Fellow Lancia Nuts I wrote an article for the Monte Consortium after being asked the same questions many times so I will share it here in 2 parts:
“Fit an Eaton Mate” – A journey to create a Supercharged & Fuel Injected Montecarlo Part 1
The words of pub wisdom I am now used to hearing when I am stupid enough to mention that I am building not one but two Supercharged and Fuel Injected Lancia engines.
So how did I come to decide on such a mad and probably technically difficult scheme for my Montecarlo? First of all I have to admit I like a technical challenge and I love the scope the brilliant Pinifarina manufactured Montecarlo body shell gives for creating a transformed performance sportscar under it’s elegant lines. If you add in Lancia’s pedigree with Superchargers winning Rallies in the 037 and giving effortless power in the Beta Volumex it feels like the natural development of the Montecarlo and a missed opportunity by Lancia when the cars were new.
However there are also more practical reasons to do with the various Lancia Betas I have broken to support my ambitious VX Beta Spyder project that started with driving home an eBay purchased Beta Spyder VX conversion. Or more accurately driving it for spells between four breakdowns and the AA fixes required to get it from Bradford to High Wycombe. I do not like to give up easily on a dream and I had some of the parts required for a fantastic Beta Spyder VX. However on close examination it was plain I also had a butchered and rusty bodyshell and interesting modifications like nuts welded to springs to keep the car level and seats mounted on long bolts and a pile of washers. So through keeping my ears to the ground and being prepared to go where others will not I sourced vital missing parts and interesting spare parts like another good VX Supercharger. In this case rural Devon to slide along a valley edge in the ice and snow with a trailer bringing back a complete but rust dissolved Beta Coupe VX.
So back to the Montecarlo I had already lived my dream of actually using the big valve Guy Croft engine I had paid for many years earlier in my Montecarlo adding Emerald Fuel Injection and Throttle bodies for a really fun 200 BHP result. It is important to add here that I had this in mind before even owning the Monte so I went to work on upgrading and improving the suspension and brakes within weeks of driving my shinny but mechanically shabby Black S2 Coupe home about 10 years ago.
So the car had the suspension platform to enjoy the power through the addition of anti-dive, anti-squat, Leda Coilovers, Polybushes throughout and camber adjusters. For the brakes I read more than I care to remember on brake design and used and extended Chad’s excellent Brake calculator spreadsheet along with the help of a very friendly F1 quality CNC machine shop to move through 3 generations of brake innovations for my car. Many of these are in use today by keen Montecarlo users. NB There is a fourth in progress currently if you have the courage to ask me about it over a beer. Spencer Smith actually provided road testing for the second generation brakes before my car was back on the road with memorable comments like “I just stopped 200 yards short of the junction so I think they work”.
I have to admit at this point that I was caught out by the Big Valve engines desire to Rev and keep on Revving. This prompted the first of several re-thinks and involved rebuilding the engine with stronger forged pistons and rods inside the engine to allow 8500 RPM and max power at 7700 RPM without a F1 style blow up.
I also had to admit that the VX Gear Set inside the Montecarlo casings were not really the right match even if they do allow a seriously fast top speed. With the original Montecarlo box not a solution either as it was effectively a four speed gearbox with the first gear ratio too low. So what if I made the engines match the gearboxes and made use of things like spare VX Superchargers lying around?
Hence the scheme became:
Create a naturally aspirated tuned engine giving a wider spread of torque lower down the rev range at the expense of some top end power and match this to a Montecarlo gearbox with the Beta Gear Set built on the Monte final drive to have 5 gears in sensible spacings. Create a Beta Volumex Supercharged and Fuel Injected engine with up to 220 BHP and 190 Ft lbs of torque from low in the rev range for instant acceleration response and a great match for the VX Gear Set in Montecarlo casings I had already made.
The first part of this scheme is in the car and good fun to drive even with only 187BHP from an engine that should be reliable long term thanks to the high quality engineering provided by Guy Croft , the right use of Forged Pistons and Rods and the hybrid Beta and Montecarlo gearbox .
Now to the real point of this story, having read over 400 pages of books on supercharging after acquiring the parts I have I fully realise there are some sound reasons behind the “Fit an Eaton Mate” comments I have heard. Eaton Roots Supercharges are after all mostly a good modern design, cheap and easy to source second hand. However I wanted to achieve a great result from the 1980s period parts with a nudge towards that other Montecarlo the Lancia 037. I also wanted to use existing manifolds and mountings where I could knowing that David Beale, Tom Mc Gaffagan and Jez Pigden had all managed to get VX engines into their Montecarlo’s.
