Re:The Great Tea Tray Debate Rages On

["Ben Bishop" <la_strega_nera@domain.elided>]

George, as far as i can tell from the photo's of South African GTV6 3l that 
i have seen, the bonnet pressing was different, with a larger bonnet bulge 
with a Whacking great naca duct in the front, but no tea tray. Its pretty 
obvious that the GTV6 was too be injected from the word go, especially when 
you consider the prototype as mentioned by John H. (Another, slightly 
related thing, i have seen a photo of the GTV6 showcar's interior that seem 
to have a massive trans tunnel...the Alfa Sei's ZF 5 speed perhaps??)
But to use that 'pop hole' as a cold air feed doesn't make sense..case in 
point, the Montreal's Naca duct is purely cosmetic (unless you own one of 
the Autodelta tweaked cars). Setting up a system to feed air straight down 
through a filter and then into the carbs would take up even more underbonnet 
space.
Could the use of no tea tray on the later 75s be attributed to the upgrade 
in plenum clamping??

Ben Bishop
'77 GTV 'la Strega Nera'
'66 GT Veloce project car (GTA rep???)
V6 Coffee table project


> I think that the poster who said that the GTV-6 was originally >supposed to
> have carbs (like the V-6 sedan which preceded it) hit the nail >squarely on
> the head. Downdraft carbs would need a hood inlet for cold air so the 
> >GTV-6
> bonnet was designed to accept an air scoop. Then, after the tooling >for 
> the
> new bonnet was already in place, the decision was made to go with Bosch
> injection instead. After all, the 3-liter GTV-6, made for the South 
> >African
> market, did indeed, have downdraft carbs, and the tea-tray WAS >replaced by 
> a
> cold-air scoop. Tooling to stamp-out sheet metal for automobile >production
> is expensive, too expensive to replace the bonnet dies after they had >been
> made when a simple plastic part could be fabricated very cheaply to >fill 
> the
> hole. After all, we are talking about a car who's entire 5-year >production
> run was only a few in excess of 22,000 units.
>
>
> - -- George Graves
> Editor-in-Chief
> "Overheard Cams" Magazine
> Alfa Romeo Association of Northern California
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