What would you do? My 77 saw some damage while in storage years ago. She needs a restoration anyway so why not give her some real fun.
What would you do? My 77 saw some damage while in storage years ago. She needs a restoration anyway so why not give her some real fun.
I have a rust free 77 myself.. I had given it some thought over the years, but each time passed.
The very early Abarths still used the 8v head, so you are good to go there. If you want to run IDFs on it you will have to move or lose the brake booster, best to run DCNFs. There are some very nice headers out there still. Allison Automotive made (or makes) one of the best
Midwest 124 makes a good brake setup:
With the body itself, it is easy to make it look like an abarth. Remove the heavy tube bumpers, install the bumperettes, louver the hood in the corners and install rubber tie downs on it and the trunk, add flares and paint either red or blue with flat black hood and trunk. Add hardtop and rollbar and except for mirrors, you are done.
I always wanted to address the biggest shortcoming, the rear suspension. While good for the street, that heavy solid axle does poorly on rough surfaces and is prone to skittering on rutted corners. Lack of an available LSD does not help.
I found that the rear trailing arm suspension from an E30 might fit, but I have not attempted it. The older I get the more likely I am of never doing it.
If I were to build my 124 today. I would use my early chrome bumpers that I bought years ago, louver the corners of the hood for venting, possibly add the fender flares and rollbar and except for some minor (140ish) engine modifications, and better brakes and suspension pieces, call it a day.
They were not the best sports cars from the 60/70/80s, but they did well enough and I think with better suspension and engine tuning, they would still be a lot of fun
i'd make it into a quattro 944
I would start with a Lada because I'm not right in the head.
I'm probably going to go 'glass front fenders, hood and doors as the hood and doors are very heavy. Probably efi and distributorless too. Not going nuts on authenticity. Even thinking Alsa 164 engine. I'd love a dino engine but $$$$$. Hadn't considered IRS. Great idea.
Woops, this got kind of long. I've spent about as much time reading about Fiat spiders on the net as I've spent actually working on mine (still on jackstands in the garage, need to sell it + Konis due to leaving for college :-( ). Sorry if below is kind of scatter brained...
I've wanted to put Miata suspension underneath of a 124 for a while now, preferably somehow keeping the original 8V Lampredi (though I think in reality I would just go with the Miata engine to avoid the headaches of adapting the Lampredi to the gearbox, etc). I actually have a shell that would be a great candidate for getting hacked up (solid, but enough rust / imperfect patching that it will never be truly restorable to stock), but won't have the right combination of time / money / space for a few years yet. Using Miata parts, you can get IRS, a LSD, a gearbox not designed from the '50s, 4x100 hubs, rack and pinion steering, and suspension that's been proven to take serious loads. There's already a thread on this (the Fiata) proving that the basic measurements work. I would prefer to start with a bare Fiat shell, modify and add Miata mechanicals (vs starting with a Miata, removing the body, and modifying to add Fiat body panels).
I've also had dreams of Alfa 164 powered spiders, but the transmission issues / increased front end weight dampen that for me. The thing with the 124 is that it's design problems aren't in the engine, but that the transmission and rear diff can't keep up long term when seriously tuned (not to mention the various structural issues that appear even on stock examples, and weirdness of the parts). To improve the transmission, you could use a 131 gearbox -- the swap is outlined on Mirafiori. Being a '77, you already have the strongest rear end they came with. It would also be tempting to add a blower plus megasquirt to the 1.8, I bet it would be a lot of fun while it lasted. You can lower the car 1" below US ride height (Fiat raised US versions to meet crash standards).
BTW, as of a few months ago, there was an aftermarket LSD available for the stock rear axle (I believe it was the early version, and $1500 through AutoRicambi). Speaking of rear ends, IIRC certain Toyota truck rear ends are narrow enough and have been swapped successfully (they can take torsen LSDs). However, this makes your rear bolt pattern 4x100 and in no way alleviates the real issue of unsprung weight.
if you want to loose weight in the front.. I would not worry about the hood. It is actually quite light. You can remove and put it back on by yourself light. I would start with the very heavy brass radiator. Replace that with a lightweight aluminum one and then I would consider glassfibre headlight buckets. The stock ones are very solid steel
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