Thanks, that went right over me
I owned two 73 spiders, both with Spica. I had no significant problems with either after years of use. My first car was a real beater and the Spica was the least of my problems. However, they are mechanical and they do wear out. It's getting harder and harder to get people who know how to rebuild them so I saw a lot of conversions to Webers. When I had my shop, I used to have an employee who worked for Alfa USA and knew the Spica inside and out. He would rebuild them completely in a few hours after he got the Spica out. After he retired, I used to get rebuilt ones from Alfa Ricambi for about a grand with exchange. I don't know what the situation is like now but you can call them. Alfa Ricambi also used to sell a Weber conversion but it was actually more expensive than a Spica rebuild. The previous mentioned "back off" solenoid is the only problem I saw. It's easy to replace IF you remove the unit -- so nobody does. I simply disconnected mine and never used it. The car works fine but if you coast downhill off the gas but in gear, the car can make a kind of backfire. Oh, one other thing. EVERYONE replaces the automatic choke with a simple pull knob. The automatic mechanical choke fails all the time and the car can be difficult to start. The mechanical choke is a kind of tube that expands a gas inside as it heats up that pushes a lever that changes the fuel mixture (still follow me?). The tube would leak the gas over time and fail. It was the number one problem expecially for cold weather cars. But, the mechanical choke solves that problem completely. The 73 Afla spider is my favorite. The interior is simple (rubber carpets) and the chrome bumpers are the best looking. The problem is that people back up into your car if you parallel park denting the nose or screwing up the bumpers. If you buy one, you will be mimicing my life. I had a Dino gt and a old Alfa at the same time for many years. And yes, I used to get around LA in them all the time with little trouble.
They are both great guys and at or near the top in their chosen fields. I don't have a picture of it here but in the shop where we work on the LSR car there is an Indy car hanging from the ceiling that Kinsler qualified at Indy. We used one of the motors in the previous LSR car.
Yes politics may have something to do with spica (yes I did work in fiat for awhile in torino) but it the main reason they ditched the spica I reckon is the MFI are horribly expensive to manufacture. You only see them on limited production high end street cars towards the 80’s like BMW M1 and the limited homologation 911 RS/SC both with kuglefischer which bosch owns now. In 84 the 911 were already running the advance bosch motronic with 3D mapping on the 3.2 while nearly all the other BMW ran with the K or Ljet Bosch. spica wasnt only offered in the US or north america...i caught you on that one. i think you are forgetting the montreal and the 33 stradale. Well I own all my alfa’s in Seattle and in this country it dosent get much wetter than that. Never ever had an issue with a wet cut off switch. Hell I use to wrap my dizzy in a plastic sack and hose down the motor for cleaning on a regular base while running so im not sure what problems you’ve encounter in mildly damp northcal. The later spica pump has a altitude compensator switch, whether it effective or not I don’t know. I use to take my gtv from sea level to Mt Baker ski lodge (yes Mt Baker is a real mountain where it has glaciers) without any problems so I didn’t even bother. With my IDF or DCOE weber cars you can really feel motor loading up rich to a point the plugs foul. I never taken a spica apart or a MFI bosch but I have driven them both. all i can say my spica cars were less problematic than the weber or dellorto cars. I do agree TA does resemble something out of a science project. On the Gtam they eliminated the logic system so cold starting is most likely a 2 man operation like many of the other period race cars. Anyhow maybe ive just got good luck with my 5 spica motors and didn’t encounter any ham-fisted American mechanics that worked on them. So i guess you still arent recommending a spica alfa? thanks for the entertainment hf
I do indeed recall his "visit to Indy"........great PR... It's all 'turning left in a circle', after all!!!
fwiw, my Spica equipped '74 GTV had been sitting unused for over 2 months in an ice-cold parking garage. She fired right up and ran fine last night at midnight. A couple weeks before that, she had sat for 3.5 years unused in storage. Popped in a new battery and after some cranking sprang to life and ran fine. Granted this car had a lot of resto-work done to her in the 90's and somewhat routine maintenance since then. But I believe the Spica to be sound, reliable system once it is sorted out. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
They had 2 4cyl pump bodies mounted end to end with a single governor as I recall. I only worked on one. Be a nice car with different injection.
Yes, you are correct! I had a friend (a total Alfa nut) who owned one. He did the work on it himself -- no one wanted to touch it!
the 2 housing look like the 1750 housing but are not identical... phasing is different too since its a 180 degree crank. one pump http://***.alfetta-gtv.ch/dat/rennsport/pics/rally/rally7.jpg fill in the *** with www to c pic
I met a fellow recently who has one of these. Ships it several states away for service, where the prior owner shipped it, several states for them as well. Hard to find good Alfa techs these days who will work on everything Alfa.
I cannot speak for you US guys but certainly there were not many 4 cil Alfa sold in Europe with Spica. Actually few here in Switzerland. The most i know of have been converted to carbs. As to cold starting, never a trouble with carbs. Mine sit in garage fron Nov till Apr (yes winter is quite nasty over here), and after crancking without plug for building up oil pressure, plusg in and starts without any trouble. With carbs you can forget the choke anyhow. Indeed carb is definitely sensitive to outside temp and altidude, at least on mine maybe cause engine is tuned, but hej where is all the fun otherwise ?? @ kiesan beautiful car. Congrats!
I bought a rebuilt Spica from Wes and had it tuned for high altitude (Colorado) and it worked perfectly for 4 years on my '72 GTV at which time I sold it and bought my Ferrari. He's the man. Set them up right and they'll work for a long time.
Oh yea. I forgot about the idle air bleed sleeve that crushed a rubber O ring to adjust idle speed. __________________ We fix 10% off services. After a couple of years, the hardened rubber was a rock, and you couldn't adjust the idle, so the gas station guy starts messing with the linkages. What a mess after a few trips to the gas station
The Spica in my '79 Alfa Spider has worked fine since new. I also had a '74.5 Alfetta GT with an older Spica that worked fine, too. The only problems I've had with the Spica weren't with the injection itself -- it was with the ultra-fine fuel filter that protects the Spica from contaminants in the fuel. Even water would clog that filter. (It continuously pumps fuel from the tank to the injection pump and then whatever isn't used back to the tank. A bit like a Lycoming aircraft engine. ) (There were two separate recalls on my Spider for the fuel delivery system.) Eventually, I moved the tank filter from under the car (above the rear axle) to inside the trunk, closer to the tank draw point, so I can change it more easily. But the word is that the most common cause for Spica failure is from being misadjusted. So you need someone who knows what they're doing to adjust it. The only other problems to watch for on an older Spider are weak (aged) engine mounts and rust. The belt fan is mounted on the water pump, on the engine block. The fan cowling (on cars so equipped) is mounted on the radiator. If the engine moves on the mount, the fan can impact the cowling, which rips up the fan, the cowling, the radiator, and the water pump. If you're not in hot climates, it's safest to remove the cowling. And Italian steel from the '70s is notorious for rust. I had some serious dealer installed undercoating plastered onto the bottom of the car when I bought it, back in '79, and it was one of the best investments I ever made. But carb'd or injected, an Alfa is a hoot to chuck around. It has a solid rear axle and a fairly flexy frame, so the car will judder, shudder, and leap in corners. I can practically turn the Alfa almost in place, dancing (petit jete ) the the rear wheels sideways. (Ever see the "little swans" pas de quarte from Swan Lake? ) Not the most sophisticated racer, but a lot of fun to toss. Also, while the Alfa had pretty good brakes for its day, when compared to modern machines, like the EVO, the Alfa's stopping distance are scary. (Of course, the EVO's rotors are as large as the Alfa's rims.) And since the Alfa is a featherweight, it gets pretty good mileage on the highway.
Every time it was serviced you were supposed to replace the O ring but even with a new one it was a joke.
I've had a Spica Alfa and a Weber Alfa. My 1976 Spica Spider was never right, I never found the right mechanic who could really make it run satisfactorily. So either it sucks or I didn't find the right guy. The car went away for other reasons, I don't miss it. As someone mentioned earlier some Alfisti swear by it, some swear at it. I was in the latter camp. The Weber converted '69 GTV was much better. Perhaps I just found the right Weber/mechanic combination. That car was a hoot. Green just like the GTV pictured above - same wheels and everything. Uro - What I would do is ask the person who will be working on the car when it has issues. Are they a Spica believer or a Weber master? If they are luke-warm about Spica then don't bring them a Spica car. I think you have to be a true believer to make Spica work right. If they aren't on-board 100% with the Spica mind set then it will never work right when they are done. The system works well only when everything is right and the mechanic must be willing to take the time and make the effort to make everything right. The same really applies to carbs except I think they might be a little more forgiving when off-tune.
+1 With any Italian car, find the shop to maintain it first, and *then* go looking for the car. Without proper maintenance, Italian cars can be a royal headache. But properly maintained, they'll run approximately forever (or until they rust away). For all of Alfa's horrific reputation in the '80s, I used Alfas as my daily drivers for ten years ('79 to '89), with few problems. By keeping to the maintenance schedule religiously. (It was only when Fiat ruined the Alfa shop network in the US that I had to shift to Japanese for the daily "beater".) And besides: a good Alfa mechanic might be the best person to point you to a good Alfa for sale in the area.
I worked on many geman f/i syestems, and pacific fuel injection was my neighbor for 20 years. The early systems were good for their day, as was spica but are a joke compared to the electronic systems in use today. old vs new technology
