Re: To SPICA or not - or - ugly, ungainly monstrosity?

["Paul Irvine" <pi@xxxxxxx>]

More from Biba on SPICA V7#352:

>Shucks, I'd hoped there would be a little more enthusiasm over this
>subject . While I didn't originate the question, "To SPICA or not", I
>personally think it's considerably more interesting than block heaters.

How can I argue against that point? I'm not even Swedish.

>I really should check my facts here, but did Alfa ever use the Spica
>unit on 4-cylinder, gasoline engines in Europe? It's my belief they
>didn't. If that being the case and if they're such wonderful units, why
>didn't they? Cost? Perhaps.

I'd guess cost was one major reason. Webers were off the shelf common items
used in many cars and familiar to all auto mechanics. There were no pressing
or impending pollution control laws forcing them to adopt SPICA for Euro
models. When SPICA came here in '69 I was 15 and we thought it was cool as
hell.

What do you find under the hood of a European Montreal?

>My daily driver (actually my only driver at
>the moment) is a '75 Alfetta GT. I bought it used in '78 with 13,000
>miles on it. It was my first Alfa and most everyone I talked to
>suggested I go to Dave Vegher's shop. Most of the trouble I experienced
>stemmed from the Spica.

I can't give you any valid numbers but it's my belief that just about every
single Alfa imported here to the States from '69 to '81 was SPICA equipped.
I personally have driven about half a million miles behind the wheel of
SPICA equipped Alfas. In your case - you simply had a bad pump. Something
may have happened to it somewhere along the line, maybe before you bought
it. It could have been a defective part - whatever. The point is, your case
is not the norm. Just about all the rest of us had pumps that soldiered on
for close to 300k or more miles before dying the inevitable death.

Alfa was ahead of the game when it introduced SPICA. All cars were going to
eventually have to go to fuel injection (here in the US). I once bought a
used '81 Honda Accord - maybe the LAST car ever sold in California that
still had a carburetor.

Now - if you ever want to see an "ugly, ungainly monstrosity" - this thing
had no fewer than 32 vacuum lines hooked up to it! It was sick! I remember
thinking "Gawd, can't they just shoot it and put it out of its misery"? It
was like a poor sick old dog that you loved, all beat up and deformed. I
could go on....

Biba, you wouldn't have wanted your Webers to have ever ended up looking
like that would you?

>The Alfetta now has the European inlet manifold and air cleaner, Bosch
>distributor, European exhaust, lowered front end, etc. In my opinion, it
>looks the way an engine bay of that vintage should look - visually
>exciting in it's elegant simplicity.

I'm sure it does.

I'm almost finished polishing the SPICA intake manifold and throttles for my
'72 Spider project. Believe me, it's visually exciting also. So is the shiny
new SPICA pump that came from Wes Ingram's shop that's sitting on the bench.

Ugly? - Ungainly? - Monstrosity?.... Nope, don't see any of that anywhere
around.

Happy New Year everyone

Paul Irvine  - Antioch CA
72 Spider - 79 Sprint Veloce - 82 GTV6
- ---------------------------------------------
Project Alfa - http://www.crl.com/~pi/project
E-Mail - mailto:pi@domain.elided

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