Really Ed ? Considering this is the effing SX Owners Club it amazes me how much hate the SR gets - its a great little engine mainly maligned by those who have the least reason to complain about it Its just in vogue to say its shite for no actual reason
Great project, In your position I dont think I could have done the same myself, id feel the pressure to keep it 100% original but good on you for being brave enough to do something different
Its gone!
Seriously i dont get the hate for the SR that only seems to be on this forum, nowhere else do you find so much dislike for the motor.
Is it jealousy? or just a "scene" - the SR haters scene lol...
Its complete rubbish, the hatred i mean. The blacktop SR isnt perfect (its got a shit head for a start) but the diddly little CA aint some supernatural beast either - or RB's or V8s or what not.
Believe me, you do on some other SX owners forums, even not in UK ...
I don't really get it either, I don't even have to complain about it's sound.
It's an engine, it makes noise ... like all the others, I think
Maybe it doesn't rev like a ca, or doesn't feel as aggressive due to the nvcs giving more low/mid range torque.
But if that's what I was after, I would have bought alawnmowerhonda
Not sure of why there is a dislike for the engine that powers the car that this club is so linked to. I can only think it is down to it's popularity
The SR20DET is a readily available reliable power, sharing very similar dimensions to the Alfa Nord engine. Alfa V6s are too heavy and large, Alfa Nord based Twin Sparks are getting like hens teeth and quite expensive to tune. If you turbo it it will sound similar to an SR20DET. Modern Alfas are front wheel drive and no natural gearbox option.
Just a little bit of conspiracy theory....... There are rumours that during the 80's when Alfa Romeo, like most of the Italian motor industry, was skint it sold a lot of its engineering technology to buy manufacturing technology and realise some cash. This is evidenced in the joint venture between Nissan and Alfa Romeo who collaborated to produce the Alfa Arna (Nissan Cherry with Alfasud mechanicals). The engine design both internally and externally is suspiciously similar which makes me think there may be some basis to this claim.
But as I said before I thought this might case a bit of division.
- Jim
Back in the sixties my Alfa was way ahead of it's time. 5 speed all synchro gearbox, Discs all round and over 100hp out of a 1600cc. Indeed the 280mm discs were very impressive at pulling the car down from over 100mph.
I wanted to build a classic with modern mechanicals and whilst the existing braking system worked well it had a few weak points. The biggest being that it was single circuit meaning a single master cylinder dictated to whether you were going to stop or not. Later cars had dual circuit brakes but these too had there problems including an expensive dual servo system and tandem master cylinder arrangement. So what do you do to improve. The car ran 15" wheels as standard (now retro fitted with wider GTA replica alloys rather than the skinny steels) so I measured what was the biggest disc I could fit. There are a few companies selling aftermarket big brake conversions but these were nearly a grand.
290mm seemed to be the largest anyone had fitted and there was some reference to Mazda FD3 being the correct offset and with ali calipers that were nice and light. Any how I got some Mazda Calipers on ebay and bought a pair of brembo disks which I had turned them down from 292 to 290.
before...
during...
after...
Incl cheesy Alfa Logos.
so what to do about the master cylinder and pedal box set up. More to follow....
- Jim
Last edited by Alfaholical; 26-12-2012 at 09:35.
I really cant be bothered to explain why I dislike the SR20 so much. So, with that in mind....
Great project, but I personally would have chosen a different engine
Will you be uprating the engine bushes, or uprating (or replacing with new) any of the suspension components/bushes?
Also.. what will you be doing about axle tramp (I know I'm not quite using the 'correct' term here but I'm sure you know what I mean.)
Is it just me or do those Alfa brakes look like the 4-pots off an S14 with Alfa written on them ?
Great project BTW. I'm liking the minimalist approach to chopping the car about that will give you a greeaaattt sleeper.
If it was me, I'd ask the mods to clean up the thread to get rid of all the off-topic "SRs sound shit" comments.
Maybe I just rebuilt and fitted Mazda 4-pots to my 13 then ?
What can you see that makes them "defo not s14 brakes" ?
EDIT: Actually, I can see that the hose fitment is angled not straight like a 14. Apart from that though, they look the same to me.
EDIT 2: Can't help but feel that 280x30mm disks redrilled to 4-stud and 4-pots off his donor car would have been almost as good. He might also have been able to filtch the pedal box and mastercylinder off the donor car too.
Last edited by Jonny Wilkinson; 16-05-2011 at 10:51.
FD brakes are very similar to 14 ones, but with bigger discs. Sumitomo made calipers. Piston look identical too.
Only difference appears to be bracket spacing, and alloy construction.
Euuuw. Crusty. I was thinking more...
http://www.sxoc.com/apps/libs/displa...image_id=11748