1991 Alfa Romeo 33 S 16v Permanent 4

I then moved on to the front, the engine had to come out for rust repairs and paint but first I wanted to see if it would run. After a new fuel pump it eventually fired up and was running rough but no knocking etc so seemed usable.
Engine out and stripped:
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
I decided to replace the piston rings and hone the bores as well as skimming and rebuilding the heads, I found one slightly bent valve and one cracked valve so was worth stripping it down as well as that most of the gaskets and seals were past their best so needed replacing.
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Gave the ports a little tickle as the are not very smooth from the factory
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Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
Inlet manifold got some wrinkle red (which turns out to be orange so was dusted over with alfa rosso red)
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
The alternator was upgraded to one from the Alfa 145 boxer which required a new pulley and some fiddling about – the main reason was I got a brand new one for £20!
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What a great looking engine:
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I found some more modern Ev6 bosch injectors from a bmw which have the same flow rate and fittings as the original bosch ones which were knackered. They were a straight swap.

Work continued on the front end rust repairs with some welding required on the floors and inner wings, all the painted in stone chip underneath and body colour in the engine bay – it’s not concours as this it meant to be a fun daily road car and my aim to just to restore it to a reasonable standard and prevent future rust.
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
Steering rack inspected, cleaned, painted and refitted with new hoses etc
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Gearbox was also cleaned up and inspected, new universal joints on the propshaft (which I had to modify to fit as non are available in this weird size) and a new clutch. The big red wire going into the tail end of the gearbox is the power for the electromagnetic coupling which send power to the rear wheels. I think it would be fairly easy to convert it to RWD by locking the coupling in position, replacing the viscous coupling with a solid propshaft and removing the front driveshafts/diff etc…
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Engine & gearbox back in the car (note the individual throttle bodies!) – the easiest way is to lift it in as a complete assembly from below
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Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
Front suspension and brakes going back on, again everything is either new or reconditioned etc
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Viscous coupling and propshafts
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Next I decided to make a stainless exhaust, the original one was past it’s best and it would cost me roughly the same to make a stainless one as it would to buy a standard replacement
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2” bore (which is what these engines like in standard or mildly tuned form) 2 straight through boxes and V-band clamps instead of slip joints

All the bits are from profusion exhausts, I’ve used their stuff before on my mini and find the quality is good and prices are reasonable too.
With the original mild steel manifold (which I welded on the v-band ring) for now – I may make a stainless one in the future
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Fitted up
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
by garrywadey, on Flickr
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
Everything fitted up to the engine, new coolant hoses, fuel hoses, radiator etc etc. And it fired up first time (sort of- after I realised I hadn’t plugged in the ECU).
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The fuel pressure regulator was making some funny noises and they aren’t available new so I replaced it for a universal 3 bar Webcon unit (1 inlet, 2 outlets like the original), it was pretty much a straight fit apart from drilling an extra hole in the mounting bracket.
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The P4’s usually sit pretty low as the 16v cloverleaf cars have shorter springs than the standard 33’s and the P4 has even shorter springs as standard, the problem was the original springs were to corroded to use and looked pretty close to snapping and the only new replacements available are for the standard cars so I fitted some of them but the front in particular was way too high so I ended up getting some H&R lowering springs which are actually the same height as the original p4 spring and significanly lower than the standard 33 springs
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Before I even bought the car I managed to bag some very rare alfa speedline wheels, these are the wheels I remember on my friends P4 and are the ones I always wanted. They were very rough though so I bodged up a ‘wheel lathe’ to spin them up on and recondition them
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Painted centres, polished lip and some new stainless bolts (they are fake split rims)
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And this is how it now sits, the grey wheel centres make them look a bit small but they look much better in the flesh
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
Untitled by garrywadey, on Flickr
It seemed to be running ok so took it for an mot which it passed with flying colours, I’ve now done about 500 miles in it and have discovered a few little things which need sorting. Firstly an engine core plug was leaking so I replaced all of those (don’t know why I didn’t do it when the engine was apart!), next was a front suspension clonk which was the front spring seat pans fitted on the wrong sides (they are handed I now know). and the main couple of thing are a loud drone noise like a wheel bearing and poor brakes. I tracked the droning noise down to the viscous coupling – I suspect one of the bearings supplied with the new mounts is cheap Chinese rubbish so a new skf bearing is on the way. As for the brake, they are all new and reconditioned and beeded in by now (with decent mintex pads) and they work as they should but they are just so undersized compared to more modern stuff so I want to improve them. Luckily the P4 comes with rear discs so no need to do anything with them. There are no off the shelf brake kits for these but I had heard of some Vauxhall/opel calipers fitting, I bought some old Vectra B calipers and carriers(for the 288mm discs) and sure enough they bolted straight to the hubs, some alfa 155 284mm disc have the same pcd and centre bore as the 33 and fit perfectly even lining up centrally in the Vectra caliper! They size difference is obvious, luckily they still fit under my 15” speedline wheels
155 disc vs 33 disc
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Vectra Pad vs 33 pad
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Assembly fitted
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Also as the calipers have a much bigger piston I changed the master cylinder to an Alfa 75 one as it is a larger bore and is almost a straight swap (pipes need swapping round). The bleeding was a nightmare and took ages to get a decent pedal – I think they was air trapped in the rear calipers due to the orientation of the hoses etc so I got a better result by unbolting them and turning them upwards a bit. They still need to bed in but so far seem pretty good.
There’s a few little bits to tweak and adjust but its on the road and drives pretty well (the engine is fantastic!) and the noise is makes is incredible – people go on about the alfa busso v6 sounding great and I recon this is a close second to that!
The bodywork is the last main thing to do, I have replacement wings and doors etc to replace the rusty ones on it but they will go on when it goes for a respray hopefully in the next few months

My Odd little fleet (1991 alfa 33 permanent 4, 1996 Honda stepwagon RF2 4wd, 1971 mini with 180bhp rover k series)
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Bloody hell you don't hang about! Awesome little car, great work, and a kickass 3-car fleet.

That sort of viscous coupling midway through the propshaft is the same setup LR Freelanders have. If yours does turn out to be duff I wonder if one of those is modifiable. Fingers crossed it's just the bearing.

Thats a great save. Id forgotten about these cars. Am I right that there were two different 4wd setups on these? Seem to remember there was an "l live in the mountains" spec one, where the 4wd wasn't a performance thing at all. Just meant to get you out of the mud or snow.

Great write up,great car and great little collection, even greater skills. Thanks for sharing with us!

Fab job you've done and quickly too. As an ex owner of two Suds one thing I always wanted was more power, I reckon that 1.7 16V engine would have been brilliant in them.
Bookmarked.

Never heard of this model before, quite interesting,
The standard of your rebuilding / refurbishing / fabrication is first class, it should look brilliant when the paintwork and bodywork is completed,
Looking forward to seeing future updates on this thread,
Bookmarked,
Nigel

Like many I was completely unaware these were a thing so good save of a rare one.

I would love to get my hands on one of those flat fours and a vw tranaxle, though not at the expense of a rare car.

I enjoyed my time with Alfa Sprints and the Boxer engines were great - as was the Busso V6! Well done with yours.

That is another car I'd not known of until today.
Cool as heck and a neat wee resto.
Do you have a flyby or a run through the gears video??