Well. There has been lots of discussion whether it is possibile or not, to convert petrol Pinzi ito diesel.
I thougt it may be interesting for someone to see how it looks in practice.
I came across a man who bought a pinzi without the engine and decided to install a french Citroen C25 engine, he had at hand. It is a 2500 cc non-turbo diesel with modest 54 kW.
There are some pics for everyone can make his own opinion. For me it is kind of horrifying.
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Kind regards to all.
Roman]
Last edited by Roman on Tue Jun 12, 2007 11:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
There are companies on booth sides of the pond doing diesel conversions with out cutting metal I know of two engines on the that in the pinz with out any metal mods I belive dennis is working on two him self at this time? He be closer if he wouldn't allow is help to go and get married.
I know after you read my last comment Youd swear that i have had to much to drink most commits are made while at stop lights on my pda most times I am pushing it to get my comments in before the light turns green I don't have time to prof read. On a side note thanks jim for refuring me to andre he did a great job on my which gaurd.
Guys
I have looked at that engine a while ago and it's a promising "unit" as engines go!
Firstly in the "Cit" car that engine is a heavily canted over unit in an "east/west' install being FWD, hence the sump and oiling system is shall we say similar to the Pinz being a canted over north/south install. Besides its physical size makes it very promising. The early units were normally aspirated dogs to drive, the later turbo unit is a dream with lots of power.
As for butt ugly, well I can see from the pictures it is a backyard install, but in many cases these aspects can be tidied up after the first successful repower. That means doing full power tests verifying acceptable bulk liquid/air temps are stabilized. Of course the maxim must always be:- "is it better in ALL aspects than the original. I bet when it comes to power output and fuel consumption it has to be better.
In a negative moment the down side of such an install in the USA is a TOTAL lack of parts availability. So in the event of a failure you would have to brush up on your best school boy French to find parts or try to find a friendly Cit dealer in the UK.
Parlez vous Francais Monsieur?
Nah mate only cockney in Lahndahn!!
So as the London hooker said to her American prospect after he said "Do you take American Express?" she abruptly replied "Yes luv you can go as fast as you like"!
Cheers Dennis
well bartender give me my bill. I think I've had to much to drink I can only make sense of that first sentence dennis. the rest remines me of the astin powers move. In front of the ladys we better speak english english.
Just for information.
A person who did this conversion owns a well equipped workshop for maintenance of a heavy machinery - tractors, excavators etc. This Pinzi conversion was made quick and quite straightforward, but was stopped in its tracks due to lack of time, overwhelmed by his original business. Therefore pinzi was driven into the backyard to wait for continuation. It seems that the only issue is going to be how to place co-driver's seat.
Roman
I am sure the fellow that did the conversion had some sort of mechanical business. I build backyard specials. I don't have a design team nor expensive machine shop to manufacture components as a factory would have. Indeed even factories use backyard specials for projects before
committing a successful design and the attendant costs involved.
To give you as example I did a starter conversion as a backyard special in Caracas. It took us (3 guys) 9 months to convert a 11.3 mtr city bus to a new spec with bigger engine and full auto transmission etc etc. We even hand bent the fan blades in the opposite direction to accomodate the cooling reqirements since no fan could be obtained.
Having done the conversion successfuly and getting an order for 1100 units the factory committed the plan to making the conversion kit with a design team to "beautify" the conversion. Reason? Simple, lots of money is now involved. To emphasise the point I returned to London about two years later to see my conversion on all of the Leyland National MK1's running around in the city streets.
Frankly I cannot see even here in the USA enough customers to justify a design team etc, so I employ backyard specials to do conversions and then commit to small production runs by local machine shops to finalise the project.
Dennis
Linden Engineering Inc
I must admit, when I visited that man it came across my mind he is in some way sort of your kind. Your guess is actually very accurate. That man also had previously built a sports car right from the scratch, just for fun. And I mean really from the scratch - custom chasis, custom suspension, plastic bodywork and so on. It was designed well enough to pass clasification, MOT test and got a numberplates.
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