Bob Martin's Abarth Swap

Is the shifter from the donor 500, some other car, or custom fabricated by you?

By what method does the shifter connect to the transaxle: operating rod(s), cables, etc? And what is the source, the donot 500, the X, or some other car?

And what is the routing of the above connection--direct into the front of the transaxle, a la the X, or custom linkage operating levers at the top or rear of the trans, like a scorpion, or 180 degree loop in the shifter cables?


The shifter is from a 1993 to 1996 Honda Accord. Some were all metal and some are made from plastic you find out when you remove the shifter boot on the car at the wreckers. It was modified to make the throws correct to the Abarth Transmission.
The clocking of the shifter was also modified to work towards the rear of the car by use of an adapter plate that I made. A stainless steel button was also made to allow the lifting of the rod in the shifter. The one seen here is the first attempt that failed and a better attachment method was adopted to prevent this from happening again.

Here are a few pictures from my car and the test body which is the same used in Bob's car.

Things got cluttered on my car, but on Bob's since it was the 2nd version, the tunnel is better laid out and more orderly.

The cables being used are OEM connected to the rods from the Honda shifter. The couplings are threaded with a set screw, but also have a straight lead in to prevent bending at the threaded stress point.

TonyK.

With Bob Martin in Grimsby Ontario Canada.

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Last day of this long weekend here is where we are.

TonyK

With Bob Martin in Grimsby Ontario.
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Just using the stock valve for heat, not sure about leakage if it is a problem. Any more information is most welcome.

TonyK.

With Bob Martin in Grimsby Ontario Canada.

As you know most modern cars use constant flow through the heater core and the temperature is regulated by air mixing rather than adjusting water flow. I would assume the modern 500 is the same.

On my Miata which uses the same system, the engine is expecting that constant flow versus having the flow stopped by a on off valve. Is the 500 system the same or is that circuit just a side show that would have little effect on the behavior of the whole or localized effects on part of the system?

I asked about the use of the diverter valve due to this need, whether it is placed in the engine compartment or behind the hvac unit, is more about the amount of heat in the passenger compartment as a result of the constant flow.

As you are using the OE HVAC system it would want to be a mechanical versus the electrical unit (though Vintage Air does offer a linear rheostat versus a rotary) given the OE operator wire.


Great work, that is a lot of stuff, holy moly. Amazing frankly.
 
Still at it. Made up the cross over pipe, although a reversed inlet outlet radiator is the real solution. The cross over pipe is made from 304 Stainless steel sections. I decided to go around the rubber hose this time because I didn't want to purchase a donut to keep the bends tight as done on my car. I have a bit more welding and should have this completed tonight.

TonyK.

Grimsby Ontario Canada.

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Continuing on I have started work on the exhaust system as per Bob Martins Specs. The down pipe which connects to the bottom of the CAT is OEM along with the flex pipe. OEM is using a 400 series stainless steel I think the alloy is 410 or 407. I normally don't work with it but only use 304 Stainless Steel as it does not rust like the OEM pipe. Everything south of the flex joint is 304 Stainless Steel. Bob always likes his cars loud and I on the other hand don't. If you remember when you were a kid you took an old base ball car and your mom's close pin and attached it in such a way that it hit the spokes and made a brappp noise. Well Bob would not settle for one base ball car, but 10, he had to stand on the pedal just to get his bicycle moving from all of the drag it created, but you could hear him a block away.

So simple install, some bents from 2" donuts and 2" pipe. The tips were made from 2 1/2" pipe that was chucked in my lathe and worked up with 800 wet dry sand paper. I have all of the sections assembled and tacked and before I do the finish welding I want to get the mounts set and correct. Follow the pictures.

TonyK.
Grimsby Ontario Canada.

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I spent about an hour doing all of the welds on the pipe for the exhaust system today. Then moved on to the mounting attachments. With that completed the pipe was installed and I moved on to Bob's next request. He wanted the rear lower grill that had the holes cut out in it for the exhaust system to have backing rings to support the grill slats. Welding old aluminum is not easy and it tends to get contaminated from all of the paint that surrounds the weld zone. I have all of this completed and this weekend I will sandblast the grill and repaint it.

TonyK.

Grimsby Ontario Canada.

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Love the look of that. Bet Man alive I bet that is going to be loud!!
I don't have a muffler on my car, just the Cat and a small resonator, the turbo charger kills the sound. It is not loud at all.

TonyK.

Grimsby Ontario Canada.
 
Love the look of that. Bet Man alive I bet that is going to be loud!!
I did the same thing (not the nice look of this) but on my Uno Turbo I do not have a muffler either. Unless you are at 8k rpm, you would never know. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.
 
Still at it, although this weekend the weather was very nice and I had to get into my garden. I planted 130 strawberry plants along with other items that my wife wanted. Then tonight it was time to take the cab off of the tractor so only a limited amount of work was completed since Thursday.

The rear Glass is back in the car as the fire wall needs to be completed in this build. I have most of the induction system completed but need to sort out the fuel pump and regulator first before all of the hoses can be installed. So follow the pictures an see the slow but steady progress. Working a 40 hour week gets in my way of doing this project that I really enjoy. The rear grill has been sand blasted. As you can see everything is tight, shoe horned into place. Bob and I don't drive our cars a lot. For me less than 2000 miles a year between 2 cars. For Bob less than 500 miles a year. So there shouldn't be a lot of maintenance to be done. I spent a fair bit of time dealing with bugs in the build but that is all behind me now.

TonyK.

Grimsby Ontario Canada.

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Fuel system. Although the fuel pump used on this build looks like the stock X1/9 Bosch pump it is not. It is a larger pump that has an out put of 80PSI. The Abarth platform uses a tank housed pump and fuel regulator in the fuel tank and only a single line to the fuel rail. The fuel regulator does not have MAP compensation but rather the ECU changes the injector duration as calculated in respect to MAP value. So since I am not using the stock fuel tank an pump external components are required for this part of the build.

A whole lot of fittings, a pump and a fuel regulator are required, follow the pictures.

TonyK.

Grimsby Ontario Canada.
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Nice work! Those little filters that you used as a pre-filter don't cause a flow restriction? I figured any generic carb - based line filter wouldn't work for higher volume demands of EFI...
 
Nice setup. Prefilter for the large chunks, pump, fine filter (OE 500 Abarth?), mechanical pressure regulator and gauge to verify the regulator and then on into the Abarth injection system.

So this still returns the excess fuel to the fuel tank using the return line?

I believe the stock Bosch pump can output those pressures from past discussions. The Bosch regulator drives the pressure value of 43psi, not the pump in the OE X case with the overage let off into the return line.

This is an interesting board you could look at to get to a digitally controlled constant pressure and only a single fuel line:

https://www.madhu.com/content/Main/FuelPumpController

I know, a non potted, handmade future reliability failure item, interesting nonetheless.

Alternatively modifying the X tank to use an in tank pump might be a nice solution, here is an example done to an 850 tank for fuel injection (a rather famous mod thread): http://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/70073/1971-fiat-sedan-resurrection-starts?page=4
 
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Nice work! Those little filters that you used as a pre-filter don't cause a flow restriction? I figured any generic carb - based line filter wouldn't work for higher volume demands of EFI...
So far I have never had a problem, but the car only has about 4000 miles on it, I have been using small pre-filters for years without issue on other cars. It is the fine grit that destroys the brushes and commutator in the pump motor.

TonyK.

Grimsby Ontario Canada.
 
Nice setup. Prefilter for the large chunks, pump, fine filter (OE 500 Abarth?), mechanical pressure regulator and gauge to verify the regulator and then on into the Abarth injection system.

So this still returns the excess fuel to the fuel tank using the return line?

I believe the stock Bosch pump can output those pressures from past discussions. The Bosch regulator drives the pressure value of 43psi, not the pump in the OE X case with the overage let off into the return line.

This is an interesting board you could look at to get to a digitally controlled constant pressure and only a single fuel line:

https://www.madhu.com/content/Main/FuelPumpController

I know, a non potted, handmade future reliability failure item, interesting nonetheless.

Alternatively modifying the X tank to use an in tank pump might be a nice solution, here is an example done to an 850 tank for fuel injection (a rather famous mod thread): http://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/70073/1971-fiat-sedan-resurrection-starts?page=4

The high pressure filter is from a Mazda RX7 with fuel injection. Return is back to the bottom of the tank. Abarth runs at 58 PSI. The variable speed pump would be an upgrade possibly down the road. Currently what I have for the few miles I drive it each year seems to work without issue. I issue with using the stock pump is that the Abarth OEM tank is flat and the X fuel tank is high. It would take some different engineering to allow the stock OEM pump to work correctly. When I test the engine in the test body the fuel cell I use has the stock OEM pump in it with fuel tank level sending unit.

TonyK.

Grimsby Ontario Canada.
 
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