ALFAGTV6.COM

[joey]

Wow!!Barry, some Aussie dude wants to fertilize our caboose, and do both of us at the same time! Must be a strangely endowed man!! Geez, us Alfa guys are known to be sexually agressive (!!!) but Joey, not THIS much!!! (I thought us Greeks had a bad reputation, but now I'm relieved!). You is da King!!
Seriously,Joey, I never advocated the Alfa dragster concept. All I'm saying is just the opposite, that Alfas aren't cut out for this sport!

Jim K.

LOL, that was friggen great, you def. have a way with words jim, u should write a book sometime.


yes, i was a bit harsh on ya mate, but i see your reasoning, and definately agree... i had the thought you were on bazzas side on ripping stuff out and replacing it with foreign objects where they dont belong.. ( yeah, being greek i thought you'ld consider this prospect, my bad )

so obviously bazza can sleep on the couch for that one vile thought.. pfft... alfa with a bimmer engine...

i fear you can never regain my trust, i thought i knew you !

ps: yes, i'm da man.

[Zamani]

JimK,

Sorry, but no $$. Hehe trying to buy a home here. Killer prices here in the San Francisco area. Each ticket from SFO to Munich cost $900+. Shites! And I have 2 extra peepzzz to carry (the son and the wife). Maybe in the August or later, would really like to join you guys.

BTW, is it really fair to compare a Q4 24V head to a ///M head? The Q4 head is for a 500cc cylinder, while the S14 2.5L M3 head is for a 625cc head. Besides that's an ///M head. The Q4 head should be compared to a garden variety 328i's head. I'm probably missing something here though.....



Mats,

US M3s are basically bored out 328i engines (at least the 3.0L model) with single VANOS, no trick intakes or exhaust. 240 bhp. But this one is gutted, headers, chip, intake, <add your mods here>. Torquey motors, but certainly nothing compared to the Euro M3 & M3 EVO motors. On the track, an average driver won't benefit much even with an euro M3 3.0L engine since it's probably a peakier engine.

The same car driven by a different driver is about 4 secs. quicker than my car. However, a 105 GTV 2L (motronic pistons, shaved heads, euro cams, webers) is just as quick as that M3 with the "slow" driver on all tracks.

So like Jim said, it's what you can do with your car, not what your car can do for you.

But we will see, the J&E and C&B are in da house now. So will try to crush all of them hehehe (but will probably be smoked by one sickeningly fast 60's Sprint GT again grrrrrr).

[Jim K]

Hahah, Joey this was an interesting 2-day party we had here and all that fun with NO beer!!!! I thought we all came alive there for awhile! We must do it again from time to time! You should see the look on my wife's face when I told her: "Some guy from Au wants to get in my pants!!!!! ".Man, it was worth it!!
There's some sick dude you'd like to meet here and probably...get intimate with , having stuffed the whole Scooby engine AND drivetain in a 75!! I haven't seen it myself though.

Barry, the Sud solution sucks compared to Vega. One turn was 0.001" and it could not change by itself! Besides, cam wear was a factor in modified Suds because of the smaller lobe surface.

One of these days Mats...one of these days!
Jim K.

[Jim K]

You have a point there Z, but we are seeing the way AR thinks, over and over again. I could never swallow the fact that while the 24v engine was available in 1992, the SZ continued until '94 with the 12v....stupidity in splendor!!! The company limited production flagship with 207hp! In 1992 even, the Proteo was presented in Geneva, with 3liter 24v, 256hp 4wd AND 4ws!! This was a styling exercise, almost an SZ lookalike and the SZ, already in production, could benefit right away from this engine and drivetrain!!!But nooooo, AR was only interested in showing what they could do!
Jm K.

[Zamani]

JimK,

I fully agree with you. Totally stupid in my opinion (AR that is hehe).

1996, the 2nd Top of the line model, the 164 Q, had a....flap AFM? BMW ditched it way back in 1992 with the E36 320i (some 318i still had it).

I think they only STARTED getting serious with the revised 155, 145,146s.

I hope to see more, and in fact we are. The new JTS will have a 2.2 with 185 bhp, slightly down on power to a H22A accord, but still ok, the E46 BMW 322i only has 170 bhp. Besides the JTS is not meant to be as peaky as the VTEC. More driveable I hope.

[Jim K]

Zamani,
The 164Q4 had a 'Hot-film' sensor afm, better than a Hot-wire one and light years ahead of the flap job. It measures air mass directly, instead of volume, eliminating corrections needed for altitude,pressure etc. This Motronic M3.7 version is the best so far, as it has sequential injection and individual cylinder advance curve correction, along with the direct fire ignition which is also present in the other 24v engine. It uses two O2 sensors, one for each bank of cylinders.
Re. the new AR models, I'll wait until somebody rides a dyno with one, I've seen too much to be confident!
Jim K.

[Greg Gordon]

I am in awe of the fact that someone came up with something good to say about the Chevy Vega motor. Ok, so perhaps you won't spend much time adjusting the valves if you spent the big bucks on the Cosworth head. However you will loose the time rebuilding the bottom end every 30,000 miles.

I remember when those worthless Vegas came out. We had all Fiats and Renaults and my mother insisted that my dad by a "regular American car with air conditioning". So it was off the the Chevy and Ford Dealers.

The Vega was brand new in the showroom and as my father looked at it he became very concerned with various factors of the engine's design. The sales staff bascially made fun of my dad saying since he was not an engineer by trade he didn't know what he was talking about. Well, soon everyone knew the truth. The Vega engine has gone down in history as G.M.'s worst engine in modern history.

For what it's worth, we ended up buying a brand new red Pinto station wagon (the wagons turned out to be immune to the famous exploding problem) with a stick shift and a German built 2.0. It was a decent car but I hated it. The Renault 16 it replaces was 10 times the car the Pinto was. At least it had A/C and my mom liked it. My dad made up for it by importing all the parts and building his own Renault 5 Alpine, now that was a cool car!

So what does this have to do with a Lexus Motor in an Alfa? Well, the Vega is a decent car, it's the motor that's junk. I say put the Lexus motor into a Vega.

[Jim K]

Greg, it sure is the head that made the difference and if GM would fork some more $$ out to Cossie, the rest of the engine would be great too. I agree reliability wasn't hot, hence the short life of the otherwise totally uninteresting car. Coming to think of it, I wish AR had asked Cos. for a head also!
Jim K.

[Zamani]

Yeah, the Q4 does, but the Q and Super doesn't. The Q4 is Fantastic stuff, there are only 2 Q4s here in CA

BTW, isn't hot-film used in many VAG cars (an even Alfa?).

[Mats]

Yeah, and they all die if you use a cotton/sponge-filter with oil...

[Barry]

I go to bed and wake up to the most active and interesting threads on this forum for years!!!This is what this forum is all about....

Greg,never saw the vega up close and did not know it was so unreliable.Renaults,now were talking.Had a 1300 Gordini with 5 speed box when all the other hot cars of the day (Datsun sss ,Cortina Lotus ,ALFA berlina /giulia,etc were on the scene as well.Excellent fun car..The Alfa`s were the only real contenders..
Although that damn Lotus Cortina was indecently quick as well..

Getting back to head development etc..I believe when doing a job, do it right and to the best of your abilities.Its sad that Alfa allowed the bean counters to dictate the final product for the masses..Sometimes taking a shortcut costs you dearly in the long run and I think this is what were seeing from Alfa today.I also believe that they will always be playing catchup to a lot of other manufacturers for a long time..

What they need to do is put cars like the Brera(in original form) etc. into production on the same level as the M3.There is a market out there.Im closely involved with Alfa S.A. and the way these guys analyze market forces and make decisions is scary-no wonder they lag behind.

And now this Holden engine??????Oh man, talk of farming backwards....(perhaps Im condemning the engine prematurely,but its not an Alfa engine....)

Anyone for a biimmmer engine in thier Alfa??

[joey]

I go to bed and wake up to the most active and interesting threads on this forum for years!!!This is what this forum is all about....


And now this Holden engine??????Oh man, talk of farming backwards....(perhaps Im condemning the engine prematurely,but its not an Alfa engine....)

Anyone for a biimmmer engine in thier Alfa??

yeah bazza, i dont know...

for you it must be different since you worked with late model alfas, but for me A.L.F.A ceased to exist ever since FIAT officially took over.

Which seems about right, because these days seem to be all about modular chassis and modular engines, so its not surprising at all that alfa should consider the same engine that will make it into saab and others.

Still, it is a concern. Holden can't make v6s. Its interesting, but even the Aussie brigade here slammed the new holden v6. Strange how a wholly new and technically endowed engine can behave so much like the old pusher.

Sure, for many, sticking TT onto it would erase any such frivolous concerns, as to how it revs, where it makes power, and how it sounds. But i dont think this should be the case at all for alfa.

But to their credit, thats all the average punter (with the money) is concerned about. The exterior aesthetic (which is still a class leader IMO), then after that, pure performance specs derived from teh track, then the all important kw(hp) numbers. Thats it.

They understand their market now, they have to have, other wise they would have been insolvent a long time ago.

Having said all that garbage, and on the topic of non-alfa engines, i hope the brera cops the maser/ferrari v8. At least its italian, and resembles the italian sporting philosophy.

cheers

ps: cliff notes: hope brera does not cop the holden v6, but even if it does, its hardly a fall from grace.

[Zamani]

Hold on guys, give the fecking engine a chance will ya, even if it was made in the land of roos and koalas. . Alfa still has the heads.

Have some faith, the old Alfa engines were kinda long in the tooth. Seriously, it's 2005, the Alfa V6 still had no VVT?

[SamW]

Thanks Zamani, I thought I had woken up to the land of the BMW Cosworth forum... Think about it, in '81, the 5.0 (4.9) mustang barely made more horses, the chevt 305 was crap, and the 2.8 Z car was down 20 horses, I think BMW was pushing 320's here, and don't forget, the Alfa has a soul, very few cars even today can claim that, if they did we would all be buying Honda's that have 10 times as many aftermarket suppliers than we (alfa folks) have total suppliers...

[Don]

I think it's pretty funny to read this thread containing thoughts about Cosworth Vegas. Greg, you're right and wrong about Vegas. The engines were crap (thanks Ed Cole). The car itself while not bad for it's day, still had problems. The unibody broke away halfway thru the certification testing and the reason you don't see them anymore is because they all rusted away!!! For some reason I owned two of them. I look back fondly at them but realise they were crap. The cosworths were much much better but the EPA still managed to strangle those engines. Performance wise, the Cosworth was a definite step up for its' time but is worse than some of the slowest economy cars today.

Just had to chime in about the Vegas!