Beretta.net

Agreed! Nice work! I'm so happy that I painted my engine bay as well! Your thread reminds me of all the stuff I just did to mine last year! We'll see if your engine bay looks as good as mine when all is said and done!!!

woody90gtz wrote:Sit and envy! haha

Hey Woody,

Where did you get all of the new grommets and seals for the firewall?

.... the web project is still on hold but still in my pocket.

Okay, so today was a pretty lax day. Ive been tired from running back and forth to my dads shop where the car is (26miles one way) so i made it an early day.

Turn on your hater vision if you want to but i did something yesterday that might make a few people sick.


Yup, thats right, the first manual steering rack i have ever seen since i first found out about them about 7-8 years ago. Since my rack is leaking and knocking, my lines are dry rotted and leaking, and my pump was squealing and leaking, i decided it was gonna be cheaper to go this route. Not only that, but im shaving about 20-25lbs from my engine bay. Yes, i am loosing the nice 2.25 turn rack, but, i only paid $32 for this rack and to replace all the other stuff with new parts, im looking at well over a $150. People can hate all they want, but this is something i have been wanting to do for quite some time now and it finally worked out.

Heres how much smaller it is compared to the power rack. Then a pic of it all painted up looking like new. And for the record, i do have the steering couple, and all the mounts and bolts.

Then, i decided to get my tensioner installed so i can seal up the long block (for the most part) and get the engine ready for the car. That only took about 15 mins or so of my time, just messing around with it. Got it installed, turned the motor over twice to make sure the cams still lined up after a full cam rotation and then put the gaskets in, and sealed it up. Got the crank pulley on and called it good.



Then, i got ambitious a started working on the W41 cover and get the paint off all the raised areas to make the cover look brand new again. The end result so far blew my mind! I dont think i have ever seen a W41 cover that looked so nice! I do still have some more polishing to do to the raised areas, but i didnt want to do that today. All in all, im very pleased with it so far




Then, finally, i put two bolts in and placed the manifold and the cover on the motor to see how the color scheme was gonna work out....

I'll let the pics do the talking

Once again, i have fallen in love and i dont think there is anything that can be done about it this time lol Im gonna be affraid to drive my car to Bfest, i may have to trailer it lol.

Comments always welcome, and ideas

Thats sexy Geoff. Too bad you didn't keep the rack natural...lol!!!

Yeah i thought about it, then i stuck it in the engine bay and looked at it, tried to imagine the motor in there, and it was gonna look funny. This way with the rack being black, it will look stock and like any replacement and not attract too much attention like the pics i posted of the motor when it first went in. I almost did it, but then thought it was gonna be too much, sorry man

You have me amped up to get back to my GTZ project, Geoff – Sitting here in my office filled with boxes of shiny new parts.

Keep up the good work man!

where you find manual rack that sounds like a good idea and can they still be bought new

I found the rack out of an 84 Cavy base model. like total base, 2.0, speedo and gas only, no ac 5spd, crank windows the lack

You can buy them brand new, but, they are almost $200 with a $100 core.

Looks kick ass brother. Keep up the good work man!

Boobies! I like where this thread has gone. So are you going to use "rons" header?

I would like to use the header! It would make my motor full of all kinds of win!! Unfortunately, i dont have that kind of cash and i heard hes not making them anymore, or was that a rumor?

uncle wrote:Hey Woody,

Where did you get all of the new grommets and seals for the firewall?

.... the web project is still on hold but still in my pocket.

I made my own from universal stuff at Napa.

I'm buried in work right now, so don't worry about holding me up on that website! haha

All this work and you decided not to turbo it... what a shame

If done right the engine will still stay pretty if driven. I spent a good amount of time last year and it all payed off since the engine didn't leak a drop of oil so its still spotless to this day. I'm quite happy about that!