Alfa Romeo 1600 GTAs took part. That is a meagre turnout for such a splendid marque as Alfa Romeo. Embarrassing even?! So it will most definitely be a major goal for me to represent the Portello brand in the near future. I will obviously have to team up with another driver with an international license, and we would need a seriously equipped pit crew. But it will be huge fun!
By the way; I am sure this car is the same car that was featured in the Giuliettaletta a few issues back. It was presented by the owner and his mechanic after it ran last year at the Goodwood Revival. And as such it is not an Appendix K car - or at least it wasn't for the revival, where they are allowed to install all kinds of "I swear they did this in period" upgrades and improvements. But maybe they had it back to homologated spec for Spa 6H? I choose to believe that.
Ever since I bought the Giulietta SV in 2013 the starter motor has had a strange sound to it. It shrieks and once in a while it doesn't catch at all - or the solenoid clicks, and the drive just rotates without catching. It has been a slight nuisance, but I havn't considered it as a serious fault - although I every time feel a slight disturbance in my calm satisfaction with the car.
Last weekend's race at Padborg Park really stressed the car in all aspects - and during the event the starter simply packed up. So now I have tested the electrical connections, and established that the thing actually is broken. I asked at classicalfa.com if they could issue me with a refurbished starter. They don't have them listed as such, but they actually do swaps. So now I can send my Bosch item over to the UK, and I will get a fresh one in the mail. Hopefully in time for my next race.
Ball-joint link components for Giulietta SV sway-bar.
Last year the left sway-bar link snapped while I was testing the car at Sturup Raceway in Sweden. I can be seen (and heard) in one of my videos from the 2015 season. Steffen Madsen reinforced and welded the link, but we knew it was a temporary fix. And as predicted: The link snapped on my recent alpine drive (can also be seen on video).
The original link is somewhat complicated.
It is posible to purchase a handling kit for the Giulietta Sprint, but that kit doesn't include the links. It has springs, a sway-bar and some brackets - but you apparently need to re-use your links. So we decided last year that we would design a new, modern, improved linkage ourselves. Something with ball joints. FIA appendix K says that the suspension has to be left original - whatever that means? It isn't allowed to install an adjustable sway-bar, but what we have in mind is not adjustable.
The upper ball-joint fits snuggly over the sway-bar diameter.
Now I have d to design a lower attachment pin of some kind.
Last autumn I bought a set of Giulietta Spider rims (of Carello make) from Giuliettista Mogens Hartmann. The Sprint obviously needs Sprint rims, but mine had one of each - and it looked really stupid. It always distracted me when I admired the otherwise beautiful lines of my car. The Sprint rims are more cylindrical, but I also think the more streamlined conical shape of the Spider items looks really good on the curvy front fenders of the Sprint. So now I will give it a try. At least the left and right eyes are now similar.
This thursday I am handing the Giulietta SV in at Stelvio Automobili. They will have it transported to München - along with seven other cars. And then I and seven other drivers will follow by plane the next thursday. This means that the cars must be in absolutely best working order. So I was most annoyed when I suddenly had the engine hesitating to take the gas and running on only three cylinders under load.
Taking everything apart - one after the other.
I spent a whole day running through a list of possible errors without finding anything. Trying one thing after the other and taking the car out for a run for every fix. I suppose it was quite annoying for the neighborhood as well - or maybe they like the noise of a three-legged Alfa Romeo Nord engine?! Last year I fixed a similar stuttering by simply blowing the main jets - some dirt had blocked the system. But this time nothing seemed to help. Until very late in the evening when I got some advice from Steffen Madsen over the phone. You can see it all in the above video.
Finally the thing works!
So now I need to drive the car max for the next three days in order to see if all other things works. I don't want to delay the 8-car caravan on its way over and through the Italian alpine roads and landscapes. The cars will be delivered in safety at OKP in Bayern and all has been meticulously prepared by Jan Paustian and Daniele Dezzi at Stelvio, and judging them on how they prepare the annual Padova trip, this is going to be one helluva trip. So now I will have to go - and go - and go. First problem was identified this afternoon, when Klaus Rejkjær, from his Fiat Dino Coupé, announced yelling that my brake lights didn't work. Oh bugger.
Burn-in testing of the Giulietta SV.
The car runs just fine - knock on wood!
Non-functional brake lights evident from Dino in arrears.
Giuliettista Søren Poulsen, from whom I bought the car three years ago, fitted Lexan windows in the sides and in the rear. He heat shaped a Lexan sheet over the original domed glass rear window and cut door- and rear-side sheets after the original glass items. But Lexan is quite soft; the proper name i polycarbonate (PC) and it is also known as bullet-proof glass. The FIA app K requires 5 mm thickness and allows the use of these lighter windows in all other than the front windshield. Over time the will get scratches though - and this is why I had to change them.
Clear windows makes a difference in the general appearance of the car.
The Giulietta SV actually already had plastic windows when it came out in 1956. The material was Perspex, also known as Plexiglass, or polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), and even the great 8C2900B car of the mid-late 1930's had this material all round, after it first came out in 1933. Lexan is a trade-name, and polycarbonate is a much stronger material that will stay tough even at low temperatures, where the Plexiglas will get brittle. The same goes with aging.
Was lucky to get a couple of sheets at work.
I used Søren Poulsen's sheets as templates.
I used my electric jig-saw to shape the sheets - best as possible. But I was disappointed with how difficult it was to create a clean cut, and the toughness of the PC made it almost impossible to rectify the wobbly edges even with a coarse file. But the next day I found a perfect tool for this application in the local depot - a sharp planner with an open grid and a very good handle. This allowed me to smoothen all edges.
Taking out the windows.
Open house - all rubbers are quite worn - but intact.
I got some hints about how to use a blow-torch to create a clear 'glassy' surface on the edges, and I think I will have to also round the edges off a bit for an even better look. I will also have to glue the rear sheets into the rubber strip inside the B-pillar, otherwise I might loose the rear windows when I drive with them open.
The old sheets out of the car.