# 209, Monte bumpers and trim painted, rear bumper mock-up

[Rupunzell]

Monte bumpers and trim back from the painters. # 209 will be done up in the original Paolo Martin's visual concept of the Series One Monte in red.

OEM Lancia/Fiat bumpers painted black. The body guy specified a plastic specific paint, primer and prep.

The back sides.

Inside of the rear Monte bumper RH.

Inside of the rear Monte bumper LH.

Rear as prepped from not too long ago.

Initial rear mock-up install.

Front view.

Lancia LoGo.

Front in prep.

Bernice

 

[Chad C.]

Such nice work there, I hope I can get my own Monte bumpers looking so good.

 

[BEEK]

are those bumpers original or a fiberglass reproduction?

 

[Rupunzell]

Answer is, second line in the beginning of this original post. These are OEM Fiat-Lancia Montecarlo bumpers. They are made of fiber reinforced plastic. The body guy who painted them sprayed with plastic specific sealer, primer and paint. All the exterior plastic trim was painted at the same time to achieve color and gloss match. This could be one of the very last sets of new oem Fiat/Lancia montecarlo bumpers and trim in the USA.

Part two is to finish up the front with OEM Fiat/Lancia head lights and ...

Converting a USA scorpion back to a MonteCarlo is NOT simple or easy. It is FAR more involved than it appears due to a long list of changes Pininfarina made to Federalize the design. The exterior is just the beginning. The suspension (spring rates and more are different between Montecarlo -vs- scorpion) in front was jacked up to meet bumper height requirements and more.. Majority tend to focus on the USA fed version of the 1800cc Lampredi engine with nee 85bhp, yet that is just be beginning of all that is different between Scorpion -vs- Montecarlo.

BTW, the scorpion is a few hundred pounds more than Montecarlo.. know why this correct now. It is more than just the bumpers, lots more.


Bernice

 

[RJ80]

Bernice, I'm curious what you mean by lots more? Besides the engine and bumpers, it's the headlights, perhaps the emissions equipment (and related interior warning lights), the taller springs. Tires on U.S. cars were narrower and likely lighter.

I would guess that the bumpers are about 85-90% of the actual weight difference, would you agree? I've heard these are around 80 lbs each (around 160 lbs for both), I'll weigh mine when they come off my car eventually in favor of TMH Montecarlo replicas. What do the Montecarlo bumpers weigh, perhaps 40 lbs for both? A significant number of Scorpions already have this done -- it's a relatively common job, but certainly not a walk in the park to convert, as you did a great job of illustrating.

Most U.S. Scorpions, including mine, lost all their emissions equipment years ago, perhaps 30-odd lbs worth of gear including the air pump and catalytic converter.

I'd be interested in your measured weight savings on the Montecarlo headlight conversion. I'd suspect that's maybe 15-20 lbs worth of motor, riser linkage, etc, but it's more weight over the front end which is somewhat beneficial, theoretically. I will be doing a Beta Zagato quad-light conversion instead, just personal preference. I'd guess the weight savings are similar.

Montecarlo springs are readily available from TMH for a couple hundred dollars and I don't think a couple fewer coils changes weight dramatically. I am using X1/9 suspension, currently, which gives a nice height drop.

What am I missing? In period road tests (I have the Brooklands compendium), most Euro cars were claimed at roughly 2,250 lbs curb weight (emptied of fluids, I'm sure). U.S. cars were roughly 2,450 lbs, again curb weight without full fluids. About a 200-lb difference all-told, of which the bumpers are the vast majority. That's an average American passenger!

I feel like the Euro 2.0-liter engine making fully 50% more power than the U.S. 1.8 is the bigger part of the equation, which is why more folks focus on that.

Everything is fixable, fortunately, as you and others here are proving.

 

[Chad C.]

Having removed a lot of the US spec parts from my car, I'd guess that the bumpers are about half the weight difference between US & Euro. The bumpers are heavy, but they weren't as heavy as I was anticipating. The shocks that mount them in the chassis rails behind them have considerable weight for being in front of the front wheels & behind the rears (right where you don't want it for Polar Moment of Inertia).

The smog pump on the US cars is really heavy, I'm guessing 25 pounds. So happy to be rid of that... I've read that the alternator mount for the Scorpion is quite heavy compared to the Monte, which was said to be different but I've never looked into it. Pretty sure that both cars had the same AC condenser, which is very heavy and its plumbing/radiator adds up in weight as well.

I haven't removed the headlight motors & linkage yet.

Catalytic converter?

I have reproduction Monte bumpers for my car, and they're way lighter than 40 lbs combined. Not much to them other than fiberglass. Both Bernice and Pete W. have pictorials of how they mounted theirs.

All said, I'm not seeing a full two hundred pounds difference, and I'm good with weights after working in shipping & receiving back in the day. That weight difference could easily come from scales that were less than accurate. I'd love to weigh original examples of each, but how many factory originals of either actually exist?

I was surprised at how much the seats weigh in our cars. I really like they way they look, but you can easily save fifty pounds by changing out the seats. Though I doubt the weight is much different, the gearset in the Monte is different. Omitting the spare tire & opting for a Triple A card instead is a smart weight savings.

I can't think of a better place for the battery's weight than immediately in front of my passenger seat, well mounted within a marine plastic box. I hope to copy BEEK's fuel tank set-up in the frunk of the car, I was pretty impressed with that. Though I don't know about having the battery atop the fuel...


Anyone know how "light" light is for our cars? How much weight did/do the race cars shave off, and how?

 

[Rupunzell]

Scorpions often had Air Conditioning. The compressor back then was the York heavy weight and all related. The exhaust with Catalytic converter is another heavy weight.

As for weight of the bumpers, the oem fiber reinforced bumpers are maybe 10 pounds rear, bit more front? Scorpion head lights have a motor, round head lights assembly, the joint bar between these two head light assemblies, and more.. The MonteCarlo head lights have a fiber reinforced plastic frame and significantly lower weight than the Scorpion head light set up.

All these bits adds to the overall weight of the Scorpion.

Bernice

 

[RJ80]

Sounds like we can all agree, the weight difference really isn't much more than having a passenger in the car. To me, that says focus resources on the engine for the majority of performance gains.

 

[Rupunzell]

Sounds like we can all agree, the weight difference really isn't much more than having a passenger in the car. To me, that says focus resources on the engine for the majority of performance gains.

200lb is a HUGE difference in performance. Engine performance is lower in the list of what makes a moto special to drive. Lower weigh improves every aspect of moto performance, cornering load on tires, chassis, suspension is lower making the moving mass of the moto easier for the driver-tires and all involved to control. Braking improves by lowering the amount of stored energy the brakes are required to dissipate, lower mass does mean the power train has an easier time to inflict rate of change to the mass. This is why lowest mass moto is always desirable in a performance moto. IMO, too many moto folks focus too much on power train performance as THE primary aspect to gain performance. This is simply myopic thinking and view of the overall needed to achieve a true performance moto and driving experience.

Keep in mind the spring rates between MonteCarlo -vs- Scorpion are different.. 200 lbs difference.. enough for the Fiat/Lancia folks to make springs all four corners specific to the Scorpion and likely damper settings are a slight bit different.


“Simplify, then add lightness”
-Colin Chapman.

 

[RJ80]

I was just saying that the weight difference was not very much more than an extra passenger, significantly less than a few hundred pounds.

And adding 40 horsepower is going to do more for the driving experience for more people, in my opinion, than losing 200 lbs. Yes, weight loss will manifest itself positively in other areas (handling, braking, etc), but still, I think more people are going to prefer the way the car feels with 40 more horses compared to 200 lbs less weight. Power to weight ratio is extremely important, as was said earlier.

If we were talking about a Monte to begin with, I think the answer would be less clear cut:. Would you rather have a 160 hp, 2,200-lb Monte or a 2,000-lb Monte with 120 hp? I'd be tempted to go with the lighter car, but there will be others who still want the power.

 

[Rupunzell]

I was just saying that the weight difference was not very much more than an extra passenger, significantly less than a few hundred pounds.

And adding 40 horsepower is going to do more for the driving experience for more people, in my opinion, than losing 200 lbs. Yes, weight loss will manifest itself positively in other areas (handling, braking, etc), but still, I think more people are going to prefer the way the car feels with 40 more horses compared to 200 lbs less weight. Power to weight ratio is extremely important, as was said earlier.

If we were talking about a Monte to begin with, I think the answer would be less clear cut:. Would you rather have a 160 hp, 2,200-lb Monte or a 2,000-lb Monte with 120 hp? I'd be tempted to go with the lighter car, but there will be others who still want the power.

Much about what is easies to access as a metric of "performance" -vs- "driving experience. Keep in mind, the 74' exxe is stock 1300cc / 4sp is mostly knackered. Yet, that Lampredi engine is driven to red-line nearly every shift and there is no hesitation to drive it flat out, full throttle when possible, long as possible (not slow if the exxe is driven this way, easily exceeds public road limits). That is the way this Lampredi engine was designed to be used. The 74' is about 2,000 pounds, has excellent brakes (Fiat Uno Turbo fronts, Lancia Scorpion rears) tweaked mostly stock suspension, good tires and wheels, no wore out parts in the suspension.. yet there has not been a lot of incentive to install the other power train (dyno'ed about 120 Bhp & 5sp gear box) with a LOT more power than the stock 1300cc power train. Essentially the 2,000 Monte with 120 Bhp is plenty and preferred to the 2200 pound Monte with 160Bhp.. Know adding a passenger Does alter the feel and performance of moto..

All that said, the reason for many obsessing over ~more power~ it is the easiest aspect of moto performance for most any driver to access and evaluate and sense. Simply mash the throttle, eyes peel back, feel the rush.. Ooooo_ooo !

At some point, that alone gets old, really old.

The far more difficult aspect of moto performance for drivers to access is chassis-suspension dynamics. This is the make it or discard it aspect of any moto IMO. If the chassis-suspension is ick, not fixable.. no matter how much power is available from the power train. Then we get into chassis-suspension feel and all those aspects of moto performance that cannot be described with a numerical value. Other aspects would be ergonomics like forward and peripheral visibility for the driver, driver position, pedal position, seat to wheel position and all those other aspects of how the driver interfaces with the moto..

One more item, torque is often more significant than hp specially in road-street driven cars where mid-band performance is where the majority of driving and power train requirements are needed. Hp sells cars, Torque is what the driver feels as acceleration.

Add to this gearing can make all the difference.


Bernice