by John Keppelman

The Scorpion is a real bitsa, someone's concept ill realized from the parts bins of other cars and carelessly assembled. The car has the good fortune of having been designed by Pinninfarina so that determined owners devote themselves far beyond its present value to further its development if only just to make it perform as well as its sibling the X/19 or the rest of the Beta range.

Apart from its lack of power whose remedies are by now successful and numerous (ditto the brakes). my big concern was that it wouldn't turn in with any brite, felt vague in the steering and as though it wanted to plow through a fast corner. I voiced my complaint to John Stuckey who suggested it might have a bump steer problem in the front.

The obvious way to check was to remove the front springs, reassemble and replace the struts and raise and lower the car from droop to bump checking, the toe. The range was quite extreme: 5/8" on each wheel so that the two were toed out 1 -1/4" in the bump position. The result is that both front wheels turn away from the direction the car is steered to the extent that the car leans in the corner. Perhaps this arrangement was planned to prevent this mid-engine car from oversteering under any condition, but it makes for unresponsive steering.

Decreasing this reverse steer required equalizing the length of the tie rod throughout suspension travel either by raising the steering rack or bending the steering arms on the hubs downward. The rack is captured in a tight triangular space making a move up the firewall impractical. With some dickering, I discovered that the bump steer could be set to l/8" overall by bending each steering arm down 11/16". This calls for removing the hubs and withdrawing the bearings prior to heating. Care should be taken in bending to heat the arms sufficiently on the compression side of the trend to prevent cracking and to heat treat the hub after bending. I put mine in a dying shop stove wood fire overnight to cool gradually. A good wrap in burlap right after heating will do as well.

The result is a car which turns in sharply, has no tendency to plow, and provides no unwanted surprises on lumpy road surfaces. I should add that subsequent to making the above change on my lowered ( 1" ) car, I made the additional modifications John Stuckey describes in this issue of the Lanciana. including also a change to Beta 14" wheels and contemporary performance tires which have tightened up the handling even further.