500 (Classic) Ducati powered Fiat from California

[the hobbler]

That's interesting, I haven't heard of Ducati working with Fiat on this. I know Moto Guzzi had a proposal, but ended up not going through because Fiat didn't think Moto Guzzi could keep up with demand. More about that here:



I had originally looked at doing a Moto Guzzi and VW option (would have packaged nicer) but I'm too much of a Ducati fan boy having owned 3 of their motorcycles!

You are correct, it was Motor-Guzzi and NOT Ducati----but it would still be very interesting to see how they fitted the engine and what transmission they proposed to fit. I have seen the result of a VW engine fitted into a 500 when I was at Radbourne Racing.The car was called "The Little Red Rooster" and (I think it was) 'Hot-Car' magazine did an article on it---it was not a pretty conversion---the VW enine is just plain too big.

 

[the hobbler]

Neatly done engine frame; it will be interesting to see how you build the rear-end. Couple of questions---(1) how are you going to cool the engine? In the bike instalation you have the cold air created by the forward motion of the bike helping cool it, and with the original engine installation, you have a fan and (2) How much static camber? 1-2degrees is a lot of negative camber (static) which will increase when you put weight into the car (to-wit, the driver). On my own car I have a whiff of POSITIVE camber when the car is empty and static, although I set it up with a fair bit of weight in the front of the car with '0' camber. Toe-in (again with weight in the front of the car) is best at '0', and make sure that the track-rods are of the same length after any adjustment.

 

[PeachsGarage]

Neatly done engine frame; it will be interesting to see how you build the rear-end. Couple of questions---(1) how are you going to cool the engine? In the bike instalation you have the cold air created by the forward motion of the bike helping cool it, and with the original engine installation, you have a fan and (2) How much static camber? 1-2degrees is a lot of negative camber (static) which will increase when you put weight into the car (to-wit, the driver). On my own car I have a whiff of POSITIVE camber when the car is empty and static, although I set it up with a fair bit of weight in the front of the car with '0' camber. Toe-in (again with weight in the front of the car) is best at '0', and make sure that the track-rods are of the same length after any adjustment.

Thanks Tom!

The bike has a small oil cooler but no fan. I plan to have a much larger oil cooler (maybe 2 if I can package them) with fans and I also plan to put a fan aimed at the cylinder heads, drawing air under the car and out the back. I may need more louvres on the rear bonnet, or just leave it off all together on hot days or days I plan to drive it spiritedly. Cooling is one of my biggest concerns, but since this won't be a track weapon, I'm hopeful I can make it work.

Regarding camber, I have -1.2 degrees static camber, which climbs to about -3.5 degrees camber under full bump. I picked the camber curves based on how much roll I expect the car to see, and wanted to minimize how much the unloaded tire goes positive. These are totally different kinematics than stock, so I could see how you might want some static positive camber to get this thing to better behave in cornering or braking, especially depending on the tires!