Spider headers/ AR Ricambi

[AlfaNeely@domain.elided]

    When building my 84 spider race car a few years ago, I bought an IAP header.  I returned it as the front of each header tube shrouded the front edge of each exhaust port about 1/8 inch.  IAP's comment was that they were good enough for street headers....  The Centerline header I saw at Convention had the same problem.  I am not sure what Vick Auto offers for headers.
    I bought the Shankle / AR Ricambi header which has larger tubes and fits nicely except it is almost impossible to get a wrench on the front nuts for each port to tighten them.  That may be why the IAP header tubes are offset on the ports.
    I am pleased with the Shankle header, so it should be worth the wait.  If you want high tech headers, check out Paul Spruell or Sperry or Jack Beck.  Jack can build you some super trick anti reversion headers.
    For a street car, the 74 and earlier and the late model Motronic exhaust manifolds are quite adequate.  They flow well and are quieter than tube headers.  Jack Beck offers to port out the early cast iron headers if you want to get really trick.  After that, have the headers and the head pipes HPC or Jet Hot coated for lower under hood temperatures.
Ciao,
Russ Neely
Oklahoma City



In a message dated Thu, 01 Aug 2002 06:53:42 +0000, owner-alfa-digest@domain.elided writes:

> Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 21:59:49 -0700
> From: "P Hood" <phood56@domain.elided>
> Subject: Spider headers/ AR Ricambi
> 
> Honorable Adherents to the Secret Society of the Cross and Serpent;When I
> did the valve job on my '78 Spider, I lost the smog pump, the cat, and
> some associated equipment, so I thought the easiest way around the
> problem would be to order a header from IAP, which I did, and, after
> having installed it, found the fit to be grossly inadequate- the thing
> hit the underside of the car so hard it would be impossible to assemble
> anything downstream from it. SO, I returned it to them... no worries, and
> ordered one from AR Ricambi. This item was backordered until late June.
> It's now August, and they've not yet shipped it, and calls to their
> number yield woeful tales of backlogs and misfilled orders from the
> subcontracter who is (ostensibly) making the header for Ricambi.   My
> question: (FINALLY)...should I continue to bide my time, waiting ever so
> patiently for Ricambi to finally ship one of these things to my address,
> or should I cancel the unit, and put on a pre-cat stock Spider exhaust
> manifold(without the air inlet ports), which I understand are pretty
> good, as stock units go? I'm not trying to build a race car or anything,
> but we did do a stage 1 valve treatment, so I'd like to pick up every
> pony I paid for.  Anyone with pertinent experiences, please lend me your
> expertise. I'm getting tired of driving around with a faked-up, temporary
> exhaust on my car. The old girl deserves better!Postscript- I've had to
> muck about quite a lot of late with my other, non-Alfa rolling stock, and
> I find myself occaisionally at the garage door in the wee hours, just
> taking in the flowing lines of this Italian lovely.       
> Kindest
> Regards,         Patrick Hood, NWARC
--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided