Eurofest 2006

[radioal]

Anyone other than me planning to attend?

I went just to look around last year and there were several Alfas, a few 124s and a lone X in attendance, but NO Lancias! This year I am planning to take my coupe and maybe the 124 Spider as well if my wife masters the 5 speed by then. If not, then I guess it will just be the coupe.

Its worth the price of admission just to see all of the really high-end I-cars there.

http://www.euroautofestival.com

Al

'75 Beta Coupe
'78 124 Spider
'71 850 Spider
'87 Yugo GV
'85 Bertone X1/9

[radioal]

I made it! The event is not until Saturday, but we came up a day early so I could take my son to the zoo. This was the first real road trip for the coupe and it was actually a pretty easy 300 miles or so.

It almost didn't happen. I was getting the Beta ready Weds and noticed a slight misfire. Assuming worn points, I changed them and got a BIG misfire- also dwell was all over the place. Turns out the play in the cam lobe (between it and the main shaft) was actually greater than the point gap. NOT good.

Luckily, I had a spare dual point from a parts car that came with my Fiat 124. It looked like hell because it had been sitting outside on a car with no hood for years, but NO PLAY! I put new tune-up parts in it and swapped them out. Of course being the old 124 guy that I am, I forgot that the engine is tilted in a Beta and dumped a cam-box full of oil on the exhaust when I pulled the old unit. DOH!

The "new" distributor fixed the misfire and all went well for the trip. But not before I somehow lost the gas cap at the first fillup. I still don't know what I did with it, but that necessitated another trip back to the house for a replacement. Fortunately I was only about 20 miles from home by then.

Now the amazing news. I got right at 30MPG from 300 miles at about 75 MPH. Thats better than I usually get with my bone-stock 124 Spider. I currently have a rather wierd setup with a 40-80-80-40 cam that the PO installed in the car combined with a 28/30 DHTA (yeah, a '79 Strada carb) that I temporarily installed because I had a brand new one and it fit pretty well until I can get a DAT or DATRA or DMTR or something more Lancia-like. The combination of too much cam and not enough carb actually runs pretty well and get great mileage! Maybe I'll just keep it.

I am hoping to get some good pictures from EuroFest to share, but first I will have to get a camera as I realized after I got here that I have left mine at home.

Later-

Al