help for Colorado Spider owner

["Mastro Alfa Romeo/Subaru/MRT" <mastro@domain.elided>]

I just bought the 1986 Graduate with 21,000 (believable) miles.  The car was
shipped from the East coast to Colorado at 8,700 feet above sea level.  The
car is presently stripped for painting and I can't yet put it on the road.  I
replaced the head gasket, fuel filter, lambda sensor, rotor, distributor cap,
and battery.  It came with aftermarket (autolite) spark plug wires which are
still on it.  The VVT unit was missing and I replaced it.  It carried an IAP
header without cat unit and I replaced with stock setup.  I retimed the
camshafts and reshimmed the valves - they're spot on.

The car starts extremely hard cold and only marginally better warm.  It runs
horribly rough up to 2500 rpm or so and won't begin to idle below 1500 rpm
without stalling.  The higher the rpm the smoother the engine runs (albeit
stationary in my garage).  I pulled the auxilliary air device which opened
about halfway in the freezer and closed completely after being warmed with a
heat gun - I got voltage across the connector terminals while spinning the
starter.   I checked the cold start valve connector and got continuity across
the terminals after the engine was warmed up (haven't checked the connector
cold yet).  I disconnected the altitude compensator and resistance checked
the terminals getting the supposedly correct values.  I did notice that the
centerline of the rotor did not line up to the reference mark on the
distributor body (I removed the distributor only to find a strange
button-head bolt clamping the distributor to the mounting plate - totally
nonadjustable) so I rolled the mounting plate as far as the slotted hole
would allow - still off  clockwise to the mark by a couple of degrees.  I
haven't attempted adjusting idle speed or anything else as this is my first
experience with a Bosch car (my other Alfa is a 1959 Giulietta) and I don't
know what I'm doing.  I do have a shop manual but it appears that some
specialized equipment is necessary.  Do you have any suggestions?  I live 50
miles from the closest Alfa- competent mechanic and he's perpetually
overbooked even assuming I could get in to him.  Thanks in advance for any
help.

Ed Townsend

Please respond to Ed Directly if you have good ideas for him.... maybe we can
get him back on the road!
His e-mail is mailto:petown@domain.elided


Bill
Mastro Motors Inc. 800.683.2532
Subaru, MRT Performance parts for WRX
http://mastrosubaru.com
http://mastrowrx.com
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