mods, standards, and emissions...

[Eric Storhok <alfa@domain.elided>]

The only thing I have to say about modifying your Alfa is to know what you 
really want and how you are going to use it.  If the car is just a daily 
driver, I would not modify it.  Most people complain about how much most 
Alfa lean- well, they still handle well when doing it, why are you 
worried.  Or that it does not have  enough power- which has merit, but you 
have to be careful that the car is not undriveable.  Driving is the point 
of owning the car.  My personal experience- even though we bought our '73 
specifically to autocross and track, I found out how nice of a driver the 
car is without any changes.  So now I have a second GTV to make into a 
vintage race car and autocross car.  In a few years, our gold GT will be 
restored, and driven a lot more- what a wonderful car to drive.

Anyway, the point is to know what you are going to do with the car before 
changing anything.  Too many people throw changes at Alfas then hate them, 
bad mouth the marque, and loose interest...

Standards/ modules- there are a BUNCH of controllers out there, none of 
which are really plug and play.  Most of them, with proper hardware, will 
easily pass emissions if you have a catalyst (and there are some high flow 
models for that- check AlfaCentro for a V6 exhaust that they used dual high 
flow cats on).  They can be tricky, or poorly put together.  If you need 
help, feel free to write, I try to keep up on as many as I can, but the 
basics are all the same- fuel, air, spark.

Finally, that 45 year thing in California- if I'm not mistaken, that is 
unconstitutional- it's a retroactive law.  What is that latin term for 
that??  This one is absolute BS, even though a car prior to 68 may put out 
1000 time more emissions than the state of the art PZEV vehicle for sale in 
California, I'm reasonably sure that there are so few of these cars 
actually contributing to the problem that they should not be attacked.  30 
years is reasonable.  This after ranting about passing the current 
standard.  Shows that its more about politics than science.

One final thing- after 5 years of struggle with my local cable company, I 
finally have Speed Channel!!!!!  Yea, I know, NASCAR TV, but starting in 
November, I get to see the 156's defend their ETCC championship!!!!

Eric Storhok
Ann Arbor, MI



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