Solex carbs

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

Henry Kim asked:

I'm looking at a European Alfa with Solex carbs.  The seller says
original equipment.  True?  Anyone have experience with them?  I know on
the Mercedes 190SL, the first thing any owner does is ditch them.  But
they were circa 1960.  Did they improve in the 70s?

 The Solexs (Solices?) used on the 190 SL and on some Alfa 1900s, 2000s,
and 2600s were a design which looked like a Weber/Dellorto twin-throat
(one throat per cylinder) but normally ran on one throat for each pair of
cylinders and kicked-in the second throat on demand, and they are not
universally beloved. Not all Solex carbs bear this stigma; the standard
carbs for the Giulietta and some Giulias was a single twin-throat Solex
downdraft, and its performance was exemplary, although some tinker-prone
owners converted to a single twin-throat Weber downdraft which was
reputed to be an improvement, at least in the panache of the name.

 Solexes of the more familiar one-throat-per-cylinder sort were alternate
factory original equipment on 105 Alfas before Dellortos and continued at
least though the Alfettas- how much longer I can't say. The Owners
Manual for the Giulia Super had a Solex sheet as an insert, suggesting it
wasn't an alternate from the first but was soon after. The Parts Books
for the Giulia Sprint variants show Webers and Solexes, but no Dellortos,
as alternate fitments on the Sprint GT and GTC, but a different Weber
subtype as the only one on the Sprint GT Veloce, which may support Andys
linking of the Solex to less demanding performance applications.

 My understanding has been that Webers have long been King of the Hill
partly due to primogeniture and resulting panache, and partly due to
their relatively modular, tinkerable design, and consequent broad
application on performance cars, and also on the broader availability of
parts and of aftermarket tuning manuals, but that for stable applications
there is nothing wrong with either Dellortos or Solexes. Ben Higgins
very favorable experience with Solex seems to confirm the possible
advantage of a dedicated application over a more complex design for
variable applications. The design character of Webers versus the others
may be reflected in the parts books listing kits of parts for the Webers
but sets of gaskets only for the Dellortos and Solexes.

 The 105 Catalogo Rapido lists no fewer than forty-four different part
numbers for the various Webers, Dellortos and Solexes used on various
105s, half of them just fronts versus rears, but seven pairs being
antipolluting variants and a few pairs being for RHD cars.

 And now a nomenclature question for Leo, Luca, and anyone else who wants
to chime in: many Americans and perhaps some others spell that other carb
DellOrto or dellOrto with an apostrophe, sometimes insisting that that
is more correct in the language, while all Alfa references I have seen
spell it Dellorto, with a small o and no apostrophe. It parallels the de
Dion, De Dion, DeDion question. While I am content to use Alfas spelling
I am mildly curious about the actual spelling of the name of the company
that makes them.

 Cheers

John H.  

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