What is this for?

MikeHynes

True Classic
It's a carbed 1500 engine, I think out of a '79 X. It looks like it has provisions to mount a fuel pump to the back of the cam carrier. The cam has a corresponding lobe between the #4 intake and exhaust cam lobes. While I never saw anything mounted there, it looks like something had rubbed on the eccentric lobe at some time. One clue? There was a decal on the valve cove that read: Spider 1500.
I have another cam carrier that has the same "fuel pump" mounting provision, but the cam does not have a lobe between the #4 valve lobes. The cam does have a slot on the end that would mount a cam driven dist. such as a Strada would have.
Can anyone tell me what these engines were in?
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Not emissions control on a North American 79 X 1/9. I have never seen that on any X. Keep searching.
 
Volvo B20 engines with Bosch K-jet ran a vacuum pump on the fuel pump mount on the block, to ensure power for the brake servo regardless of manifold vacuum. Were there any 1500-engined cars with a vacuum booster that this might have been done for?
 
one way to tell if it came out of an X1/9 would be the thermostat - I think Paul is right, this is a Strada engine, but I didn't realize that they had the same cam box bosses for the dogbone engine mount.

Interesting!
 
Looks like a Fiat Strada 1500. Here's a photo of a 1979 Strada engine bay, and you can see a fuel pump mounted just to the right of the air cleaner."

I think Paul must be correct. Someone must have mounted a Strata engine in an X. I thought Stratas had cam driven dist. but I thought the differences in the cam were limited to the slot on the end to drive the dist. When gathering cams for Midwest Bayless I did dig out a cam with that slot, but no fuel pump lobe. The '79 pictured above does not have the cam driven dist. That shows how little I know about Stratas.

Did any Stratas ever come with an automatic trans?

BTW - That engine did have all of the same emissions "stuff" an X had on it too. It's a wonder they ever got them to run at all with all that crap.
BBTW - The valve cover that had the Spider 1500 decal on it was not a Strata valve cover. Has anyone ever seen such a decal?
 
Actually that is the ultra, ultra rare Abarth head with mechanical fuel injection; that is the drive for the injection pump. They only made about 4 or 5 of these heads. Worth a lot of money!
O/k/, not really. But wouldn't that be nice.
 
Looks like a Fiat Strada 1500. Here's a photo of a 1979 Strada engine bay, and you can see a fuel pump mounted just to the right of the air cleaner.

Yes, Paul is correct, this is a Strada cam box. I have one of these attached to a cylinder head that I pulled from a wrecked Strada 1500 engine a long time ago.
 
Yes, but it had the correct spelling of SPYDER on it....

View attachment 9259

SteveC
Yes Steve, that's it. And you are correct, I spelled it like a 124 Spider :(
Here's a (bad) pic of the one I have. It's very difficult to see (and it's upside down).
P1040359.JPG
I also included a pic of the head it's mounted on (may not be the original head - I don't know).
P1040361.JPG

It looks like a 12mm 10 bolt carb head. Does the casting indicate it was cast in 1978?
The question is: Why would it have a Spyder 1500 decal on it? Was there a Fiat called the Spyder?
 
X1/9 is a 128 Spyder... hence the chassis designation 128AS

head looks like a november 1978 casting production, so that's a real early 1500 head.

SteveC
 
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