C.E.M and other stuff.

[JHertzman@domain.elided]

In AD7-525 Eric Storhok wrote about Alfa's involvement with injection,
including a reference to a modular engine (like the Cadillac 4-6-2) and a
reference to SAE paper 850290. Jack Hagerty said (in 527) he didn't quite
follow that part, so I chimed in with the very little I knew about C.E.M. or
could find from Catarsi's book on the Alfetta sedans, where it made its first
appearance. Got to dig deeper in the stacks, but a brief note came floating in
over the transom from Don Black.

Don is very busy and behind schedule packing for a move from Detroit to
Florida. It is a big job, when one has put down roots, to move self, spouse,
cats, airplane, vintage open-wheel race cars, and a lifetime accumulation of
other "stuff". He has lots of his records already packed, and isn't about to
unpack any to clarify points of ancient history, so for the moment his
comments are brief and strictly from memory.

Back when Don had good reason to value a degree of anonymity I occasionally
referred to him metaphorically as "the oldest rat in the Alfa barn" (a
compliment, in Carolina-speak) but he was really much more than that; he
really built much of the barn and ran a very large part of it right from the
beginning. There were other people coming and going in management, public
relations, sales, beancounting etcetera but when Alfa Romeo first set up a
company-owned US subsidiary thirty-six years ago Don left his prior company,
went to Portello for a period of familiarization in the company culture,
(including a stint on the assembly-line) and returned as Technical Director of
the new ARI with hands-on involvement in service, training, tech publications,
motorsports, and R & D generally. After DOT/EPA came on-line there was a great
deal of involvement in certifications and planning for future compliance with
new standards. After Fiat bought Alfa Don worked in Fiat R & D until his
departure from the company last year.

What Don told me was that there were two distinct generations of C.E.M.
projects at Alfa. The first was the modular system which I mentioned which was
use-tested in a small fleet of taxis in Milano and then extended to a group of
about a thousand Alfetta sedans which were sold to the general public. This
system was abandoned because (even though the rapid shifting from one pair of
cylinders to the other was imperceptible to the driver) it destroyed the cars'
drivelines. (He didn't say what part of the driveline, but I would guess the
giubos.)

Then there was a second, non-modular, system developed which was used in some
Alfa 90s and perhaps some late Alfettas. This system was developed in-house by
Aldo Bassi and Dario Radaelli, who had been the main player in the development
of the Spica logic section. This system was the subject of the SAE paper Eric
Storhok mentioned, which was written by Aldo Bossi and then rewritten and
translated by Don Black. The ECU was produced by one of the Italian aerospace
firms, Don thinks probably Alenia but he does not remember for sure without
checking packed papers. The rest of the logic was somewhat hydro-mechanical,
using the fuel pressure of the gasoline supply to move a piston which
positioned a stylus on a 3-D cam analogous to that in the Spica logic system,
which was Dario Radaelli's signature. 

So why do we have Bosch systems instead of a Bassi-Radaelli C.E.M. system?
Don feels that the system was meritorious in its concepts but, at the farthest
stage to which it had been developed, would have been too expensive and too
complex to mass-produce, and Finnmeccanica, the agency which had oversight
over Alfa Romeo, refused to invest in R & D, much less tooling, just for the
USA market.

Don suggests that Fred di Matteo, who has been developing some correspondence
with Dario Radaelli about Spica, may be able to get Radaelli's recollections
of the C.E.M. project.

Don also mentioned that there had been a back-up carburetor-based system
developed in parallel with the Spica system by Ricardo Engineering, a British
R & D firm, in case the Spica hadn't worked out. All of the documentation on
this, as well as all other US records prior to the 116, were thrown in the
Dumpster by an ARI administrator as useless space wasters, a not uncommon
attitude in business, which highlights how much we owe to people like Luigi
Fusi who hoarded documents which more sensible business-people would have
trashed. Fortunately Don, and probably a few other old-timers he could name,
preserved personal stashes of old documentation relating to their roles, from
which some useful history may be consolidated after the dust settles.

I'm still going through old copies of "Notizie", the old Alfa Romeo in-house
magazine, looking for C.E.M. stuff. Just noted a table which shows why the USA
market did not loom as large in Alfa (and now Fiat) eyes as we Americans might
think it should. It gives the numbers of Alfas, in thousands, exported to
France, West Germany, the United Kingdom, and USA respectively. 
1973: 12, 26, 3, 3.
1974: 11, 29, 5, 6.
1975: 18, 27, 11, 7.
1976: 22, 27, 6, 4.
1977: 24, 29, 10, 4.
1978: 27, 25, 15, 6.
1979: 25, 18, 16, 4.
1980: 26, 14, 8, 1.
1981: 24, 13, 6, 2.
1982: 33, 11, 9, 3.

That's it for now-

Cordially, 

John H. 
Raleigh, N.C

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End of alfa-digest V7 #532
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