The whole swap was carried out in my dad's single garage (with pit) over a two week period.

 

One of the main jobs was removing the gearbox to put in the new input shaft (lengthened to allow for the additional thickness of the adapter plate, I can't remember if the spline is different). The conversion maintains the Alfa clutch.

 

To adapt the VW release bearing to the Alfa clutch as well as allowing for the thickness of the adapter plate this spacer is used. A dry bearing is pressed inside it and it is allowed to spin freely on the input shaft. Here is the engine with the adapter plate fitted, it needed a lot of material removed around the starter motor . A tip for anybody doing this swap: if you fitted the engine as shown you would have starting problems as the nose of the (Alfa) starter motor sticks out too far and hits the bellhousing, as it is tightened up it is forced at an angle. I didn't figure this out for a year! Lots of swapping motors, adding relays etc was tried until I fitted a pair of washers on the mounting bolts to space back the motor slightly, after this it performed perfectly!

 

  Nearly there, it was a bit more awkward raising the engine into position than for a VW engine due to the alternator and deeper sump.

 

Here is the original cooling system which proved inadequate, it also took up valuable space for the spare wheel!

 

I finally got a rear engine mount made up, this will stop too much stress being put on the front gearbox mount on acceleration. The car feels much more precise now, as well as a slightly better gear change.

I have also recently put a fuel return line in place, after somebody pointed out that the mixtures at idle can't be set properly as the second carb can't hold the pressure of the supply and there is leakage at idle into the carb causing the engine to run rich.