SPICA for some reason...

[Eric Storhok <alfa@domain.elided>]

I think Andrew got it mostly right, in that Alfa took the emission laws far 
more serious than most companies.

The rules were introduced for the '68 MY, but Alfa did not officially 
import any cars then.  They actually came back in '69 with SPICA.  Which, I 
would suspect, passed the '68 standard with some ease.

As pointed out, probably Ferrari didn't worry about it so much, for one 
thing, its quite unlikely that a Ferrari would actually be tested by CARB 
(early years) or EPA (after '72).  But it wasn't only Ferrari, when did the 
muscle car era really end?  '72.  After that, power outputs dropped rather 
drastically as band-aids were applied to cars (EGR, odd stromberg carbs, 
very funny running Holly carbs...).  I'm sure all of you who lived in the 
'70's remember how performance went to practically 0, and 10 second 0-60 
was quite good- I think the Ferraris were in the mid 8's at the time.

The SPICA was not a band aid at all.  It was a state of the art way (at the 
time) to deliver repeatable and consistent a/f control- which is key to 
decent emissions.  While not quite up to full European dual carb spec, the 
SPICA was pretty darn good when you compare to other, "legal" cars.  Of 
course, this took a backward step when catalysts were introduced in '75, 
but again, it was not as big a backward step as most other cars.

At this point, this is Alfa taking the law seriously, Ferrari not worrying, 
and most other companies being cheap.

Some interesting, much higher volume solutions at the time- feedback 
carburetors, Ford was working with these for YEARS...ok....  CVCC- with 
this, Honda PASSED the late 70s standards without catalysts!  Not terribly 
powerful, but cheap enough to sell a lot of small cars at a profit.  Some 
of the higher end names experimented with EFI, but it was not easy, as 
state of the art computers were expensive and not durable in all the 
conditions a car really sees.

Most people look at the '70s as a dark period.  While I was not really part 
of the era as an engineer (I started in '91), I see it as the beginning of 
some rather creative fuel, air, and spark control that still has not 
stopped.  Here's an interesting thought- for those of you who remember 
carburetors- for your medium tune car- how hard was it to start?  You had 
to know the proper number of pumps for the temp to start it.  Thanks to the 
laws, your car starts very easily.  Think of how much less interaction your 
car needs to keep running well...

Ok, for 90% of the cars out there, the last line is a good thing.  But 
there are 10% of those old cars that interaction is a good thing...

Eric Storhok
Ann Arbor, MI



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