Automotively Interesting Websites and Forum Links.

[Duk]

OK, I'm bored!
The valve spring compressor that I got from ebay is a cheap piece of crap (It's a good idea but it's just cheap crap! You get what you pay for!), so I thought I'd post some personal favorite links for websites and forum articles, that are about car related stuff.
Not all of it will be specifically for Alfa's and some of them will be pretty abstract, but the fundamentals of making cars perform better is actually quite universal. Some of this stuff may well go against some preconceived beliefs, I know they did for me, at some stage.

http://mototuneusa.com/thanx.htm talks about aggressive running in techniques that help the piston rings bed into the bores as well as reducing the cross sectional area of the inlet ports (and to a degree, exhaust ports) to gain both power and torque. This guys 'Think Outside Of The Box' philosophy is 1 that I really, REALLY like!

http://www.motortecmagazine.net/article.asp?AID=1&AP=1 is a reposted article (from the now defunct 'Go Fast News') about famous engine builder/modifier David Vizard's lateral approach to gaining real world (low RPM) torque improvements from 4 valve per cylinder engines.
Interestingly, if you do yourself a great service and read the whole article, Vizard speaks of a highly modified and HUGELY powerful engine that had factory (small port variant, not the earlier big port variant) ports that he felt were too big, even for their intended roll as a massive HP drag engine...........  

http://autospeed.com.au/ has heaps of very interesting articles! Some of may favorite ones are about suspension design, geometry, natural frequencies and other theories, as well as structural design and its application to cars.
One of his lateral approaches, tho never applied in the real world, to turbocharging http://autospeed.com/cms/title_-Turbod-for-Torque/A_111106/article.html. I do see 1 specific hole in this idea, though.
The articles about the EF Falcon project car also serves up some very interesting reading about making very good modifications for a true road car: http://autospeed.com.au/cms/search/index.html?keywords=frank+the+falcon&x=0&y=0

I enjoy Richard Jemmison's(Alfar7) threads and comments on http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/.
His real world results rather than just repeating what has been said a million times over, speaks volumes about his approach to modifying cars (Alfa's).
http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/engine-rebuilding/177122-3-0-rebuild-hp-s-2-5-ported-head-results.html
http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/engine-management/172769-v6-indiuction.html
http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/alfetta-gtv6-1975-1986/42348-dedion-tube-bending-5.html
Richard's approach to engine modifications really opened my eyes! Seeing engine dyno results of a 12 valve V6 making 100hp/litre put me back in my place! I was of the belief that this was the domain of the 4 valve per cylinder engines (regardless of brand) to achieve the required flow through the head(s)!
Rather than applying something like "Alfa Romeo knew what they were doing." philosophy, I like to develop my understanding of acoustic tuning and how it relates to real, road going cars.
Interestingly, Richard talks about 'running in' welded up and reground cams. I've read about this before. His approach is to hold the engine at 2000 to 2500rpm for 20 odd minutes. After that, the cams are considered 'run in'.
Doing that with a freshly rebuilt engine would be a bad idea! The lack of load (throttle) on the engine wouldn't help to bed the rings into the bores. If I had both a freshly built engine and a set of welded and reground cams, I would build the engine with second hand cams and matching buckets and followers and run the engine in 'Mototune' style. After I was happy that it was run in, I'd fit the new cams and new buckets and followers and run the new cams in as per Richard's suggestions. Having a decent standard cam tune would be a good idea for safe (knock free but also without over fueling), high load running.
After the welded cams were run in, specific tuning of the (programmable) computer could then be done to get the best results.

http://www.motozane.com/oldtunnelV6Porting.html

http://www.farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets19.html#histograms has some awesome information about suspension tuning! Although primarily based on damper tuning for dedicated track cars (that use slick tyres and use a massively reinforced chassis) there are some golden nuggets of information in there about damper tuning and damper philosophy. Damper tuning is considered to be a 'dark art' by many car enthusiasts (try searching for some sort of starting point about damper tuning and see where it takes you...............).

http://www.ztechz.net/id10.html shares some amazing information about tuning the older (1986-1993ish) Nissan engine management systems.
Why share this link? For a few reasons, really.
First of all is helps to show that factory engine management systems are both capable and complicated. Being able to adapt them to your own specific requirements is more than likely a very good idea for a road car, but only if you can!
Secondly, I believe that the Nissan system is designed around the digital Bosch approach to engine management system design. So while not directly applicable to factory run Alfa, it could help develop an understanding of the factory Bosch system that is in control.
It also shows (you'll have to 'read between the lines' by understanding some of the internal workings) how 'chip tuners' can make changes within the code that can have a semi-desired effect but isn't actually done correctly. IE, changes can be made to effect the fueling but those changes could have been made to parts of the code that aren't actually the fuel map.