Lancia Beta Forum

I've made the acquaintance of a guy who makes bespoke carbon fibre parts through a motor cycling forum I also frequent. Most of the stuff he does is for motorbikes, but I asked him tonight if he would consider tooling up for a carbon fibre cam belt cover for Betas. This was his reply:

"I could yes... BUT it needs to be in a good condition and clean as possible. I could get it sprayed with a resin coating to try and refine it to look new again too..."

Richard made a batch of replica motorcycle fuel tanks for Aprilia Falcos, finished in a special resin that was warranted ethanol-proof. The quality was superb and everyone was delighted with the quality and price. Here's a link to one of the threads on the forum that has some photographs showing the end product:

http://www.ridersite.ws/rs/viewtopic.php?t=12812&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30 (http://www.ridersite.ws/rs/viewtopic.php?t=12812&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30)

But as stated above, he would need a cover in a condition as near to new as possible to make the mould off. Any imperfections are embedded in the mould and get replicated endlessly. There is also the question of which variant of the cover to use. I've seen differences in specification from a sample size of only three, so I shudder to think how many variants there are out there. Can anyone help on this?

This post is really just to see if there might be any interest in taking this further and getting a sample cover to Richard so he can make a guess at prices etc. Incidentally, the cost of the fuel tank in the link I've posted were £800 each, which considering the work and materials involved was a real bargain. That was for the first 'committed' batch - later batches were more expensive, rising to £950 for the most recent batch. A cam belt cover would be a much simpler proposition and could be made as a single piece, which would reduce the price substantially. However, as with the tanks, a minimum order would be required to justify tooling for the mould. I'd imagine a minimum order would be around 10 units - that's what was agreed for the bike tanks.

Let me know your thoughts.

Why would we need a carbon fibre cam belt cover?

The idea of the fuel tank, which throw up a lot of problems on here, seems a better one, though the potential cost would probably rule it out?

Purely for appearance, Neil. Most of the cam belt covers I've seen are pretty manky and a CF belt cover would smarten up the under-bonnet look. It was only a suggestion. I'm getting closer to completely overhauling and cleaning up my 2 litre engine and quite fancied the idea of a CF cam belt cover is all.

Agree that a CF fuel tank would be more practical and could solve many issues in that area. I guess that price would be a fair bit higher than the bike ones; there would be a lot more material required as it's a much bigger tank, and mould making costs would be at least as much. Quality of finish would be far less of an issue, but knowing Richard he'd want it to be perfect even though it's hidden under the boot.

The cam covers are always a bit wonky when off the car reckon a mould wouldn't be easy to take from one plus there's a few variations too. I think an alloy cover would look more appropriate

I did seem to recall that there was a company making alloy cam covers for Fiats of the same era, and that they were intending to start producing same for Betas, but I've lost the information/link to the company. Which is why I started thinking about CF.

Yes but they seemed to go quiet on the subject. They are in York and are on Facebook

Do you have a link to their FB page, please?

Just been looking can't remember their name

http://www.revivalfabrications.com (http://www.revivalfabrications.com)

Cheers. Have registered my interest on their FB page.

I get the impression their services are in high demand and they can't keep up, I'd really like a cam cover for my vx but it seems they haven't even supplied all the fiat style ones ordered yet.

Yeah, I get that impression as well. Good quality work at prices that aren't ridiculous - probably why they're busy.