Lada Samara 1500 8V 2xSolex C40

[kowal]

Hello everyone,

All started up with the Lada Samara my father had and did not drive anymore cause of some serious problems with the carburator. So the car spent about 18 months in my dad's garage. In the meantime I got interested in car rallies. So I solved the problems with the carburator, made some suspension modifications and was ready to run. But the condiditon of the body was worse with every month. Rust was appearing everywhere. After a short reasarch I came to a conlusion that financially it makes more sense to find a new - rust free - body and make a swap of the engine, suspension etc. than to repair the new one. I found a Samara with an engine after a collision of pistons with valves but with body in almost perfect condition. It seemed mission: impossible, but I made it. Besides a body in good shape the new Lada had one more advantage over my first Samara: it was a 3 not 5-doors model. At the same time I decided to modify the enigne in order to be able to fight with modern 1.4-1.6 cars which nowadays, when 16V, tend to have around 100 HP.

Here come some pictures of the old Lada just before I started demountig parts that were supposed to be used also in the 'new' Samara.






What were the plans which are now being carried:
- head modicications (bigger polished channels, changed combustion chambers),
- modified valves and camshaft, both from Havassy Motorsport (Lada tuner from Hungary which is the Mecca of all Lada tuning fans: hungarian Lada parts are usually of better quality than the russian ones and the prices are - surprise, surprise - lower).
- instead of 1 factory carburator two Solexes C40.
At the very start this was supposed to be all. I didnt want to touch the 'bottom' of the engine, but... Havassy gave me a crankshaft prepaired by him as a gift. It made me change my mind.

Later on I will give some more photos and commentaries. As for now you can visit my website: http://www.ladasamara.republika.pl. It's in Polish but with plenty of photos which to some extend speak by themselves.

Best regards,
Piotr

[kowal]

To begin: the 1.3 broken engine that came with the 'healthy' new body.
Head with broken valves:


And a see-through piston on the same cylinder:


The new body, already stripped a bit inside:




This is one of very few russian 'tuning' parts that will be used. Obviously not the highest quality as you can see but it cost about 90 euros. No 4-2-1 manifolds for Samara are avalible in Poland and a custom-made would cost 4 times more so it seemed the only solution since the Hungarians could only offer me steinless steel exhaust system parts at that time and the prices exceeded my budget.


The 1.5 engine extracted from the old body. Ceirtanly no points for artistical merrit here... The block all rusty, oil everywhere... What's intresting some leftovers of Subaru-like blue paint showed up on the block... Nor my father (1st owner of the car), nor I did we paint it, so the factory must had done it.


The head - not in as bad shape as I had expected.


And the block. It turned out that it was a good idea to take care of it since down there there were already some symptoms of high mileage problems. Lucky me this time.


Though the garage the works are being carried in is not the cutest and cleanest place one can imagine, they are quite well equipped. Which sometimes makes the life easier. Here: extracting the 1.3 dead engine from the new body.


Engine-free Samara. It was a funny day when my friend Konrad who is doing all these swap/modifications operations called me asking if this new Samara had really 14 000 km mileage (the counter on the speedmeter has only 5 digits so it resets after 99 999). I said no, it's 114 000 km. He couldnt believe it. The car seen from the bottom seemed almost new. Not without a reason, I said, I towed it 230 km from Bydgoszcz to Warsaw...


The block after grinding:




Working on the head: on the right: bigger channels, on the left standard ones:


The same with the inlet manifold:


It's also a funny story with this manifold. Almost every day I enter internet auctions and check the results for 'Lada' or 'Samara'. As Forrest Gump would say: 'you never know what you gonna get'. And I came across this brand new manifold. For about 45 euros. A unique thing, really, very hard to find since usually Samara's engine tuning consists in changing the engine to Opel's 2.0 16V (eg. Astra GSI) or at least changing the carburator fuel feeding system into electronical injection (the Russians sell plug&play kits to do this modification).

Checking if all those parts fit together. As strange as it can seem - they do.


Working on the head:




That's it for today. More pics and comments will follow.

Best regards,
Piotr

[kowal]

Hi, some more photos of the project.

The crankshaft after the final touch.


The block being put together.






Done:)

And now the head:








And the engine:




This week I am waiting for a Pierburg electric fuel pump since the standard pump would not cope with 2 carbs. And after the weekend the engine itself will be ready and we'll start the carbs issue. Which can be quite a challange. The intake manifold was designed for Weber carbs so some customizing will be needed. Later on some connection with the acceleration pedal will have to be designed. And then the biggest challenge: to tune all this stuff.

I'll keep you informed. Hope for some real progress next week:)

[Guy Croft]

MODEL POST!

A beautifully illustrated written, very interesting and well-crafted post!

I am sorry but at this time I cannot make any useful observations - not suggesting that you need any (!) because I am too busy, but -well done indeed!

GC

[kowal]

The engine's been put into place finally. Step by step we're getting closer to the carburators issue...


Light flywheel.


The whole clutch set.




The engine being prepared to go under the hood.


The strut bar looks quite peculiar but this is the way the Russians invented to avoid the carb+air filter. I'll leave it like this for now since I don't yet have the final idea of how the air intake will look like. If its final version allows me to mount a 'normal', straight strut bar I'll surely do it. The problem is that there is no much space for any kind of airbox or air filters. I've been told that in Citroen AX Sport and Peugeot 205 Rally - which also had 2 Solexes C40- there were airboxes that could fit this small space I have there. I was promised some photos of such a set form an AX - if it's small enough I'll buy it.

Another problem is the throttle linkage. I went thorugh some internet auctions and found complete kits, but for Weber carbs. I'm waiting for the sellers to answer if those kits fit also Solex carburators. If they don't some more custom work will be awaiting:)

[Guy Croft]

Very interesting!

Not really my business as you're the expert on this vehicle but I'd just suggest that bracing off the head on a transverse unit is generally a bad thing and should be avoided where possible - it can cause the head gasket to blow.

GC

[kowal]

Sorry Guy but not without a reason I've always hated phrasal verbs:) What would 'bracing off' mean in this case?

[Guy Croft]

No worries, I mean the strut is connected to the cylinder head to stop the engine from rocking (or at least that is what I think the setup is, it seems to be bolted to the head..)

Sorry if I got it wrong.

GC

[kowal]

The strut does not even touch the engine:) There is no connection between them. Perhaps on this photo it is more visible:


In the meantime it turned out that weber throttle kits do not fit Solex carbs. 'Konrad Customs' will have plenty of work:)

[Guy Croft]

Sorry, my mistake,

GC

[kowal]

So here w go with some most recent photos. The carburators've been put where they belong:




Pierburg electric fuel pump. Perhaps not such a classic as Facet but not that either expensive (if bought in Poland) or hard to get (if bought in UK and brought in some of my friends' luggage:).


The oil cooler. Fits as if it was always meant to be there:)


I got lucky and thanks to Konrad's friends I found a Citroen enthusiast who had a spare Citroen AX Sport airbox. It looks like this so 100% match you can say:


When it comes to the way of solving the problem of total unavalibility of Solex throttle linkage sets Konrad has already an idea, and this is the answer:

Polish Fiat 126. The one on the photo is the old 126p - Konrad intends to use te throttle linkage system from the very last version of 126 - 126el. It may seem pretty much ubeliveble but Polish Fiat 126 was produced with some really minor constructional (and practically NONE in design) changes till the late 90's. And the first models were produced in 1972. So that's pretty much an answer to the question of what the h... happened to Polish motor businnes/branch. For the day being the only Polish cars produced are some corny cargo vans and trucks. Plus the 'Polish Humvee' as some peple like to joke about Tarpan Honker used by Polish army:


So that's it for today. Some off topic stuff but still interesting I hope.

Best regards,
Piotr

[kowal]

The story continues:)
Some 'fresh' parts imported from Moscow:


Rear axle anti-roll bar - there is no such thing in a normal Samara.


Lower strut with fittings for the sump guard.


Polibushes.




5,1 main ratio and a diagram showing how it should work with stock speed ratios.

And some pics showing how things are going in the garage:






As you can see the funny strut is gone - a 'normal' one should fit so I sold the old one.

[kowal]

The engine is running!:) This week Konrad is going on a 400 km trip to Budapest to visit among others Havassy Motor Sport to buy some stuff to his Lada 2107 VFTS (his project - which will probably make some progress when Konrad gets rid of my Samara - will be surely worth showing here - absolutely professional high perfomance car). And a camshaft wheel with regulation for me. Plus a complete 50 mm exhaust for my Samara to match the 4-2-1 manifold. Then some final carbs tuning, policarbonate window-panes and the car will be ready to leave the garage. Can't wait! Not only because I'd like to have the car running but also because it will be my turn to work on it - the whole interior, gauges, mounting the seats etc. Still a lot of work to do and money to spend. But I've always repeated - if you want a cheap hobby, learn to play draughts:)

Best regards,
Piotr

[kowal]

So that's how it looks more or less ready:




Once the battery finds its new place inside the car, there will be some space to put the air filter further from the radiator.

Best regards,
Piotr

[3zeR]