Description:

1990 LOLA-ALFA ROMEO T90 IndyCar

Chassis number: 26B 

ALFA ROMEO 8V engine number: AR INDY * 001* 

The monocoque of the Lola T90 is a mixed type, made of composite material with a lower section completed by aluminum-coated honeycomb panels and the upper part in molded carbon fiber to form the body profile.

Engine: Alfa Romeo V8 at 90° – 2,700 cc – Turbo –700 CV at 12,000 rpm

Alfa Romeo Engine History: From the workshop to the track

When Alfa Romeo decided to launch the American program as an engine supplier, since it belonged to the same industrial group as Ferrari, it commissioned the technical director Claudio Lombardi to update and optimize the Ferrari V8 engine, which was already ready, but without development and testing. The ball passed to the head of the engine department, Engineer Pino d'Agostino, who tells us about the development phases of that engine. "The Ferrari-origin engine was conceived with the exhaust in the center and the intake on the sides of the two banks, also as a result of the experience gained previously in Formula 1. However, in the meantime the technical regulations of the F. Indy had been updated with the introduction of the pop-off valve that regulates the supply pressure, so maintaining that configuration would have forced us to have two pop-off valves for boost management which would have been very difficult to make work in sync. So we redesigned the cylinder heads to bring the intake to the center and the exhaust to the sides, so we could only use one pop-off." 

"The other difficulty we faced was given by the methanol fuel – continues D'Agostino -, a type of fuel on which none of us had experience. The problem was that, when the settings were taken to extremes in search of performance, cooling problems were created that caused suboptimal combustion: in practice, a mixture richer in methanol evaporated and created a lot of blow-by that caused an abnormal increase in pressure in the engine. So we built a crankcase with integral liners, not without some difficulty because there was a certain problem of coupling between the liner and the piston, caused precisely by the use of methanol. To overcome this, we worked on the injection system, which was going quite well, but we were forced to study different types of pistons. Fortunately, since Cosworth supplied many teams and sold their pistons directly to Indianapolis, we decided to buy them and the engine immediately improved in terms of functionality and performance, because these pistons had a design developed specifically to work optimally with the characteristics of methanol. And the improvements were immediately seen. On the other hand, however, these pistons proved to be rather delicate in terms of reliability when we tried to increase performance. The pistons in question, in fact, were designed for use by private teams, which obviously did not exasperate the search for performance by favoring reliability, unlike what was needed by a factory team like ours. In fact, in the first race faced with the engine equipped with these pistons, Danny Sullivan was forced to retire precisely because of the failure of one of these details".

 Three-year program

The Alfa Romeo V8 engine was used for the first time in 1989 by Alex Morales Motorsports, a team with rather limited means, mounted on a March 89 CE chassis with Roberto Guerrero at the wheel. The engine, however, was not ready for the start of the season and the team lost the first four races, including the Indianapolis 500 that year, debuting on the Detroit street circuit where Guerrero finished eighth. After that, the team achieved mixed results for the rest of the season, recording only one more points finish. For 1990, Alfa Romeo signed an agreement with the Patrick Racing team managed by Chip Ganassi, fresh winner of the Indianapolis 500, keeping Guerrero as driver and hiring Al Unser for a second car to be fielded in the Indianapolis and Michigan races. After the first races, the team decided to replace the March chassis with the Lola T90/00 chassis, which was considered more competitive. The results, in fact, were slightly better, with Guerrero obtaining a fifth place in Toronto but, due to the problems previously illustrated by Engineer d'Agostino, in the end the engine still proved to be uncompetitive on most circuits and Guerrero finished only 16th in the standings.

In 1991, Danny Sullivan was hired as the program's lead pilot, while Guerrero was moved to a part-time program. Sullivan, at the wheel of a Lola T9100 Alfa Romeo V8, obtained several finishes in the top 10, with 4th place at Surfers Paradise as his best result. At the end of the year, the Alfa Romeo company decided to abandon the F. Indy program to focus on sports programs in Europe. In fact, at the end of the development described above, the 2,648 cc (89x53.20 mm) 90° turbocharged V8, with a light alloy block and heads and double overhead camshaft timing with gear control and 4 valves per cylinder, came to deliver about 700 hp at 12,000 rpm.

The monocoque chassis of the Lola T90 is a mixed type, made of composite material with a lower section completed by aluminum-coated honeycomb panels and the upper part in molded carbon fiber to form the body profile.

For Sale

The Lola-Alfa Romeo T90 #26B that we offer for sale is owned by an Italian collector. It is preserved in optimal condition, as you can appreciate from the pictures, and complete with some spares parts to build a second engine.

The engine in the car has been stationary for several years and should therefore be opened up and checked before use.

The car is based in Italy. 

Asking price for the car and spares available: 150.000 Euros

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