hi i have a '79 x. its runs well. i am going to buy a local i think '74 1300.
I was thinking to do the fiat/lancia twin cam swap i've heard about on one of these. they are both if good condition. which one do you think would be the better of the two for the swap. the 1300 has some very strange wheels of it that fit very high profile tires.
I have herd that the twin cam engine bolts on the the x19 transmission. Is this true? are there any other modifications that you have to do? also i would appreciate it if anyone knows anyone who has done this swap or any guides to it.
Thanks

Hi,
I'm a bit conservative when it comes to swapping engines, but knowing FIAT, you should be able to use any of the engines listed here without much trouble: search wikipedia Fiat_SOHC
For a bit more power look here:
search wikipedia Fiat_Twin_Cam_engine
The best bet would be to get an engine from a FWD FIAT, preferably not too recent. A Ritmo/Strada, Regata or Croma would be perfect, or a Lancia Delta or Thema.

well unfortunately im in the US and there is no fwd fiats other than the 128 sedan i think. which is the 1300 sohc from the x19.
i was just wondering if the gearbox would bolt up. to that engine. if i did use one of the twin cam engines what displacement would you recommend.

Raph,

Get yourself on the Xweb forum. In the US plenty of owners have used Japanese power plants in their exxies, which for you would be easier and cheaper than a Fiat TC swap. There's plenty of friendly advice and how-tos on Xweb.

Cheers R

Raph406 said:

well unfortunately im in the US and there is no fwd fiats other than the 128 sedan i think. which is the 1300 sohc from the x19.
i was just wondering if the gearbox would bolt up. to that engine. if i did use one of the twin cam engines what displacement would you recommend.

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You could look at the twincams from the Lancia Beta range which were imported to the US, best bet would probably be the 1800 from the Scorpion (Montecarlo in europe) which is already orientated for a mid-engine installation. However, I suspect you'd need the associated gearbox as I don't think you can match the twink to a SOHC gearbox. I don't recall exactly which of these engines were in Lancia models in the US, but I'd hazard a guess that the 2 litre lump didn't figure due to emmisions. I'd reckon on finding 1600 (oversquare, revvy and very tweakable) and 1800 (OK) which have all been fitted to X1/9s.

However, in theory at least, the same Fiat based engine was available in 2000 form for the Fiat Spider and provided you found the right gearbox it would be possible to convert to transverse layout without too much difficulty - if you wanted to remain true to the Fiat/Lancia twincam. Vicautos would be worth a look http://www.vickauto.com/ seem to recall they do a 'big banger' 2.2 version of the twincam

The lancia lump is a better fit as it is inclined slightly

it would be really nice to find a lancia scorpion. but since i live in montana in the US finding fiats lancias or alfas is always a real challange. i have seen 2 1800 fiat spiders around town that are in very bad shape. but for the most part complete. do you think this would be a good choice?

They are around in the US - try the Lancia owners "self-help" forum www.lancisti.net email the site owner (DJ) and say you were talking to Hamish who suggested he (DJ) would be the perfect fella to help you track down a stock Scorpion engine and box You never know

The Fiat Spiders may yield some useful engine bits, if you can afford 'em break them for parts to help with the conversion to twincam power

Get yourself on the Xweb forum. In the US plenty of owners have used Japanese power plants in their exxies, which for you would be easier and cheaper than a Fiat TC swap. There's plenty of friendly advice and how-tos on Xweb.



I've seen some of those vtec swaps. They are amazing but i was looking for a simpler swap. Dealing with the axles and linkages doesn't seem like a very plausible project. I would love to do that kind of swap but im worried that halfway through i might give up and ruin my X. An old guy in town that has 3 X19s told me that i should try the fiat spider engine swap. because it would bolt right up to the transmission. I went on here to get some more advice.
I defenatly could find a vtec engine from some honda or acura. Do you think i should try that or stick to the fiat twin cam. Also i could keep the origional gauges with the fiat engine. It may not be as powerful but i prefer the fiat motor. I have an alfa spider which closely resembles the fiat engine and it sounds beautiful, the honda engines just seem to have a modern tastless hum. anyhow thank you all for the good advice.
Ill look into lancia scorpions some more also

Ah, I read the thread on Xweb. You did rub a couple of people up the wrong way! Personally I too think that putting rice (or Detroit) into an Italian car is sacrilege.

Anyway, I composed a long treatise on TC and SOHC engine swaps, but it got lost in the ether. Suffice to say the TC engine does not bolt up to the X1/9 gearbox.

There are plenty of experts here who can advise, so I'll shut up and go away again.

Cheers R

yeah i wasn't it the best mood when i wrote that thread. they were not to happy. So on the TC swap do people use the lancia scorpion transmissions? and if i found a scorpion trans would it bolt to the 1800 spider motor? The scorpions seems very bogged down by all the damn US emissions standards. Would this be a good idea? any ideas where to find that trans. Is that a 4 speed or 5 speed?
Thanks everyone for all the help so far.

oh also is the lancia trans similar to the Xes transmission.

found a tranny 200 bucks.

Raph406 said:

yeah i wasn't it the best mood when i wrote that thread. they were not to happy. So on the TC swap do people use the lancia scorpion transmissions? and if i found a scorpion trans would it bolt to the 1800 spider motor?

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Yes - scorpion transmission is the one to have.
No - the spider engine would need some work to convert from inline to transverse, any Beta engine gives you a transverse engine straight away So really a Beta or Scorpion engine is what you need. Spider engines would yield usefu bits but I think the block is all wrong for the X1/9 conversion.

Raph406 said:

The scorpions seems very bogged down by all the damn US emissions standards. Would this be a good idea? any ideas where to find that trans. Is that a 4 speed or 5 speed?
Thanks everyone for all the help so far.

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5 speed. The best bet would be a fairly meaningful tweak to get the bhp up (turbo would be nice, but conventional tuning works wonders on these engines) the emmissions equipped cars are sapped of power but there's room (it seems) to get around that these days in the US.

In the UK I think three companies may have offered a twincam conversion for the x1/9 - Eurosport, Faran and Avanti. But that's from memory, been a while since I looked into that sort of thing
Worth checking around though, has to be stuff on the www which will tell you all you need to know

Why not turbo the standard engine

Thanks everyone for all the help, i know alot more now.

Also is the twin cam swap considerably easier than a honda swap?

I got a haynes today i might be able to understand more of the emmisons garbage.

for the turbo do you think one off an 80's mercedes 3 litre diesel would work. we have 2 300sd parts cars.

Raph406 said:

.......for the turbo do you think one off an 80's mercedes 3 litre diesel would work. we have 2 300sd parts cars.

Click to expand...

Errrrr - no
What you would need for an easy and pretty close to a 'standard' Fiat conversion is already available from the Uno Turbo:

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Uno[/ame]

http://www.sfconline.org.uk/models/uno/uno.asp

Enjoy

ha alright just wondering

think this would be good for a vtec swap? i live in the same city http://missoula.craigslist.org/pts/1635364675.html