‘ I am enjoying the intake noise, but it’ s the exhaust that’ s raising my heart rate’
‘ I am enjoying the intake noise, but it’ s the exhaust that’ s raising my heart rate’
Alfa’ s Nord engine found success in a variety of competition classes, from 1.3 up to 2-litre
‘ For the fast road spec engines, I like to fit an electronic programmable ignition system. It’ s one by a company called 123. It looks like a distributor, but you just plug it into the car, turn it on and it connects to your phone. You program the ignition curves, and that can transform the way the car drives. You can put the timing in the bottom end where you want it to, take it out in the mid-range if you need to.
‘ Always, with these sorts of engines, I try and sell a dyno set up as well. You’ re never going to get the thing to run properly on the same jets, just sticking them back in the car. You’ ve got to have it on a test bed and know the oil pressure, the water temperature, the air-fuel ratio.
‘ Cat Cams make some really good modern cams. They are hollow billet, so they’ re lighter and they pickup better.
‘ Some of the faster cams you could get years ago were horrendous. Nowadays, we can put a pair of Cat Cams in an Alfa, and you’ ll be able to put your foot in the throttle from probably 2800rpm onwards and it’ ll just go. It drives nicely on part throttle as well. You couldn’ t do that 30, 40 years ago. With the duration and the valve lift, people just worked out what works for Alfas so well.
‘ The way we time them up is slightly different from the way other people might do it. It’ s the experience of what works and how cam timing on these engines works. It’ s from the experience of what Dad’ s done over the years. With even the standard Alfa cams, we time them up slightly differently than they might have done from standard, or years ago, just to grab a bit more power. That’ s top secret, though.’
Summer 2025 The Engine Rebuilder 33