my_milano

   I bought the car about 4 years ago with the intent to have a car with a manual transmission. I really wanted a gtv but got a milano instead, and that is where the fun started. the first thing i did was lower the back end cause that was easy. In the back there are springs. In the front of the milano's, however, is torsion bars. Unfortunately it is not as easy to lower as the japanese cars equipped with torsion bars, where you basically take a wrench and turn a bolt and it lowers it. For the milano's you have to take the whole front suspention apart to release the tension, then you can physically pull the bars out, then move the lower a-arm to the position you want it to be. i lowered the front a little after that. I then saw the evolution body kit in a book my dad had and began my search for that. The body kits came equipped on the stock turbo 1.8 liter, 4 cylinder milano's. After a year of searching i was finally able to get it, coming as a reproduction kit from italy. The kit is made completely of fiberglass. There was a lot of fitting i did to make it look good. I then inversed an integra spoiler to mount under the back bumper. I got the idea from a body kit i saw on a jetta in europe. It looks better than it sounds, really. I have got the red light setup in the rear, which i will be changing to the euro red lights wich are basically all red with a clear sqare inside the reverse lights and a clear sqarre in the blinkers, which illuminate yellow. In the front are the european carello lights. The milano's came stock with clear corner lights, which illuminated a sorta orangish tint. the corners on the carello's are completely clear with a yellow lens around the light hole, making it illuminate yellow. the headlight bulbs use the h4 bulbs and has a hole to put a small light in it, used in europe for a daylight running light type set up (dont quote me on that though, that is what i made out of it). I put a purple bulb in there to give my lights the look of the new mercedes lights. each side side light fixture costs over $600 for the front light set up.

   After that i started to do little things, such as my m3 sport mirrors, a whole new stereo system, i took out my air conditioning and used the spot where the a/c controls went to house my mini disc changer. I am running a sony xplode deck, pold 6x9s, polk 5 1/4 component system ( converted the foot light on the passenger side into a speaker housing and got another one and inversed it on the drivers side to make the same thing. I have boston acoustics 4x6s in the front doors, and pretty soon i will have a pair of polk 5 1/4 coaxils for the back doors, to make it just a little louder than it is right now to coinside with my 2 15 inch subs i am housing in the back seat. a custom box is going to be made to house the 2 750 watt subs, which will be individually powered by an alpine v12 amp. that will be 2 alpine amps pushing 500 watts to each speaker right on your back. I installed a clifford bullet 2 alarm system and added on a intellistart feature (starts the car at a push of a button), along with the wiring to my door poppers used to open my shaved doors( no door handles on the outside) and a trunk popper. I made a completely custom dash made from auto meter phantom guages. i have an oil pressure, water temp, fuel, volts, the 5 inch tach mounted where the ash tray was. I put in the recaro interior that comes with the verde milano's. I shortened my shifter for a little faster shifting. Did some paint work to match the exterior of what i am going to paint the car.

   As for engine mods so far, i took off my power steering. For those of you who know milano's, they have a tendancy to leake from black holes. so i got rid of that mess and put a manual steering rack i modified to fit the milano's, since they didn't wanna make one for them. There is no a/c pump or radiator. advantage? 2 less belts and a more direct air flow to the radiator, keeps my motor running a good 145 degrees normal, along with making the oil change go down to around 15 minutes. I installed an MSD ignition system along with the MSD coil delivering spark to the plugs through the magnecore 8 mm wires. Also the basic air filter change, a K&N air filter, which does just as good and if not better than a cone filter. Reason being with a cone filter you wind up sucking engine heat trapped in the engine compartment and it doesn't get the cold air needed for performance. i am gonna develope either a ram air going through a hole on the side of where the radiator is mounted and go into the box directly, or use a 164 air plenum and make use of my cowl induction hood, bringing a filter on top of the motor and sucking from the cowl. I have a completely rebuilt limited slip trans-axle with all lightened gears, taking some weight out of it and with proper doing, making them stronger. I have a race clutch made by a place in San Jose. Other than that, that is the engine mods so far. I redid the suspension, consisting of shankle sport springs, koni yellow hydraulic shocks all around. I have the shankle front sway bar, stiffening up the rocking of the milano's. With the suspension mods i have made so far, i eliminated the milano body roll it majorly had. I then lowered the car some more, bringing the lowering lever to about 3 inches in the front and 4 in the back, along with the body kit lowness, i sit about 3 inches from th ground, and that's just the body kit. Unfortunately the milano's didn't have much of a strong point in the routing of the exhaust. The lowest point of the exhaust sits almost a half an inch lower than the body kit.. The car is as stiff as it gets, but still rides semi decently. I bought some team dynamic rims, 16x7.5 and have 225/40's yokahama a520's mounted on them. however, they are currently being powder coated white and getting the pot hole dents fixed.

Still to come, a 3.2 liter v6 hopefully pushing 260 hp with a completely new computer, getting rid of the air flow meter completely and allowing me to control everything about the car on a lap top computer. With that i can get the necessary intake help the alfa's need. i am gonna put a dual exhaust system on the car, with a lot of work coinsiding with it. My new intake system, lightened fly wheels, there a 2 fly wheels on the milano's due to the trans-axle, maybe even a twin turbo system, if money goes well with me. I am going to paint the car the new corvette z-06 yellow along with some white highlights. The rims are going to be white, along with the trim going around the car, the mirrors, the mesh inside the front grill, and the plastic piece in front of the windshield. the rest of the car is going to be yellow. i am going to be making some air scoops for some ventilation for my rear brakes. The milano's are equipped with inboard brakes. They unfortunately lack the consumption of air, especially when they are lowered like mine. I am going to have these scoops lead directly on top of the rotors. I am going to totally redo the interior, carpeting, seats, the basics that will bring out the new car look.