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Background of Joe Beninca and the Beninca Workshop
"Well, forty-three years ago I was born here (in the workshop) and baptised in oil here. I've been around cars all my life; the other day I heard a radio station ask listeners to ring in and say what they were going to do to occupy their kids over the holidays. That was never an issue here. When you were out of school you were straight into the workshop - there was never a question about what to do. In my family there's Peter, Patrick, Dominic, Gina, Tony and myself - the eldest. Tony writes software for a motor company, Gina's a secretary, Peter, Patrick and myself are here in the workshop and Dominic has recently moved out and got his own business.
"When we were young we had our own go-cart track here between two houses. We built ourselves a go-kart and, at night, we'd move clients' cars out of the way and zoom up and down. At one stage we had one go-kart and three bikes racing around at once - and we were smart enough not to tell the kids at school about it, otherwise they'd all be over wanting a shot... "When I finished my matriculation I did mechanical engineering and then I was straight in here full time. I got offered a job at Melbourne University twice but I turned that down because I had a lot of things to do here. In the workshop we've now got an engine dyno, a chassis dyno - and we've nearly completed a four-wheel-drive chassis dyno - plus there's a shock dyno, flow bench, quick response air-fuel ratio meters, an endoscope to look into engines, milling machine and the usual workshop equipment. We fabricate lots - for example, we've made a single plug Alfa head into a twin plug head. We also do mono-barrels for Alfas models with individual sleeves and we modify heads for improved water circulation on Nissans and Toyotas. Basically what we don't do is honing barrels, crankshaft and camshaft grinding - everything else we can do in-house."
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What kind of vehicles does you workshop focus on?
"It's mainly been Alfa Romeos but we'll do most things. I've got a customer bringing in a 4.1-litre Nissan V8 - he wants to turbocharge it and fit it in a sportscar. That'll involve things like a dry sump, custom turbochargers, upgraded water-cooling and engine dyno testing - he wants it to comply with road rules, so it'll need an emission test as well. I imagine we'll end up doing the main tuning on the engine dyno and the subtle tuning for the emissions on the chassis dyno.
"We're starting to get into Nissan and Subaru stuff - a lot of these engines are also used in buggies. We're doing things like bigger turbos, fitting different management systems and tuning them up. A lot of the time people have already done the engine internals before it comes to me. There's been the odd BMW and Ferrari as well. We've put a management system on a BMW 3.0 CSL and tuned some Ferrari 308s with Autronic and multiple throttles - using the old carbies as the throttles. They were a good thing.
"But yes, we've focused mainly on Alfas. We've been racing predominantly in Alfas since 1968. We started racing naturally aspirated cars and learning about suspension behaviour and all that. We'd go out to all the club days and my brothers and I would drive the car so we were competing against each other in the same car. You know, one would go faster and inherently you had your own competition. We had a very quick way of improving our driving style - we fed off each other. We went on to win the 2000 class in the 1973 Bathurst 1000 "
Tell us about the Beninca family's progression to GT-P racing.
"That was just a natural progression - we just wanted to hit the big time. GT-P seemed to be the place to be at the time. We got ourselves 911 RSCS Porsche, went out and won. The first year was basically seeing how we go, second year we won, third year we won the first four races and we were leading the Sandown race when Richards decided to bump us off. That was a major shunt and we missed a few rounds, then things went wrong and that was the end of it. But we were on track to win the series again the second time. Since then Dominic has been doing drives with various teams."
What are some of the characteristics of today's Euro engines compared to those of the '60s and '70s?
"Back in the really early days, the FJ Holden was running a log manifold and the Alfas already had four cams - the difference was like night and day at that stage. Today, though, there's not much difference between most of them - they've all got 4-valve heads, variable cam timing, pent-roof combustion chambers and they've gone longer in stroke. In fact, the stroke of today's engines is longer than when Alfas were considered to have a very long stroke. It's all moving ahead. Bearings in engines used to be wide to take a lot of detonation, you look at them now and they're nice and narrow - great for efficiency but a bit borderline for getting extra power.
"Back in about the '70s, the GTV6 had a very good combustion chamber - a pent-roof combustion chamber, which was a copy of the 1969 Alfa Montreal. Of course, it had downdraught induction, nice combustion chamber swirl, an extractor exhaust system and it gave good specific power. With these Alfa engines the bearings were very wide, which meant you could detonate them and you wouldn't do anything to the bottom-end. Today they're probably only 60 percent the size of the original Alfa bearings."
What are your views on the current Alfa 156 twin-spark engine?
"Well, the specific power of the 156 is one of the better ones in the 2.0-litre range - they're up to 121kW. It's got variable cam timing, variable intake manifold and direct injection - that's what brings it up to 121kW, which is quite good for a non-turbo 2.0-litre engine. And they're over 206Nm, so they're over the 100Nm per 1000cc barrier. They're not torquey down low like the older Alfa engines, but that's pollution orientated. If you have high torque at low rpm NOx emissions are going to be high - they've deliberately flattened the torque down low until you get into the revving range, which is outside the drive cycle. They can make good power because the ports are quite large - which has a twofold effect, because it doesn't have the torque down low. They tend to need a couple of revs."
And, given your experience with the 911 RSCS, what comments do you have on standard Porsche engines?
"Well, we have looked in our 2-valve Porsche engine. The bearings are very narrow - they can't take any detonation. If there's detonation at any stage it's too late - you've already damaged it. With a 102mm bore and tiny bearings, yes, they last okay under normal conditions but if anything goes wrong they get damaged. The bores have been getting bigger and bigger and power's gone up and the engine hasn't gotten any longer, so certain components - like the bearings - have become narrower."
What should be the first modifications to get more power from a current Alfa 156?
"The problem is you can't do anything with the factory management system in place. The engine is mapped very accurately and it knows exactly what air consumption it should have at any given load - if you change it, it knows something's wrong and it goes into virtually a limp home mode in terms of power. With the drive-by-wire system they can easily just pull the throttle back on you.
"Most Alfas had a Bosch system but the current direct injection engine has a whole new system. Because the injectors have to work at such a high pressure, they've got a DC-DC converter inside the management system to bring them up to 60 volts. They've got 60 volts driving across the injector, so there's the power to open and close them quickly. But, look, if you want more power, the first step is to change the engine management system. That's the same as any car these days - like the new Ford XR6 Turbo. That's how it's gone.
"You have to rip the wiring loom out, install an aftermarket computer, program it and away you go. Then you're free to do your modifications. Nobody would be game to use the original Alfa drive-by-wire, so the first thing you'd have to do is go back to a cable throttle.
"If you do swap to programmable management, that on it's own won't give any more power. Mixtures and timing are set spot-on from factory - I've tested one and at full throttle there's no difference. They run a mass flow meter - that can be removed with the aftermarket management, but that's not the major cause of restriction anyway. Once there's a system in it you can go up in compression and camshaft, but we find there's no market for that here. If you turbocharge the engine, though, you don't want to change the camshaft anyway."
Tell us about your turbo kit for the twin-spark 2.0-litre.
"We've developed a turbo kit, which sells for $12,000 including GST. The standard car comes in making 136 horsepower at the wheels and goes out making 186 horsepower at the wheels - we haven't tested it on the engine dyno. Components include a ball-bearing turbo, a cast exhaust manifold, intercooler and upgraded fuel system. It gives 6.9-second 0 - 100 kays with the standard 10.0:1 compression given 7 pounds of boost. Of course, the standard engine has all the good gear through it to begin with - oil squirters and a good combustion chamber with a twin plug head. We just reworked the chip on that one - re-flashed it basically. On a drive-by-wire equipped Alfa, though, I'd go back to a cable throttle."
What have you found in regard to modifying Porsches?
"On an earlier model that doesn't have variable cam timing, whatever you do to the camshafts deteriorates the low-speed running. You can go up a little bit in cam, but then you really need multiple throttles so that idle quality and drivability doesn't deteriorate. Then you can make a reasonable change to the cam but, really, you're going beyond what a road car should be. A lot of people chose to put turbos on."
Is there much to be gained on a Porsche with a simple intake and exhaust bolt-on?
"No, there's not much to be gained - you need a major change."
What suspension and brake improvements did you have on your RSCS that are relevant to a street driven version?
"Well, if you want better brakes you get bigger discs - it's a straightforward equation. When it comes to brake pads, well, it's whatever the going flavour of the month is - carbon metallic or whatever.
"Negative camber gives you more grip around corners but you wear the inside edge of the tyre if you use it as a road car - you can swap the tyres on the rims but, because they're directional, you're pretty limited. Heavy castor makes the steering heavier and gives the car not a nice feel."
An underrated car is the Alfa 164 - have you done any modifications to those?
"No that's the luxury market car, plus they're an automatic, so whose going to waste their time? The Quadrifoglio version - which comes as a 5-speed - nobody modifies either. But, yes, the 164 has a torquey engine - you can really feel it has guts down low, not like the current 166 24-valve engine that's got no torque. The manual 164 had especially great kick down low. They make just on 186 horsepower at the wheels, I think, just over 200 horsepower at the engine. They're beautiful in terms or reliability and everything, but in terms of modifications I have more enquiries from overseas than locally."
What do you think is the best value European car for under $40,000?
"Renault has a pretty good range and the Alfa 147, I think, is about $38,000 plus on-roads - so that's not bad. But, you know, you can't modify it; besides, most people hang on for 3-years for the warranty to run out. The European cars are all very reliable these days - the service industry is reeling because you don't have to do anything to them. Service centres in Europe are decimated."
Contact:
Beninca Motors
+61 3 9836 1519
http://www.beninca.com.au/
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