Re: Quadraflows, hot air and beautiful sound

[Dave Pratt <dvpratt@domain.elided>]

Mark Kunkel wrote:

>I have a 74 Spider with Spica and have listened lustfully to the audio .wav
>files of Dave Pratt's, throaty and wonderful in part due to the Shankle
>Quadraflows he installed.

And Tony Martie replied:

>Quadraflows may sound great but you sacrifice getting cool air from in front
>of the car for hot underhood air. Where is the payoff in that?

I've heard that said many times too, and I certainly don't disagree with 
the thermodynamic concept, but with all the turbulence in the engine 
compartment of a Spider at speed, I can't imagine that the temp of the air 
being ingested through my Quadraflows is more than a couple of degrees 
warmer than ambient.  Plus, assuming a, uh, sporting throttle setting, the 
engine is continuously removing prodigious amounts of whatever air is there 
as well.

>My Spider has a straight pipe where the center muffler once was and a
>beautiful Supertrapp stainless muffler in place of the rear muffler. This
>makes a beautiful sound, its flow is adjustable, and gives me much improved
>ground clearance underneath.

Part of the wonderful auditory stimuli we get from our Alfas comes from the 
exhaust note, but part also comes from intake sounds, which are muffled by 
the stock Spica airbox.  Having owned Webered Alfas, I missed that; hence 
the Quadraflows.

(In case you want to hear what Mark was talking about, visit 
www.velocissima.com, crank up your speakers (your Spicas?), and click on 
the Alfa logo.  The only complaints I've heard have been that I didn't 
leave her in each gear long enough...  ;)

Cheers -

Dave Pratt
Dedham, MA USA
'74 Spider (the throaty diva)
'74 GTV
'92 164L

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