Update October 2007
Well I'm coming to the end of my 3rd year with my beloved GTA Replica; what a blast! I couldn't have imagined the fun that I've had with this car over the past 18,000 miles! Yes unbelievably I’ve covered that many miles (30,000kms) in just 3 summers, mainly thanks to my new found addiction for the Nurburgring! When I first built the car, it was intended for 70% road driving and 30% track use at events such as the Alfaholics trackday at Castle Combe and the odd trip to the Nurburgring. However, since I came back from that first trip to the Ring in May 2005, it became much clearer how well suited the car was for such trips and how much of a fantastic social event it is! Going to the Nordschleife combines driving the ultimate circuit in the world (one very difficult to get the opportunity to race on) with a superb social and relaxing weekend, something often missed at race meetings. At first I did the trips with my brother Andrew and friends, but it soon became apparent that it would be great to get our customers involved. We launched the ‘Alfaholics Ring Trip’ this year in July 07 and it was an instant success. We shall be repeating this every year now due to the high levels of interest and it surely will become the European get together for 105 Series Alfas!
Back to the car though. As a result of these Ring trips, I have made many modifications to my GTA Replica, the first being 4-pot vented brakes, but soon after I was keen to build a new engine with more power. The first engine with 180bhp was an excellent starting point using the commonly available parts off the shelf from companies like C&B etc. It was clear that the cams were not ideally suited to get the most of the engine so we developed a new camshaft with increased lift and acceleration. Instantly large chunks of power, torque and driveability were found. Refining the recipe and adding 85mm forged pistons with a healthy compression ratio brought us up to 198bhp. We tested this engine for a full year in my GTA Replica before productionising all the parts to allow us to offer complete engine packages. Whilst testing this engine in 2006 we learned a lot about what parts of the rest of the car could and couldn’t handle the extra power and torque. We also decided to change some parts as a ‘beltand braces’ exercise; driving across Europe and back is one thing, but when it is combined with the equivalent of a 3 hour race at the Ring, it’s a whole new ball game and requires an incredibly durable car. Out went the Sport F&S clutch and in went an AP Racing item, the spec of which was specifically chosen to combine high torque capability with user friendly characteristics. The result was superb and got the nod to be fitted to our race car, as well as being productionised for sale at the same time. You may also have read about the race front prop conversion we have developed. This was introduced directly as a result of destroying mainshafts, bellhousings & starter motors on my GTA Replica, caused by the poor propshaft doughnut design being overwhelmed by the power and torque of our new breed of Twin Spark engine. Combined with the trackday version of our popular racing LSD unit built into a 1750 Berlina 4.3 axle we now really have a superb drivetrain setup on the car; bullet proof and user friendly.
The brakes were another area that I wanted to refine, the 4-pot brakes gave fabulous power, but being a racer, I felt that a servo was no longer an ideal solution for such a lightweight trackday car. At the same time as removing the servo, I decided to upgrade to our production dual circuit RHD race pedal box system. Not only does this give increased safety over the single circuit reproduction Alfa system used before, but with a full range of premium quality race maser cylinders and remote mechanical bias adjuster cable mounted on the rear seat next to my hydraulic bias adjuster, I now have the ultimate bias adjusting system!
By and large, these were the main upgrades for 2006 and saw my GTA Replica fighting fit for the Nurburgring that year. Enter 2007; the only major upgrade for the year was the gearbox. With the electric response of the new engine with the race clutch and propshaft, the gearbox now felt slow on its changes. A lightweight version was required! Due to the delay on our Alfaholics GTA gear kits, which will finally be ready January 2008, I bought a drilled set of standard gears from a customer in Sweden. It is an excellent upgrade that means that the gearbox can keep up with the rest of the drivetrain and served me well in 2007. Richard recently bought another 1600 GTA from Switzerland, a beautifully original and untouched car. It was when taking this car out for a test on the roads recently that I was reminded fully how wonderful GTA ratios are. For sure I will upgrade to one of our GTA gear kits this winter!
The next problem we hit head on was tyres. By now another set of superb Bridgestone RE720 195/60 R14 tyres mounted on our 7x14” GTA Corsa wheels was worn out and I had run out of stock at Alfaholics due to superb sales of these tyres. I rang tyre suppliers all over the country but no one could supply them. Even the Yokohama A539 (the next best alternative) had been withdrawn from the market, but I realised that, even if I managed to find a couple more sets, what was I to do for my customers buying our 7x14” GTA Corsa wheels? As a result of all our product development that we had done from running my GTA Replica for 2 years, we started selling large numbers of upgrade packages to people wishing to convert their car to the same spec as my car. Cars in these modified states of tune cannot run on poor quality tyres and it makes the investment in 4-pot brakes, trackday handling kits and 198bhp Twin spark engines very compromised. Enter the Alfaholics 7x15” GTA Veloce wheel and the rest, as they say,is history! I first tried Toyo Proxes T1R, a very disappointing tyre given all the hype you read about them. One Nurburgring trip later (1200miles) and they were absolutely destroyed. That’s a record for me in terms of mileage from a set of tyres and both impressed and depressed my tyre specialists at the same time! I yearned for the directness and response of the Bridgestones, so I went to see what they had to offer. Potenza S02 and RE010 were the choices, S02 was OE fit on all Porsche 911 and TVR, RE010 is OE fit for Honda Integra and the like. I went for S02 Pole Position and they are fabulous, the car has its wonderful feel again! The RE010, rumour has it, is an even better tyre so I suspect I’ll try them next time, but one thing is for certain, I sure am enjoying the ability to chose from a wide range of performance tyres, rather than being heavily restricted by 14” wheels! The next development designed for the Alfaholics racecar, and only a few weeks from completion is a new 300mm rotor 6-pot brake kit for fitment with our 15” GTA Veloce wheel. This is part of a new range of brake kits designed specifically for Alfaholics by a new company. All calipers are designed solely for use on Alfa Romeo 105 Series and are designed for fitment inside our wheels. This kit will also be fitted to my GTA Replica of course!
Due to the huge success of our new Twin spark engine, we decided to get rid of the Nord we had run in our race car from 2004-2006 and build a Twin Spark! We pushed the envelope with a mono-block liner and a new head construction and found an increase of some 35bhp & 10 lb/ft torque as it stands today! Its an awesome engine that has catapulted our race car that much faster again! However, it was an expensive project though and the latest exciting development is a love child born from my GTA Replica and our race car; a beautiful relationship in anyone’s eyes! (Again, development of the Alfaholics 2.0 Sprint GT race car has directly fed down to my car and into production at the same time). The new version of our engine is right between our 2 existing engines in terms of power and torque, whilst only being a fraction more expensive to produce than our current 198bhp version. Having supplied 2 of these engines so far, the next one currently being built is destined for my GTA Replica. I just couldn’tresist it!
2008 is set to be an exciting year for my car, the Alfaholics trackday once more and three Ring trips along with several more upgrades already in the design pipelines….
Here are the specs of my car as it stands today:-
Power – 198bhp (soon to be 210bhp)
Torque – 160 lb/ft
Weight – 875 kg
Power/Weight ratio – 226bhp/tonne soon to become 240bhp/tonne
Brakes – Front:- 300mm rotor, 6-Pot Alfaholics caliper, Rear:- Standard
Transmission – AP Racing clutch, lightweight gear kit, trackday LSD unit,
Wheels – Alfaholics 7x15” GTA Veloce ET29
Tyres – Bridgestone Potenza S02 Pole Position
