1976 Lancia Scorpion

SCORPION SOLD April 2005 - As much as I love the car it became clear relatively quick that in order to be competitive it would need serious modification and a bump to prepared class. The purist in me could not allow the level of modifications necessary to do this to such a rare car. It was replaced for race duty in July of 2004 by a cheap Yugo and kept for awhile in hopes of returning it to street use. Eventually the find and addition of my 2 latest projects the 75 Olds 98 and the 69 Meyers Manx brought the realization it was time for this one to move on. It has gone to a good local home with an owner who already has one Scorpion.

03/08/2004 The 2004 season car is HERE! At the SJR drivers school this weekend I was given a lead on a good candidate and checked it out today. We have been waivering between mods and streetable cars for awhile with the prime candidates being a Bobsy Formula Vee for mod and a 1988 BMW 325iX for street/race use. In the end a streetable car makes more sense at this time as it will save some miles on my Suburban (not to mention gas cost) and the car will not have to sit here 365 days a year to only be used for 10- 20 days out of each year. both of the aforementioned cars were stretching this years budget a bit thin and when the new candidate showed up at an unbelievable price....well, we didnt believe it. But seeing is believing, we went, we saw, we bought.

Well here she is, one of only 1800 or so Lancia Scorpions which found her way to the US in 76 and 77. Should be a fun H Stock toy, but since it really needs some lowering and other tweeks it will probably end up in CSP, gonna need alot of tweeks to hang with that crowd.

With only 59,000 miles and one owner she has alot of life left in her and is in great overall shape.

Things to do to be ready to autocross.

**Update 04/03/04** On the trailer and ready to go. Still lots to be done cosmetically and to improve performance, but we met our goals and she is running and ready for the first race. This will mostly be a test and tune session to work out the bugs, no hard running yet.

1) Go through the brakes, I dont trust 'em after sitting for 10 years

**Update 03/14/04** Front brakes were great, rears were toast, calipers siezed up. New parts accquired from "The Parts Bin" Thanks Bruce!

**Update 03/18/04** Brakes complete, just need a final bleed and adjust of the parking brake (I make these notes here so I dont forget)

**Update 04/03/04** Final bleeding and ajdustments complete

2) Fix rust hole in drivers floor, don't need the added ventialation

**Update 03/14/04** In a marathon session yesterday the interior was removed, all rust was cut out and new metal welded in and everything was treated with RustBullet to prevent further issues. It has been decided to use this opportunity to begin updating the interior and as such the rear firewall panel is being replaced with black vinyl and the old carpets will be replaced in black. New Recaro style racing buckets and RCI 5 point harnesses are on order as well. Some quick phots of the process.

3) Renew timing belt, an ounce of prevention....

**Update 03/14/04** New parts accquired from "The Parts Bin" Thanks Bruce!

**Update 03/17/04** Timing belt, and alternator belt done, started her up again and she's running fine. Started bleeding the air from the cooling system (cooling hoses have to be removed to change the timing belt) and found a new item for the list

3a) Replace radiator :(

Turns out the radiator has seen better days and started spewing steam once up to temperature. Further inspection revealed a good case of "fin rot" whereby the cooling fins on the radiator have rusted away. A suitable replacement (from an X1/9) was found at AppleMotors and should arrive next week. Oh the joys of ressurecting dormant cars.

**Update 03/27/04** New radiator is installed and system is bled. Working great again. The temperature switch for the fans was bad on the old radiator, but the new one had one and it works great. For those interested NAPA 7558 hoses can be modified to fit the front radiator hoses, you will need 2 one for each side and they do need to be cut to fit, but the bends are just right.

4) General tune up, oil change, etc.

**Update 03/14/04** New parts accquired from "The Parts Bin" Thanks Bruce! Work to begin shortly.

**Update 03/28/04** Tuneup complete, running good.

5) Replace Exhaust - start opening up the HP potential a bit and the current muffler is a bit "holy"

**Update 03/19/04** CSC Prima-flow header and exhaust arrived from Bayless Fiat today.

**Update 03/23/04** Exhaust install finished

6) New Seats - wanted something updated and a little more supportive for racing

Found on E-bay for $120 for the pair, didnt have my hopes up too much, but they turned out to be very nice good quality seats. Came with adjustable sliders that should mount fairly well to the stock points. 5 Point RCI harnesses are on order from Summit Racing to complete the package.

**Update 03/25/04** After much cursing and modifying the drivers seat is in. The seats sitting just on their sliders, no other mounts were actually still too high. There were 1 inch spacers between the slider and the seat, with those removed they work good. The mount holes on the sliders fit perfect front to back but are spaced about 1/2 inch too wide side to side. I welded extenders to the inboard side of the passenger slider rail and made new mounts there. Works good. :)

**Update 03/29/04** Still have to mount the passenger seat but I took time out to fabricate a harness mount bar to go behind the rear seats. Got the RCI harnesses installed, its really coming together now. Only 4 days till the first race....

**Update 04/03/04** Seats finished, harnesses in, interior back together

Finally if time permits some minor body work to repair some dings and dents will be done and the lower black portion of the body will be repainted.

And finally a few more photos....more to come

04/23/2004 Sorry for the lack of updates, not much exciting to report. Since the first race I have been working on some weight reduction via replacing the stock US bumpers with euro replicas. Im making the replicas myself as Im too cheap to pay $600 for them. The rear bumper is semi finished, that is to say good enough for now, it will get some fine tuning when the car is prepped for a repaint. Sorry no photos of the construction as it was quite, as my brit friends would say, a bodge and I dont need the criticism :) But here is a quick look at the final product. New tires arrived and were mounted by the good folks at Werbany Tire Town here in Blackwood, NJ. Sumitomo HRT 200s, good all around perfomance/street combo for only $40 per tire. Ideally I would have dedicated street and race tires but the budget is thin right now. The new tires did cure the hopping problem, confirming the old ones were flat spotted.