heya, later i'll come back and write up something a little better... until then, here's a brief intro and some pics.

hungry for the road

this X1/9 has some serious modifications. one of the main things X owners complain about is the lack of torque, well it's certainly not lacking in this thing.

me and my chick and my x's

it has a 1608cc twin cam shoehorned in behind the cockpit, with a dual set of Weber IDF40 carbies (as seen on F-cars, lambos... and VeeDubs). beyond that, the head has been decked, ported and flowed, it has around 10:1 CR with a cranking compression of 210psi. this engine comes from a /F/I/A/T/ 124BC, and in 1969/70 was putting out 110hp (DIN) from the factory. even 35 years later many modern 1.6-2.0 engines don't even make those numbers... bizarre.

the TC engine... tight fit

the head

the webbers (GROWL)

but that's not all that's happened to the engine, it has hot street/rally cams installed, with adjustable Kent Cams power pulleys. extractors and a stainless mandrel bent twin-tip exhaust was built to suit the application.

my ass

it has no radio to speak of, i ripped it out ages ago when i realized i'd never be able to hear it over the IDF's and exhaust... i'm satisfied just listening to RevFM, the best sounds of the 70's. it's also seriously small.

honey i shrunk the car

the previous owner swapped a spare engine for the wheels that are on it. the gearbox is a 5 speed from a Regata, plus the driveshafts and other stressed parts have been taken from other fiat's and lancia's to keep things together at redline with the additional torque.

sunny day, good motoring

it's currently off the road getting the final tuning done, including electronic ignition with a jacobs electronics pro-street setup, lightening/balancing the flywheel, dialling in the cams, rejetting the carbs, building a custom cold-air induction setup, (simmonds induction prototype #8), and will then be stuck on the dyno for final tuning, so i should have some nice graphs in a month or so.

as far as i know, it's the only one even remotely like it on the planet... which also means big $$$ (relatively) whenever i need to werk on it, as everything has to be custom built.

airing off

it's seriously one of the best sounding road-going 4 bangers you'll ever hear... love the italian symphony.

in the woods

my red-light camera infringement

film noir

a bit of corner action

my lame-ass attempt at 3D modelling

kiss my fat italian ass

well, that's it for now.

thanks fer stopping by to laugh.

ash