The guide of the 83-85 2 valves factory approved injected Countaches

Earlier in this thread, someone mentioned that Dealer were ordering factory part for retrofits. Coming form Nastasi saying. So this car is likely to be a retrofit. Only the guy owning the car with the original bills or the US dealer/importer of the time could confirm.

 

JT isn't the red car with gold wheels Carlo's car (the cuban from Miami) that has a real CT and a Prova replica with a real motor?

 

John, didn't you used to own the red one (on the nice driveway)?
744?

 

yes it is. I notice the rear appears tohave been reworked as a 4V US. Does not look like the other 2V. Was bodywork done by the owner?

EDIT: Note: Ken, it is 774.

 

in my old archive I found this words from Treford Thomas in 2004 from a site no longer here. This was in repsonse to me making a claim that no injected 2V left the factory. I got the wraith of God fall onto me:...

"Added message

Countach QV whoever you are

Take a look at this car

This is a 5 litre Countach with Fuel injection and emission control system and guess where it was built

IT WAS BUILT IN A LITTLE FACTORY LOCATED AT
VIA MODENA 12
SANT AGATA BOLOGNESE
ITALY
"

and talking about a specific car 12772:

"
Despite all the other recent postings on this list this is one of the factory built US Fuel injection cars that was one of the 37 of the 50 fuel injection cars built by the factory at the end of 1984 that came ot the USA.

It was imported by us at Lamborghini of North America and sold to one of our dealers.
I can't remember to whom we sold it and the records are currently still with attorney Steven Stanwyck. If anyone knows how to contact Steven I would appreciate it if they would let me know.

Trefor Thomas
"

What I am unsure is that Trefor, being hot headed about this issue,did not say clearly the car left the factory as an injected. Saying it was built at the factory is leaving that fact ambiguous

Now here is the company that has all the records of imported injected:

Address:
The Stanwyck Firm
225 Montana Ave #103
Santa Monica, CA 90403

If anyone is close to the firm or knows someone at the firm and can help me to get a copy of these records and dont want to go public please PM me. We could publish this here.

Note that Steven has been disbarred in 2012 and appeal is pending.

I may have other info in my archive but dont have time to dig right now

 

This is 2 serial up from guru's pictures showing 774. I bet FLA12773 is also a factory made injected out of the 37.
Do we have the owner of 773 here?

I beleive his post can safely be interpreted that 37 cars were made injected at the factory while a remaining 13 were shipped as carb and modified in the US.

Which ones? The attorney's firm may well have that information. I am not sure if the factory still does. A confirmation of that would be great

Meanwhile here are picts of 772
It is a copycat of 774 and made the same month. Was at Dino Motor in 06,California.
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I found more comments on the topic from Trefor Thomas.

This clarifies the 37 vs the 50 units if his memory served him. There were indeed 50 cars destined for the USA. More injected were done for other markets from his saying.

From Trefor

Post 1:
"The majority of 5 litre Countachs were grey-market but there were also over 50 Fuel injected cars which were U.S. cars fully legal in all 50 states.
There were virtually no 1986 4valve U.S. cars as the EPA and CARB certifications weren't completed until late 1986, EPA in October 1986, CARB in November 1986, canceled and reissued in Jan 1987 thanks to two distributors who couldn't cooperate with each other. All 4 valve carburetted cars were grey market despite the "paperwork" that came with them. Even after that there were a fair number of grey-market 4 valves while the FI U.S. legal cars were coming in.

Trefor"

Post 2:
"The late Jas Rarewala and I put all our money and efforts into creating a U.S. legal car and bringing it to market. We suffered all kinds of delays and problems such as the German metalworkers strike at Bosch which put back the building of U.S. Countachs by three or four months until we went out and sourced alternative Bosch FI components from the US Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina and shipped them all to the factory so they could build US FI cars. Our reward from the Mimrans was that they "bought us out" but had no money to pay us, so two years later when Chrysler bought out the Mimrans since it was "Chrysler's" desire to have control of the American market in the first place, they would pay us. That was in 1997 and to this day neither myself or Jas ever received one penny from Chrysler.

To read something that changes history and makes out that we didn't have anything to do woth saving the factory and that the factory didn't build US FI cars is a slap in the face I'm not prepared to accept. It's like saying that the Late Jas Rarewala and myself never existed. After all the slings and arrows we suffered at the hands of Chrysler please allow us some dignity.

The factory didn't know how to build a U.S. legal car so the late Jas Rarewala and myself designed and built the Fuel Injection system and emissions control system. We made casting mouldes for the injection manifold and runners and even made a wiring layout board and then shipped it all to the factory togehter with a Fuel Injected car. They then built about 50 cars for the US market and I don't know how many FI cars for Germany, Japan, Britain and Australia beacuse the US car just happened to meet all their emission requirements as well.

The emission control system we developed was used on the 4 valve FI car and a very similar system was used on the Diablo

Trefor"

Trefor is no longer with us. The fight he had against me was about making sure his side of the story was told properly.
This is the least I can do for the guy. I am glad I kept the exchange. I did not even remember it that when I started this thread.

Whatever one says, I do believe he , with Jas, is the father of the US injected QV from his records.

 

In the third quarter of 1985 Lamborghini of North America contacted Iskenderian cams to grind a cam profile for them, in hopes of improving the emissions for the 2V FI Countach. Lamborghini NA provided 2 or 3 sets of standard cams which were reground with a profile it was hoped would improve things, in realty Lamborghini NA gave the impression they were not to concerned. Possibly because the QV was in development.

These cams have a different valve lash then standard cams, the correct valve lash is 0.012 inches on both the intake and the exhaust. These cams had the following specs:

______Open BTDC_______Close ABDC___Max lift______Duration
Inlet____20 deg___________55 deg_____0.325________255 deg
Exh_____40 deg___________20 deg_____0.315________240 deg

Versus Euro cams
Inlet____42 deg____________70 deg____0.374________292 deg
Exh_____64 deg____________40 deg____0.350________284 deg

As you can see these reduced valve opening area of the emissions cams significantly reduced the engine performance at the top end, although just off of idle it should be very strong. Computer simulations show the emissions cam reduces the Hp to approximately 322 Hp versus the Euro cams 375 Hp.

Cheers Jim

 

That read tail light cover bumper thing is a DOG.

It takes so much away from the original look.

If you take that off is there a few holes like the QV US rear bumper?

 

Great info you got here. My only question is this- was the cam for the QV? The reason I ask is because the 2V car was no longer being produced by the 3rd quarter of 1985. In 1985 there were some QV released, and some 5000S released. So i'd assume the production of 5000S was done by 3rd quarter.

 

No the cam was very definitely for a 2V, the cams for a QV and 2V are not interchangeable. Iskenderian commented that Lamborghini NA did not seem to really care if the cams made an improvement or not, I think your comments are the reason why.

Cheers Jim

 

thanks for the info.

Sounds like the cams in question did not get used. In my conversation with Bobileff he said the cams are the same for carb and FI 5000S, so this info you have does not seem to contradict that.

 

FLA12795 is last 2V inj and probably the last 5000S. Here are the picts showing it was made on jan 1985. That car must be well know from the Californians. I dont know who bought it recently.

I am not aware of 5000S made after that date or if they have, their serial is prior to 12975. I doubt that anyhow

So the QVs were made much earlier than 3rd quater 85 I think.
I know that FLA12798 is a QV.

So the question here are what are the cars 796 and 797. I would venture to say they are QVs but I would love to hear from someone who knows for sure with facts
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I would be very surprised if these cars could pass emissions with the European cams. It was common in that time for US cars to have milder cams than European cars just for emissions reasons. I would also think that the Euro cams are pushing what the CIS can handle. These types of fuel injection systems do not like a lot of overlap. Based on my flow bench experience I would be very surprised if the fuel injection system caused the loss of horsepower seen in the FI cars, however the cam profile I described will easily account for the horsepower loss. Finally the cams I listed were installed in 12701 a 1984 car. Since this car did have experimental cams in it, I wonder if it was some sort of test mule for Lamborghini NA.

Cheers Jim

 

Jim,

Do you have pictures of that car? what was the mileage and when did yousee it? it is supposed to be in Florida and I have a lots of personal question regarding the mileage that was advertised at the last sale in FL from its time in OH....

 

Some photos from 2007 and 2010. The speedo is in Kmh so I would imagine that would cause some inconsistent numbers being advertised depending if they quoted miles or kilometers. Sounds like you know the past ownership history of this car, I would be interested to hear what you know.

Cheers Jim
PS I see the car every day.
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FLA12755
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It appears that in my initial list I missed an early car:

ZA9C00500DLA12584 1983 Red/Tan. couldbe on the West Coast. anyone could confirm?

 

CLA12519 - Red on Red may also be an early injected I missed. Anybody can confirm? Still in the USA as of 2012

 

An update and summary of injected cars done by the factory or Raj/Trefor shop.

It is said that 37 factory injected Countach were made. Here is the list of what I know. Don’t be shy to add or correct with info.

----
1. CLA12507 – 1982, Prototype Injected , Silver/ Blue[corrected per Joe S.] in Ohio, in the USA as of now
2. ? CLA12518 – 1982, Blue/white, Location unknown may be Switz
3. CLA12519 - Red on Red may also be an early injected . Anybody can confirm?
4. DLA12584 1983 Red/Tan. could be on the West Coast.
5. DLA12596 – 1983, White/Tobacco, , in the USA
6. ? DLA12599 – 1983, White/Black, is carb now but may have been converted by George Evans in the USA (Georges, Comments?)
7. ELA12655, 1984, Red/Tan, in the USA
8. ELA12672,1984, white/Brown, in the USA
9. ELA12701, 1984, Red/Black, converted to carb now, in the USA
10. ELA12711, 1984, Black/Tan, in the USA
11. ? ELA12738,1984, dont know much about this car other than it was in MA,USA
12. FLA12752, 1985, black/tan, in the USA
13. ELA12759,1984, Red/Black, in the USA
14. FLA12763, 1984, White/Black, in the USA
15. FLA12766,1985, burgandy/red, the infamous car, in the USA
16. FLA12769, 1985, White/white, unknown location
17. FLA12772, 1985, red/tan , in the USA
18. FLA12774, 1985, Red/Tan, in the USA
19. ELA12784, 1984 Black/Tan, in the USA (Burned)
20. ? FLA12789, 1985, white, Burned.
21. FLA12794, 1985, Black/Black, USA
22. FLA12795, 1985, Red/Tan, last injected based on the CLA12507 Raj prototype , USA

Added today:
23. ? DLA12639, Red/Tan, USA (Is this a factory?)
24. ELA12661, Red/TAn, USA

 

Really useful information, thanks for the update, great initiative!