History Lesson #2 (for those who dont want to hear about the wiring dramas)

Old Stuff FAZA/Filipinetti/Trevilatto 128

its back......!

Okay well here we go - as promised the Tripoid Joints

Blank Cut from 75mm bar  stock 6061 alloy

Machine Toyota GT4 output shafts to suit (shorten oilseal collar and polish and reduce the flange) add three 5/16 bolts and bobs your aunties live in lover

Cool very cool

Next the main bits come together and stay that way!

Old

NEW - extra spacers hold the plates exactly where the need to be no flex and the diff muff is on

Final Assembly with engine mounts

Complete Fiat 128 engine  Kit  with Diff and mounts note unmachined output shaft

Home sweet home

you just sneak down the middle here to adjust the chain tension... yes really

Dummy #3

assembly in car for a test fit.......  yeah baby

Just sitting in there at the mo to make sure it still goes in note cunning use of rack mount as a chain guard

progress that is !

Are we Bored yet????

Okay at the risk of sending my dwindling readership to sleep - especially those who actually like to see pictures of whole complete racing cars - we have been busy FINSHING something - well almost....

So just for the hell of it lets step through April as seen by looking at the same bunch of parts we looked at in February - but now with added stuff - actually mostly removed stuff..  as its machined, bored, drilled, turned, faced and whacked with jolly large hammers....

Pinch ring being drilled to hold the eccentrics which were mentioned ages ago

Thats the drive side bearing hiding  in there - scary and expensive!

Sprocket carrier with bronze bush

Dont kink your neck -  but that is an indexed eccentric bearing carrier - lines every 2 degrees

Eccentric left and right at full "soft" at front of plate

Eccentric adjuster holes 5mm - one every 20 degrees - both sides

No room for bolts on the drive side - countersunk screws instead

Dummy Assembly #2 its almost there

Note clearance chamfer - it now dosent hit the bottom engine mount!

Its all together and being beaten into submission - remember  kids do not try this at home - do it in a shed where nobody can see

Money Shot - note the factory forged half shafts - with the level of planning and design that has gone into this unit there was a moment of stark panic when these were found to fit - perfectly - on both sides of  the diff assembly - as you all know by now this must of course be a mistake and our engineering department is rectifying this as I type,  probably with a large hammer...

But you just wait till you see the tripod housings :-)

And here you can see the spilt retaining rings  - also note the traditional engineering safety footwear and precision chain tension adjuster

WAKE UP! -

I HAVE A DIFF AND I ALMOST KNOW HOW TO USE IT....

just need to make an oil tight cover and do some final adjustments.... then some drive shafts and then you can get back to looking at a race car again...

Diffs are us

When is a FIAT not a FIAT any more?

Probably when you do this... but I like to think of it as a refinement...

So  here we go again - we have the diff rotating now - thanks to the RHS bearing block and eccentric being machined. The Pictures below are of teh second dummy assembly - not much to do now - bushings and oil seals, diff "muff" , and shim spacers plus some bolt holes and a pinch bolt on each side. But most importans you now get to see the drive side more or less how it should look. I ended up using the evo 1 lower mounting cradle as a spacer in teh dummy assembly hence the odd bits of tube getting in to shot.

For those who havent twigged yet - thats not a Fiat engine in there ..... and last I checked the other  two 128s I raced never had this drive arrangement :-)

Still you should have a good idea by now this is a Yamaha powered Fiat hybrid running chain drive and 6 speed sequential gears and about 155 bhp in a package that weighs in at under 80kgs with the same tourque as my old 1300 FAZA 128 - but in a car weighing 300kg LESS. I havent cut the car and a good 1600 SOHC iron block fiat and 4 speed can be dropped back in the whole in an afternoon and be running by morning a few hours later.....

The precsion maching and welding on this engine install is the work of Graeme Sutton - with me in support doing the time consuming roughing out and drilling/tapping/fabrication tube notching layout stuff - time consuming for me that is!

Neat little package eh!

So there you have it - full exploded view next time - plus throttle cable and pedal and either wiring or headers....

So whats the Plan....

Well - since I have been just uploading a bunch of photos of late perhaps some explanations of progress are in order:

So here we go -  The diff build is consuming a mammoth amount of time  - to get from  raw billets to the drive stack seen in the photos has taken 4 months of sparodic effort and a machine shop with enough kit to make your eyes water - do not try this at home! Unfortunately I lost the shots of the raw material stage... 

So we stareted with a Toyota Celica Torsen diff - machined the ring gear mounting circle down and sliced off one bearing snout - then took the drive outboard with a couple of big billets of 1045 steel. The drive side bearing runs on these held in an eccentric mount on the side plates - the alloy bits below are the start of the eccentrics -  and on the right a hairy arm and teh eccentric in place - 0.300 or 7.8mm of tensioning for the chain

Diff

Inital stack

Sprocket drive flange

Final stack eccentric is the lighter colured piece

All pretty simple really - I will take some detail shots of the whole exploded unit prior to final assembly!