Project Milano Report (long)

["Derek Ealy" <dealy663@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've owned my 88 Milano Verde for a little over a year now, and have 
recently begun doing some real work to improve the car in several ways. Some 
of this may be familiar to you as I've posted several questions regarding 
work that I was doing. Here is a report on how things have turned out.

In the past 6 weeks or so I've installed a recently rebuilt 4.1 tranny with 
a new clutch and LSD that has been reconfigured for 50% lockup ( I believe 
this is correct, if not Chip please correct me).

I've replaced some very mundane Pirellie P6000s with Kumho Ecsta 712s 
(excellent bang for the buck tire!)

Replaced the front Boge (read sucks) shocks with new Yellow Konis.

Replaced the sagging rear OEM springs with ARRicambi sport springs, which 
barely lowered the rear end at all, you could hardly notice. Then Uwe at 
Omega Motorsport told me he could get some Eibach progressive springs which 
would lower the car 30mm. So I installed them, it was more like 50mm. It 
dropped the rear end a lot! So much I now had to lower the front suspension.

Replaced rear rotors with drilled and slotted ones from IAP. The fronts 
remain stock, but have new AR OEM brake pads.

I went through a nightmare recounted here last week with the torsion bar 
removal and adjustment only to find that the ride height increased, so I 
finally just coughed up the money and had a local Alfa mechanic do the job. 
He got the t-bars lowered properly, but it took him all day to do what was 
originally quoted as a 3 hour job.

I also replaced the anti-sway bars with larger Shankle units. That was about 
the easiest thing that I did.

In addition to several failed attempts to cure the cars uneven idle and last 
weekend to install a speedometer converter to fix the 15% error resulting 
from the new tranny I've been under the car each weekend for a month and a 
half.

Last saturday I finally got to take the machine out for some excercise! I 
took the car out from Redondo Beach along the 405 N. and got off on 
Mullholland drive heading east. I proceeded to drive through Mullholland 
until it exited at the 101 fwy. Any person not familiar with this stretch of 
road, should be made to know that it has been a favorite of local road 
racers since the time of James Dean and his "Little Bastard" 550 Spyder. 
This road is a blast, its not usually too crowded and offers the opportunity 
to really see how your car handles.

My car has been transformed from what I originally questioned as a bad 
decision into a well performing 4 door sedan that while not as perfect as my 
previous cars ( 99 BMW 328i, 93 Mazda Miata, 85.5 Porsche 944) most 
certainly was able to fit the bill as the type of well handling car that I 
need. When I first purchased this car I really questioned why so many here 
were so enthusiastic about how well Alfas handled. My milano was only a 
little more interesting than a fwd grocery getter due to the massive body 
lean and soft around the middle 15 year old suspension.

On my automotive workout the car acquitted itself very well. The de dion 
axle really impressed me with its level of composure, and the reconfigured 
LSD just blew me away in how well it performed. I have to say that the front 
end of the car and the brakes were the weak links in the chain on this 
occasion. I was trying to keep up with a guy in a 2003 Infinity G35 coupe. 
This is a 260 hp car with a very modern suspension. And he knew how to 
drive. I was amazed with the ease that he pulled away from me, but I didnt' 
feel that it was the Alfa's engine holding me back. It was the front 
suspension and brakes.

I never got much understeer, but there were several times that the front 
wheels were having trouble staying in full contact with the road as I pushed 
hard through corners and on the brakes. As a result I would get some push 
when braking in the approach and through the initial turn in of some of the 
rougher corners. This only seemed to be due to the fact that the tires were 
in the air or light on the ground when I needed them for maximum grip. I 
suppose that I may try adjusting the Konis (right now they are in their 
least stiffest setting) but don't really want to compromise daily comfort 
much more than I already have. So I had to dial back the level of 
aggresiveness I applied while working the corners. The car felt great up to 
a certain point, but once I went beyond that my confidence level in the car 
began to fall below a point I felt safe with. Any suggestions about what can 
be done to help with this problem?

The other problem was that the brake pedal began to get mushy about halfway 
between the 405 and 101 freeways. It never hit the floor or anything like 
that, not even close. But as things heated up I also began to loose 
confidence in the braking system's ability to give me the level of control I 
wanted. I was running plain old everyday brake fluid in the car, and have 
only the stock AR vented rotors up front. What are your suggestions for 
addressing this issue?

I am not interested in building a track car. Just a good handling street 
machine. I'm still running the OEM phone dial 15" wheels and 195/55 tires. 
Eventually I will be moving up to a 16x7 wheel and hopefully some 225/45 
series rubber, but that won't be 'till next year at the earliest.

Derek

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