Page 116 - Wayne Carini's Guide to Affordable Classics

The Knowledge
dAlfa Spiders don’t have tech tips; they have lore. Some of the myths and legends you just have to learn on your own, but we’ll cover some of the important parts here.
dBy the mid-1970s, western European automakers including Alfa Romeo were getting a lot of steel from eastern Europe. The composition of this steel was known to be a bit variable, and it was prone to rust. Not cute patina surface rust like you see on a classic American pickup truck but real kick-a-hole-in-the-sill rust. If you’re going to buy any Alfa from this period, you need to get it inspected for rust. The box sections of the door sills have several layers, and they can rust from the inside out. Also check floor pans, trunk area, and wheel wells.
dThe Alfa engine is a marvel of design. The crankcase has a top section that is essentially a box and a bottom section where the oil and crankshaft live. The cylinder sleeves are set into four holes in the bottom of the box with O-rings. The rest of the box is full of coolant, and the head goes on top. The head is located on the big head studs, but the final location of the head gasket is accomplished with little roll pins that fit in the oil galleys. It’s easy to shove these down into the block, and that’s a problem if it happens. Alfas are finicky about their head gasket seals, and the evidence that a gasket is failing is little drops of oil floating to the top of the radiator. Open the cap and if it looks like a milkshake in there, you’ve got trouble.
dOne really cool thing you can do is adjust the cam timing at home. Pop the valve cover off and at the front of the engine the cam gears are oriented on the cams by a little bolt that fits through holes in the end of the cam and in the gear. Take out that bolt and you can turn the cam ever so slightly and line a different cam hole
up to a different hole on the gear. This allows minute adjustment of cam timing, which is kind of amazing on a production car. Check the Alfa performance manuals for exact procedures, but you can tune your cams for high- end power or low-end torque. Double-check your work, though. If you go too far, you can bend your valves and that’s an expensive repair. Note that later spiders have a variable cam timing setup as an emissions measure.
dThere are some very common suspension tuning modifications that greatly benefit the Alfa Spider. First, there are large bushings in the rear trailing arms. Most of these have hardened and withered over time, and a new set of poly bushings goes a long way to tighten up the rear end. At the front, adjustable upper control arms allow you to set negative camber, which is not possible with the stock control arms.
dOne part that fails on a Spica system is the Thermostatic Actuator. This is akin to an automatic choke, and it can be replaced with a device called a Sure Start, which operates like a manual choke. They’re easy to install; you just have to find one.
Although this cutaway depicts an earlier Duetto, the primary components and basic layout remained the same in the later Spiders.
114Wayne CariniAffordable Classics