What did you do to your X1/9 today ?

Although that listing has been around for a long time with no buyers. I seem to recall it was once asking something like $1100-1200 for them. So maybe if they eventually sell we will see what they finally get.
 
Mine are also the gold/alloy color combination as in the eBay listing, perhaps that was the only way they came back then? But now mine are severely faded and the alloy oxidized, so they need refinishing. I have 5 of them (one for a spare) but I only have 3 center caps. Some day I'll clean them up and offer them on the Vortex.
 
Personnaly, I love Fondmetal Canonica. 7x13 seems to be the largest size in 4x98 bolt pattern. Never seen one in North America. For the same price, I went to Gotti 3 pièces wheels. Much easier to get the right size (I was looking for 13x8) and with the correct offset.
 
Well...I went for it !...removed lower chin,dropped out the a/c condenser. Drained the coolant while I'm at it to put fresh in. Got the low impact shocks out. Think I will spray some undercoat in before reinstalling radiator and clean it all up. Tryn to decide what I want to do with signals now. I see most just mount them in the removable l plates. Thinking I want something a lil more custom...maybe just a flush smoked lens
 

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I'm decluttering....what is this and what did you do with it ?...I feel like it can be eliminated. Started unscrewing it but it only went so far...looks like I have to remove sensor and plug to continue....advice ?? Anyone ??
 

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It is the means of air injection into the head for emissions controls on the early cars with an airpump.
 
Looks like it wasn't hooked up anyway, there would have been a "air pump" next to the alternator that connected to that with a hose. So ya....assuming you don't need to be emissions compliant.
 
swapped Transmissions today (more of what I found inside posted with pictures on another thread).

After the test drive and back on jack stands to look things over I figured I would play at the other end of the car.

Dropped the radiator and bolted in a 2nd fan.

Then started working on the missing lower air dam.
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I am sure most of us have this issue. looked at it for a little bit, Hmm what am I going to do about this. I am getting away from driving and shifting to construction with My Dad, We install Drop (or suspended ceilings) I took a piece of wall angle (1in/1in angle), made a few adjustments to it and screwed it to the lower grill.

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Here is the repaired grill laying on the front bumper upside down.

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replaced some missing screws and put it all together. Thinking about getting some black spray paint to make it all black.

It is surprising how stiff everything gets 's when it's tied together.

I have had the lower air dam on with no center support and it was floppy, But was making a difference on the air flow through the radieator at the higher speeds (My fan is on light) would start to glow telling Me the fan was turning due to air flow (it never did that before).

I do wonder, laying under the nose looking up there is a downward path that air can get out from behind the grill and not go through the radiator, has anyone ever blocked this off, or was their originally something their?
 
Clever mod. One could find a plastic extrusion to do the same but this is a nice easy fix for what ails the thing. I will have to try that on the “new” X as it has broken tabs on the grill and the spoiler is somewhat borked from dragging on parking blocks or similar. Thank you for thinking this through.

No there was never a bottom seal from the grill/spoiler to the bottom of the radiator. Adding one, now that you have a lip down there seems like it would be a somewhat easier exercise and would help with cooling when the fans are running and the car is not moving in traffic. It would reduce the tendency of some air being cycled out the back of the radiator and then back through the front of the radiator when the car isn’t moving.

Jovani changed the orientation of his radiator to move the bottom of the radiator to the back of the grill and the top to the back of the curved portion of the trunk front wall. Tipped it back instead of tipping it forward as standard, to effectively fix the air being able to spill out the bottom. He also make a new carbon fiber grill with integral spoiler to increase the effect. He offers the updated grill assembly here: https://xwebforums.com/forum/index.php?threads/front-valance-grille-carbon-fiber.33830/
A very nice bit of kit.
 
kmead said:
It would reduce the tendency of some air being cycled out the back of the radiator and then back through the front of the radiator when the car isn’t moving.
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Great point. I agree with both of you, some "ducting" (a shroud) along the bottom would benefit the air flow into the rad. I think at speed it would help reduce turbulence in the area, creating a bit more laminar flow across the rad. And when standing still it would prevent "short cycling" as Special K says.

I found out about 'short cycling' after moving from the cool So Cal coastal climate to the hot Vegas desert climate. The garage at my home has something of a "European style" AC unit that is separate from the main house AC units (yes plural, 2 massive central units). By European style I mean it is a more compact, self-contained single unit design; the evap and cond are in a single housing and the warm-air inlet and cool-air outlet are both located on the front panel. The tendency was for the cool-air coming out one duct to be sucked back into the warm-air duct adjacent to it...hence "short cycling". This "steals" the cool-air from circulating through the garage; very cool temps right near the AC unit but very hot temps in the rest of the garage. So I added a partition between the two ducts to separate the air flow. Now the cool-air has a chance to circulate through the room before being drawn back into the AC unit. Room temps at the same thermostat setting dropped 20 degrees F.

Not having shrouds around all sides of the rad allows the same issue. Air will travel greatest along the path of least resistance. So the fans will draw the same hot air (that it just pushed out the back) from around the bottom of the rad (and back through it) rather than drawing cool air from in front of it...."short cycle" [in this case it is cycling hot air, as opposed to the AC situation where it was cycling cold air].
 
the other night, I finally did this after seeing a number of threads in other places about people mistakenly trying to use 4x108 Alfa wheels on Fiats. This is one of a set of 14x6 BWAs I got a while ago to use on one of my Fiats & at some point they were on an Alfa (still have the center caps). My test fit verified that it was an Alfetta. Excellent. Hope these clean up well.

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