Delta Integrale engine replacement

This page shows an Evo1 engine swap...

easy to say, challenging to do!

It is great to have a new engine, but there are quite few

differences between a Thema and a proper Delta motor.

The main one is the sump and oil pick up, the pick up

requires the centre bearing cap drilling and tapping for a

mounting bolt.

There are other things too, the bottom pulley needs changing,

and the lovely new water pump is no good, 'cos the pulley

mounting is different.

Bringing home the prize! A lovely new Thema Turbo engine sourced from Germany, it took a bit of finding to buy at a reasonable price

The flywheel had been fretting on the old engine, some bolts had been cross threaded and the flywheel was abit loose. So the flywheel was cleaned up and new ARP bolts bought from Guy Croft. Guy's instructions are very comprehensive, so I was careful to tighten the bolts as instructed. If a bolt can be beautiful, these are!

The flywheel had been fretting on the old engine, the bolts had come loose. So new ARP bolts were bought from Guy Croft. Guy's instructions were very careful, so I did exactly as he said, torquing in stages. If a bolt can be beautiful, these are!

Over it's life a Delta can have a lot of work done, not all good. This car's engine had been out before, and the diff joints sealed with silicone bath sealer. Some casing threads were damaged too, so as I've done before, I tapped out the casing threads with a 1/2in unf tap, this is a bit bigger than the original metric hole, and the big imperial bolt holds well.

I cleaned the sealer off and used almost correct red sealer,

we won't talk about oil leaks right now.

I guess no matter how good an Integrale looks, it will have rust problems. While the engine was out we welded up this hole, a common place to go, I had fixed it on the outside previously.

Welder out, engine in. Body lifted up ready to slide the engine under. New gear linkage bushes were fitted and the engine bolted in. Good? No. I'd forgotten to lift up the gear linkage engine fixing bracket, this was dangling down, and should have been up. There's just not enough room to turn it up, I tried every way! So the bloody motor had to drop out again, bugger. A mistake you only make once!

Now we're nearly there. Another couple of weekends and it's done. A month later when it's sort of run in I hook up with an M3 on the M6 motorway, he lets me pass, then I can't see him behind me for smoke, holy crap! The turbo's blown, except it hadn't, my lovely new engine with it's lovely new Thema rocker cover, didn't have a top breather pipe. I figured this was progress, so blanked off the old rubber pipe and ran it. Everything was ok at low revs of course, but racing with a beemer on the M6 it filled the turbo with oil. That's another lesson learned!