Fiat Lancia TC reverse head question

[Hugo]

Hello everybody,

I'm in the early state of my X1/9 project. The car is currently put away, waiting for bodywork restauration. So at the moment I am working on the Lancia Beta 2ltr 8v engine that will eventually do it's job in the back of the X.

After opening the engine I discovered the sorry state of the engine (I could feel the recess in the side of the cilinder at the TDP of the pistonrings with my finger), so I am thinking about putting larger pistons in it and do some milling / flattening. The head is in the same sorry state, the valves are covered in big cookies of carbon and (worse) the taps of the sparkplugs are heavily damaged. Also is one of the sensors on top totally jammed. And I am thinking of swapping this head with a Fiat Croma 2000i head I recently discovered on a junkyard nearby. This head is, so I found out, reverse, which actually comes in handy for me to fit the double dellorto's whom I planned on fitting.

My question:
Does the reversed head fit the beta block?
Do I get cooling problems when I fit the exhaust between the fire wall and the engine? (try to picture the engine plus reversed head in the back of the X, the exhaust side of the head facing forwards)
Maybe I can reverse the head again, so the old setup is possible?

Also another question on another item:
Do you have expereance in building exhausts? Because I am planning on building my own stainless steel exhaust system and have loads of questions. Could you advise me on some literature, I am mechanical, but not a flow expert. Maybe you can answer the following:
What inner diameter should I get, on the different stages? I'm planning on doing 4-2-1.
How long should these stages be?

Many thanks,

Hugo

[Guy Croft]

Hugo, hi

sorry for long delay.

The reverse port head is an OK solution:
1. Needs reverse-port type pistons* and must carry its own cam housings.
2. No problem with proximity of header to firewall, much better carb space the other side. The Croma has the coolant exit at the back which is technically better although MC hose layouts will need re-orientation.
3. You need to examine the oil drains in the cam housings, they will be wrong for the MC layout as it has a 20deg tilt in opposite direction to the Croma.
4. Cam pulleys can be swapped over.

The Croma head has larger inlet valves than the old MC unit, 43.5 compared with 42mm. The inlet and ex mountings are the same.

* as for pistons the chance of finding any in rebore size is slim, I would use my own forged designs for that. If you get into swapping pistons from model to model I won't advise on that although there is advice in the GC V/W in block prep.

Come back to me at a later date re exhaust layout when you are further advanced.

GC

[Hugo]

Thanks Guy,

Actually the long delay turned out to be positive for me.

If I'd read your reply earlier I'd probably go for the reverse head; and I probably would not go to another wreckyard yesterday. And there I would not run into a brand new Beta 2ltr HPE engine (carbs, I think) for a very reasonable price. It comes from a stranded HPE project (engine is Italian import).

So I am the proud owner of a new block (without reverse head). Now I can stick to my old plan and stick the carbs in the spare tyre space and put the engine under a 10 deg backwards tilt (this is the most common conversion tilt, I believe).

Thanks again for the (luckily late) reply!