Peter from Söderhamn in Sweden has built the Sprint you can see on this page. The base for his powerful red racer was 1986 Sprint 1.5. It was one of the cars which was already built on the Alfa 33 floorplan with rear drum brakes and outboardly mounted discs at the front.

In the year Peter when bought the car, he only restored the chassis to get the car back on the road. "There was a massive amount of rust, all wheelarches and kickboxes were dead and the floor was a big hole. I worked about 30 hours a week for 9 months only for the rust repairs", Peter tells. The following year he replaced all bushes with Powerflex / Superflex Bushes and mounted a JR lowering spring kit. The original shock absorbers remained in the car. In 2005 Peter then decided to modify the Sprint more intensively and started to built a turbocharged 1.5 litre engine. He bought a 1.5 litre QV engine with 105 bhp and reduced the compression to about 7.9 : 1 by modifying the original pistons. A Garett T25 turbocharger which was once installed in a Saab 900 was adapted to the Boxer engine. The turbocharger was frist set to a max pressure of 0,8 bar. Meanwhile the turbo produces up to 1,3 bar - without thath the engine would make any trouble. The engine still runs with the original Weber 36 IDF carburettors but has a modified fuel supply system with a Saab 9000 fuel pump and a progressive fuel pressure regulator made by Malpassi. An intercooler made of aluminum was installed, too. This intercooler was actually intended to work in a Nissan Skyline. A sport air cleaner made by Autostyle helps the engine to breave more easily. The exhaust manifold is Peter's own creation because the serial manifold was of course not meant to drive a turbocharger. It is covered with a special tape to isolate it near the point where the turbo is mounted on the manifold. The rest of the exhaust system was changed to a large 2,5 " diametre. To keep the oil temperature at a sensible level, Peter installed an oil cooler. Oil cooler and intercooler were installed behind the large air-inlet of the self-made front bumper. The position of the oil filter is no longer behind the cylinder head on the right side of the engine. It was moved to the front besides the oil cooler. In addition, a larger filter is now used. All recoolant hoses were exchanged against blue ones made of silicone which are more secure in hot surroundings like under the bonnet of this Sprint. The engine does not run with normal Super 95 or Super Plus 98 octanes but with E85 which is a mixture of 85 % ethanol and 15 % gasoline. The fuel consumption is over 2 litres on 10 km (a nicer way to tell that it's 20 litres on a 100 km...).

The result of Peter's effords is an estimated power output of about 180 bhp. To cope with this high-power engine, Peter first installed a special clutch, with a Kennedy Stage 2 1200 kg pressure plate (usually fitted to high-end VV Beetle versions) and a pro grip disc. The original flywheel had to be modified to fit this clutch. In 2006 Peter exchanged the  Stage 2 clutch against Sinter Disc because the old clutch could not cope with the risen torque after the boost pressure had risen to 1.3 bar.

But Peter did not only modify the powertrain of his Sprint. He also mounted Momo Ferrari 16" light alloy wheels with 205 /45 tyres and painted the brake calipers and drums in red. The original brake discs were exchanged against discs with drilled holes.
The standart Sprint front bumper was replaced against a bumper of the Alfa 33 series 905 Peter has modified with a huge air dam himself. The unmodified bumper itself fitted the Sprint without great changes. The rest is glassfibre. A little rear air dam was added below the original bumper of the Sprint. It once also was part of an Alfa 33 rear bumper. Meanwhile Peter added two large air intakes made of glasfibre and polyester to the bonnet.
The sunroof you see on the photos was not Peter's idea. It had already been mounted when Peter bought the car. He will not remove it - it is part of the car's history and was a must-have in the Eighties.

The interior of Peter's Sprint was embellished with white gauges, an aluminum gearlever knob, aluminum pedals, an Autostyle boostpressure metre for the turbocharger and a Lambda gauge. A JVC soundsystem with MP3 player was installed together with a DLS Genesis 4x50W amplifier, a Cerwin Vega 8” Subwoofer and 5,25” Cerwin Vega speakers and tweeters. Peter also installed electric front windows. He took the Alfa 33 system and modified it to get it working in the Sprint's doors. Swedish Sprints were sold with seat heating. The switches were installed on the left side of the dashboard, there were you can adjust the brightness of the instrument-lights. Peter replaced the original seat heating switches against the switches for the electric windows.

Peter's next plans concerning his Sprint are installing the front brake system with vented discs of the Alfa 33 1.7 QV and replacing the original front seats against Sparco or Cobra sport bucket seats.

With the risen power, Peter has serious problems when accelerating hard: the tyres wont stop spinning in second and even in third gear!

You can write to Peter if you click here.

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Last Update: July, 25th 2007      Created: October, 30th 2005

© Layout and text by Tim Rauen. Photos by Peter Otter.