Porsche-type synchros

[JHertzman <JHertzman@aol.com>]

In AD6:035 Costell, responding to Tess who had said
> I also believe the material used in the
>Alfa synchros is the same as or similar to that used in the older Porsche
>(pushrod-type cars, pre-911) transmissions, which required rebuilding
>periodically.
added
"A knowledgeable Alfista once told me that the Alfa synchro design is
actually a Porsche design.  Apparently, Porsche uses the same type of
synchros."

Also in 6:035 Tom Sahines remarked 
"When Alfa first designed the transmission (a design licensed from Porsche
the story I heard was that the trans design was a swap for the Alfin drum
brake design)it was a 4 speed design. When the 5th gear was added there was
a significant increase in the rotating mass. This increase is what lead to
the premature failure of the syncro rings. I never had this problem with
the 4 speed trany."

I once heard (but cannot confirm) that 'Alfin' was a patented/copyrighted
design and/or process quite distinct from Alfa's design. Anybody know? I also
would doubt that Italy was appreciably ahead of Germany in metalurgy and the
technological uses thereof at that time, if ever. Questions of taste, perhaps,
and of many other things, certainly, but not that. But there is a more direct
explanation for the Porsche-type gearbox which came in with the 101 and 102
cars.

In the thumbnail biographies at the end of Fusi, right after the one on Orazio
Satta Puliga, is one of Rodolfo Hruska, headed "Sovraintendente Progettazioni
e Sperimentazioni di tutti i prodotti Alfa Nord, Alfa Sud, Autodelta,
Pomigliano, Spica".

Per Fusi Rudolph Hruska, born and educated in Vienna, went to work for Porsche
in 1938 on vehicle design, Volkswagon production, and the Tiger tank. Postwar,
still at Porsche but commuting between 'Stoccarda' and Turin, he designed the
Cisitalia Grand Prix car, and in 1951 was working at Alfa as a consulting
engineer from Finmeccanica, in 1954 becoming Technical Manager of Alfa Romeo
in charge of the Design and Production departments. In 1959 he quits Alfa to
participate concurrently in running SIMCA in Paris and FIAT in Turin (Boo!
Hiss!), returning to Alfa in 1967 to do the Alfasud, moving back north to
Milan later to do the transaxle cars.

There is much more on Hruska in Grif Borgeson's "The Alfa Romeo Tradition". I
can't attribute specific design features (or faults) to him, but he was a
major player in engineering and technology at Porsche from 1938 to 1950, and a
very major player at Alfa from 1951 through the transaxle era, so one
shouldn't need to stretch very far to explain similarities of certain details
of post-Satta Alfas to late prewar and early postwar German engineering. The
750 Giulietta was pure Satta; the 101 can reasonably be thought of as largely
Hruska's refinement of Satta's jewel.

John