E21 with Busso engine

[Torbey]

I know its a weird one but read till the end please,

I got my hands on a Alfa 166 for cheap with the lovely Busso engine the 3.2 version, the car is in a very bad shape in every single way

I am planing to take off the engine for a full rebuild , but I want to RWD this engine in a bmw E21 body that I do have laying around ,

The alfa engine is around 135KG so I its not heavy, with output of around 240HP which is almost an overkill on a e21 chassis ,

Do you have any advise before starting this project this is my first alfa x bmw mating , I have good mechanical background but I am bit worried on the wiring side of things, and making things like gauges and so on work normally when mating .


Any coment would be helpfull, cheers

Sorry for my english

[Jeroen]

Can't help you out with any expert advice but yes that is a great looking and sounding engine, and not bad when it comes to performance and reliability afaik. So even though people might see this as sacriledge I would definitely like to follow this if this becomes an actual project!

[Torbey]

Trying to find suitble trans. as all busso engine are either fwd or a transaxle,

I will be removing the alfa engine by next weekend,

[uwbuurman]

A cool project. Busso engines are great, topsound, good revhappy. Looking forward how you are going play this.

[BertjeConti]

Indeed, should be a nice project.

About gauges, the E21 only has a temp gauge, rev counter and the idiot light. Rev counter shouldn't be a problem if you take a e21 6 cyl rev counter.
Temp gauge has only a 1 wire sensor which is used on a wide variaty of cars, probably the sensor wil fit your busso engine somewhere.

The rest of the electronics come from the 166 ofcourse.

I should try to mate the engine with a adapter plate to a stock e21 gearbox, least problems with clutch, gear selector, propshaft and speedo cable.

[Torbey]

Any advise on the body or chassis upgrade, that I should worry about

[BertjeConti]

Any advise on the body or chassis upgrade, that I should worry about

Just brake upgrade will do, the old bmw chassis are well build and very stiff compared to other cars from the same era.