By Frank Maldari

I promised my wife, Michele, that I wouldn’t use clichés to describe the tech session we held on June 14th, but first a little background. After acquiring my ‘72 GTV a few years ago, the previous owner advised rebuilding the Spica fuel injection pump. Thinking I had enough skills to do the removal, installation, and tuning, I extracted the pump and sent it to Wes Ingram for a complete rebuild. After getting the pump back, installing it, and tuning it with the help of Wes’s manual, I was able to bring the car’s performance up to where I felt it should be. Wes’s book was invaluable for this job, and I recommend it to anyone who is contemplating a rebuild or who just wants to make sure his or her Spica system is tuned correctly. Other resources are the Spica threads on the Alfa Bulletin Board and the Oregon chapter’s notes on Spica tune-up procedures.

When Alfa Romeo introduced Spica fuel injection on US cars, it was considered a mystery and the belief, at the time, was that it was unreliable and beyond the understanding of the average enthusiast. Wes Ingram changed this perception, and through his book and rebuild service has kept many cars from being converted to Weber carburetors. The knowledge base for the Spica fuel injection system is better than it has ever been. I would have to say that everyone at the session had unique knowledge of the system that, when combined, proved to be beneficial to everyone who attended.

We could have planned the tech session back in April or May, when Alfa owners are just getting their cars on the road, but we felt that the probability of a cold, wet weekend was just too high. Besides, it’s hard to get the engine up to operating temperature (185 deg F) when the temp outside is 40 deg F. So we scheduled the event for mid-June, looking forward to those nice, warm, dry weekends with just the hint of a breeze.

As it turned out, we missed that by one day. However, being the New Englanders that we are, up went the tarp and to work we went. Fortunately, plenty of food and drink were provided by everyone (and, for those who asked, the marinated grilled eggplant recipe is included here).

Members arrived at 11:00. Gene Durso wisely didn’t want to get his Spider wet and instead came with his striking Lotus (in the correct color for an Alfa event). Peter Walker and Tom Ducibella hopped over from Beverly, and Tom Frieberger showed great spirit in journeying from Vermont. Hugh Curtin came up from Wellesley, and Michael Leccese and Greg Stidsen rounded out the local contingent.

Despite on-and-off rain, we managed to cover all the basics of removing the pump, checking for proper alignment of the throttle linkage, and the all-important reference screw gap. At this point, I discovered that my thermostat opens at too low a temperature (175 vs. the preferred 185 deg F)!

From there, we proceeded to check the linkages from the bell crank to the pump without disturbing the gap dimension, and the link to the throttle plates. Finally, we worked our way around to the fuel cutoff solenoid for the fuel enrichment adjustment. Of course, you need the special tool for loosening the hold-down nut, but don’t worry — I have a homemade version that works well and I believe that the club also has one to loan out. At about 2500 RPM, the best setting proved to be halfway between CCW position where the engine starts to sound sluggish and then determining CW position by passing through the highest RPM (2800) to a position to where the engine becomes sluggish again (2300-2400 RPM). This was about 1½ turns between CCW and CW rotational positions. Of course, this is only a general description of what we did; in actuality, when doing the above procedures, you should have the Wes’s manual in front of you. Tom Frieberger demonstrated a test for a proper fuel mixture setting. The long rod is disconnected while the engine is at idle and a small increase of the butterfly plate will cause the RPMs to increase slightly for a well-tuned injection pump.

As a side note, I have never been happy with my distributor timing. At 5000 RPM, the advance would only go about 15 deg when brought up to 2500 RPM. Further revving to 5000 RPM would not seem to increase the advance. Tom Frieberger methodically took apart the distributor and re-installed it, and I am happy to say that it now advances properly to 30 deg at 4500-5000RPM. This is confirmed during a road test at my secret race track. Without the proper distributor advance I was not utilizing the full potential of my rebuilt pump. Now I get instant response all up and down the RPM range.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to cover some of the other basic maintenance issues, such as how to replace the Spica pump oil filter and lubricating the logic section. Also, we never got to the details about setting the timing belt and checking for the proper operation of the thermostatic actuator or fuel cutoff microswitch. I am thinking that we can run another tech session later in the year to cover the items we missed. What we did cover gave the average shade tree mechanic the confidence to check his or her Spica settings, and experienced enthusiasts a chance to share their considerable knowledge.

I would like to thank everyone who braved the weather to make this a successful event and Michele for helping me to prepare. Finally, to the chagrin of Michele, "Fun Was Had By All" despite the rain.

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