Hi, I am curious what the perception of value is on the years 86-88 Countachs. With the earlier cars going up, has it brought up these years. Would a stunning example pull $150,000? I just don't see many for sale. I have had a number of these cars over the years, but none in recent history. I do love these cars and they are in my opinion the definitive exotic car! Thanks Peter
With a U.S. QV F.I. car, it will be very difficult to sell for 150K. This would include a one-owner 200 mile garage queen. A nice DD QV RoW car, should pull that kind of money. These cars have gone up in value. They have not gone off of the charts. You can find a nice car, for just over 100K.
I just purchased my triple white 1986 Countach for $140K from Roy Cats. I think Roy has a black one available. Call Kevin or Roy from Cats Exotics if you have questions. They have sold bunch of Countachs pver the years. If you want to get ripped off and want a replica that looks real, call Dave from Motorcars of Las Vegas. You will be getting a screwing of a lifetime.
Well what he did not say is what the car went thru at Evans for a pretty penny from Roy! I beleive that they "tuned" the upper end engine and may have put the euro cams or better cams. This is no longer the typical US engine. All in all with the cost of the work done, the base car was around the $100K.
"euro cams" "better cams" You need to be specific (part numbers, specs) or it's just a lot of BS I'm not aware of these "magic" upgrades.
Yes, it is... The bill was close to $60K with G Evans...and I was very very happy with the work.. I am not a mechanic....so I do not know what differences are in euro vs USA>.I am sure there are, I only know what he did for the car. Included full engine out service, valve job, clutch, new pistions, rings, cam work, euro exhaust headers brakes, tires, shocks, A/C, syncros on and on...yes 6 pages of very exstensive work...car is as close to new as it can be...IMO
It looks like you can move the cam gear anywhere on the camshaft. Is there a euro cam setting (more advance or?) compared to a US cam setting?
You set it where it runs the best, that's pretty much it. It's not like Lamborghini has a big aftermarket (nothing in the Summit Racing catalog for a Countach) or racing program with "extra performance" stuff from the factory. The truth is that Lamborghini engines make plenty of horsepower right out of the box, that's part of the charm. Not much need to go for more. Sure you can make custom changes but it's hugely expensive and there's probably no good reason to do it (it's not a racecar, remember and already goes like a scalded cat). It's pretty well known that the DD cars make more power than the US fuel-injected cars. The car in question is fuel-injected and the best driveability (what you need most of the time) is probably with the stuff that it came with from the factory using all the factory settings. Sometimes trying to get an improvement can end up making it hard to drive. I know it's going to be disappointing to some but a lot of "special tuning" is just "markup". You pay extra for all those "braggin' rights".
Laust Pederson has done a lot of work/experimenting with "moving the sprocket around the cam." Basically, there is definitely wiggle room if you want more torque: >>Fig.1 shows the torque and horsepower increase gained by advancing each of the four cams 6 degrees. As can be seen the low end torque gain is substantial. So are there better settings of the cams? I investigated many other possibilities and it turns that advancing the cams further will continue to increase the low end torque, but decrease the high end, but interference between the (intake) valves and pistons sets a limit and should be checked in each case. It should be noted that the minimum valve to piston distance occurs between 5 and 10 degrees after TDC and is different from engine to engine. Calculations show that a 6 deg. cam advance will reduce the valve-piston clearance by about 1 mm. Another minor complication is that the cam timing mechanism is quantized to a 1.6 degree adjustment, but fortunately once non-interference is verified, the separation will increase as a function of normal wear (chain stretching and valve and seat height reduction). So why wasn't this done from the factory? Probably because of the potential valve-piston interference and since it does not affect the maximum horsepower the engine was equally attractive on paper. I ended up with a 4 to 5 deg. cam advance. << http://home.earthlink.net/~laust/espada.htm Cheers, Fred
Do you mean to say that the 750cfm Holley carbs I just bought from Summit are not going to fit on my LP400S? Well thats just great! Brian
There were some sport cams available from the factory, some owners like Max Bobnar with his special 25th got them, my QV has also different cams. But no part number on them...
All Lamborghinis have "sport" cams, it's the whole purpose of the car. I've heard these stories over the years but the specifics are always absent. I am not suggesting that your personal car doesn't have "different" cams (whatever that means) but I am suggesting that in many cases it is convenient for car manufacturers to say anything they want to sell their cars and keep the "mystique" alive.
I call BS on that... I may not have the conections with the so called factory "records" you all have..BUT I was in Italy last year and was LUCKY enough (by shear chance) to be at the 40th year anniversary for MANY of the old timers on Saturday at that Factory..I was probably the only USA guy there...it was great and the Factory was closed excpet for a big lunch and honoring all the old timers, (including Mr. Lamborghini's first and long servinf secertry) that made the name REAL "LAMBORGHINI". I can tell you one common story that was told over and over again, was the fact that NOT one of these cars was made the same, depended on the day, the mood and if it was or was not a special order for a "special" customer... I heard in broken english several times how some cars where just done custom better than others... And of course the "old timers" have no reason to tell these stories other than their pride in hand building the cars when it was still a joy and a privledge to do so.. As the motors where machined at the factory (as they showed us where it was done back then and told us stories at lunch) I have no question in my mind that some recieved special treatment and others not so... Long live the true "old timers" that made these cars what they are today!! I will take the word of the horses mouth over the second generation techs in the field today... This included as in earlier posts, his brother, sister and relatives that spent the ENTIRE day telling the TRUE "I was there" story of what happened...including the day he (Mr. Lamborghini) informed them they were all going to be with out a job as the factory was closing and going into the Goverments hands.. I till this day fell honored to have stumbled onto this once in a lifetime event..the feeling of joy and achivement between all these skilled workers and true LAMBORGHINI core people was just amazing...not to mention most of them are still close friends and live with in miles (KMS) of each other and the ORGINAL FACTORY.. now that is true History, forget the writtne so called word, I will go with the spoken word.. IMO no offense ment
Roy, I absolutely agree that Lamborghinis (pre-Diablo at least) were hand-crafted and each have a "personality" of sorts. Small changes were made to accommodate special customers. This is one fact that sets Lamborghini apart from most other marques and increases the collectability. This doesn't however change my opinion that a certain amount of hype and razzmatazz about how one car may be faster than another (nearly impossible to prove at the time) was part of salesmanship and customer satisfaction. This is not meant to reflect poorly on the factory workers who crafted these bits of jewelry we now admire so.
My car was the one of Patrick Mimran, it has different cam profiles and a different torque curve, that's proven...
Well i guess that has been answered before i get to it. I did not go check under the hood. but this car had mods done to it. I thought $40K and Roy says $60K. I did not ship Evans the cams so i dont know the part number. You may call Georges if that is of interest to you. As far as better cams or euro cams I do know that changing cams has been done on many countaches injected with results. You may not know the owners but they dynoed their cars and showed improvement. Was discussed on lambo power with supported chart. As far as Georges Evans i beleive he puts Euro cams and other euro parts to better injected Ct. And no they dont become unreliable because of Euro parts. He even builds upon euro DDs to get another 50hps. I have not signed up yet but have been thinking about it. He does top end engine and bottom engine. Royus car got the top end and Roy just confirmed here. There is nothing magic or BS here only technical. Sorry for not being a spec sheet on legs but was rather commenting on the $140K price of a typically $100K car
I usually do not have time to post as we are usually busy building engines but on this thread I could not resist. There is no such thing as sport cams, racing cams, or even magical cams. The closest thing to magical cams are the V V T cams, commonly known as variable valve timing cams These cams do change timing with rpm, giving the best of both worlds and are usually controlled by ecm controlled solenoids and actuated by oil pressure, this is why most of the V V T cars have more performance. Unfortunately the countach never had the V V T setup. There is a big difference between the 4 valve euro carbureted engine and the 4 valve fuel injected usa engine. You would not know this unless you would have ever had one apart as they look almost the same on the out side except for the induction and the headers but they are very different inside. Anybody that has driven both cars will tell you that there is no comparison. For those of you that do not believe that a part exists unless you are shown a part number, part numbers are listed below. This part number info is available to anyone that has access to Lamborghini parts. 4 VALVE FUEL INJ USA CAMS PART NUMBERS INTAKE: SX P.N 21852 SX P.N. 21853 EX : SX P.N. 21871 DX P.N. 21872 4 VALVE CARBURATED EURO CAMS PART NUMBERS INTAKE: SX P.N. 20847 DX P.N. 20845 EX: SX P.N. 20848 DX P.N. 20846 THE CAM PROFILE IS VERY DIFFERENT BETWEEN THE USA AND EURO CAMS. OVERLAP PERIOD USA 40 DEGREES EURO 64 DEGREES INTAKE DURATION @ O USA = 275 DEGREES EURO = 292 DEGREES EXH DURATION @ O USA = 272 DEGREES EURO = 272 DEGREES LOBE SEPARATION: INTAKE USA = 112 DEGREES EURO = 108 DEGREES LOBE SEPARATION EXHAUST USA = 114 DEGREES EURO = 112 DEGREES ALSO, THE EURO CAMS ARE DEGREED IN VERY DIFERENTLY THEN THE USA CAMS. We just bought the last 2 complete 4v euro camshaft sets from Lamborghini Italy a few months ago (1 set went into Guss car) and we have asked Lamborghini to tool up and build more sets. If they do not, we have a company that is interested in making them. George Evans
