Hello from a 100% Fiat Newbie + some 850 spider questions

B

Bloku

Expert Noob
Hello. I am new to the fiat world as you guys and girls can tell by the title. I have about 5 years of experiance with problemed, rusty, and just plain anoying cars. I am 16 and have built my own car along with helping my brother with his own car and lots of my dad's projects (my car is a 1971 karmann ghia. It is my avatar here). I can mig weld pretty well if I have the metal to do so, so rust is not that big of a problem. I recently started to like fiats after I was out in an old vw salvage yard looking for some parts for my vw with my dad when I stumbled upon a little sports car looking thing. I went to it quickly and found that it was a fiat 850 spider. There was another one next to it too. I had only ever known that fiat made the 500 so I was like "was dis?" :mallet: . I pulled the seat out of the other fiat and put in in the car and sat in the leaf filled car. I really liked it, but there was a lot missing so I left it without looking back

Now, skip forwards a year and the car has started to really grow on me to the point of wanting to go out there and get the darn thing. The owner (85 year old widowed woman) said I could have the car for $50. It has a motor and trans. I was also able to shift through the gears only when the clutch was pushed (it is also the only car there, out of 100 vws, that has a motor left lol. The car is pretty far gone so I can really make it whatever I want it to be. I am making the hour drive to go look at it again on this sunday.

I want to turn the car into a crappy autoX car like my father's mx-5 (just older and crappier :) ). I want to build out the stock 843cc motor to about 80hp with the stock stroke and for it to scream all the way up to something like 8000rpms! Can someone please shoot me a link to some good 850 engine builds? I kind of want to paint some stripe down the length of the car and put race numbers on the side :D .

Question time...
- I have heard that these fiats rust like crazy. If this car has been sitting here this long should I just not even bother?
- If I go to the car and it is as good as my memory knows it to be, what should I look for structurally on this spider?
- *Insert anything else major that I'm missing*

Also, I will need to check the oil for it looking like chocolate milk :(

Thanks!
 
Welcome!

Yes, 850's do rust like crazy if left exposed to the weather, depending on your local climate. On an 850 Spider, the key places to check are under the car where you'll find a large X shape that is part of the structure of the car. If this is rusted it's hard to fix.

Another place to check is right at the front of the door openings, where the hinge jamb meets the sill. This is another common rust-out area.

Regardless, it sounds like you're enthusiastic about it and if the rust isn't too bad, you can have a lot of fun with these cars.

The rear suspension is a swing-axle variant, so it will take some effort to make it good and safe for auto-X.
 
Thanks budgetzagato. I'll keep this in mind when looking at it. I hope that it does not let me down :( .

A question to all. Where is the best place for me to learn about how people build these engines? I really want to make a screamer motor like motor in this video. It says it has something called a 1000 or something like that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_BJfcZzmbU

I'm sorry for being such a newbie on this. If I can just get a good engine build thread or a write-up about these engines ill be done bugging you all :) . I'm just in love with fiats now :love:

Thanks y'all
 
welcome to the forum

I remember recently that someone posted two 850's for sale dirt cheap
one has the coveted glass covered head lights. I don't know how close they are to you, but a coupla parts cars are worth their weight in gold.
the car in your video is actually an 1000 OTAS which was built by abarth. started with a 903c.c. and was massaged to 1000 for the racing circuit.
the head and the intake were one piece and is extremely hard to find. FAZA sold them back in the day.
easy to rebuild the engine. rear panel off and the motor and trans comes straight out. one word of caution...the oil "filter" is on the front of the crankshaft (centrifugal). after the rebuild, pull the cover off and clean it out at 100 miles and at 200 and 300. had my ex blow a motor I built for her 850 when she decided that it was more fun driving with the top down than spending an hour of down time and me doing an oil change. and again welcome to the fiat family!!
mikemo
 
ok, well I went to take a look at the fiats and they were even too far gone for me. The floors were literal trash meaning that it was once filled with beer bottles and then the floor fell out :( . I'm pretty sad now :sigh: . I dont really want to bother to post a pic because the car had 2 foot diameter tree growing between the bumper and the body :( . I guess time can really distort what you had seen.

Mikemo90, Thanks for the welcome! I would love to know some more about those "dirt cheap" 850's you were talking about. Stinking Oklahoma has a lack of taste when it comes to most things (*cough* cars *cough*) and in turn there is a lack of cool cars (the weather also plays a good part in lack of old, cool, cars). If they are good I would be willing to spend the money to ship them here if they are in price range and further than 200 miles. Thanks again :) .
 
Yikes!

mikemo90 said:
the car in your video is actually an 1000 OTAS which was built by abarth. started with a 903c.c. and was massaged to 1000 for the racing circuit.
the head and the intake were one piece and is extremely hard to find. FAZA sold them back in the day.
Click to expand...

Whoa, lots of misinformation there! :(

The car in that video is an Abarth 1000 OTS Coupe (built on the Fiat 850 Series 1 Coupe), & has no relation to an OTAS other than sharing Fiat 850 components. OTAS cars were originally built by Francis Lombardi, then by O.T.A.S. proper (of which Lombardi was a joint partner) - completely different cars than the one on this video.

The Abarth 1000 OTS (982cc) engine was built on the early Fiat 850 843cc engine, not the later Fiat 850 903cc engine.

The 1000 OTS head & intake manifold were not one piece, they were the standard Fiat 850 cylinder head & intake (with optional Abarth manifolds to allow fitment of either a Solex 34PBIC or Weber 36DCD carb). There was a cast alloy 1-piece intake manifold/valve cover unit made for the later Autobianchi A112 Abarth cars which can commonly be found nowadays on eBay.it or eBay.de. It will bolt directly on to the 850 cylinder head (since the A112 engine is an evolution of the 850 engine), but uses a different carb & incorrect carb orientation for the 850 engine. :geek:
 
owch!!!

thanks for the slap on the wrist.
I blab on what I think I remember and there are forum members more informed than me
kudos, and
ciao
mikemo
 
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