Alpina A4, A4S for Tii

[chuncomunco]

Is it possible to still buy the Alpina A4, A4S system for the Tii? Is it really worth having? Are there significant power increases? and lastly, is it difficult to install?

[bob02]

if you are lucky enough to find the setup, expect it to be worth its weight in silver.

[MichaelP]

Michael Cahsel in Germany usually seems to have lots of that stuff on hand. Expect it to really expensive. Worth it? Depends on how much you value it.

Cahsel's website:

http://www.cahsel.de/home_e.htm

[Guest]

Is it possible to still buy the Alpina A4, A4S system for the Tii?

Yes.

Is it really worth having?

If you want to be period correct, maybe. If not, not in the least bit.

Are there significant power increases?

Yes, but a four throttle EFI or dual webers come very close.

and lastly, is it difficult to install?

No, not compared to EFI or dual webers.

[PSloan]

A set sold on ebay for nearly 3K recently. Personally, I'd rather buy another tii for that change.

[AndyS]

not interested in period correct, get an S 14.

[www.bmw2002.co.uk]

One recently sold on Ebay for £1700. Ouch. Also Frank in the NL claims to have a system & complete engine: http://www.bmw2002turbo.com

ALPINA

The founder of Alpina is Burkhard Bovensiepen, who was born in 1936 and he still is the CEO. It all began with Burkhards purchase of a used Fiat 1500. But he wasn´t satisfied with the performance of the Fiat so he brought over the car to a friend to give it a tune-up and make sure that is was running correctly.

Burkhard and his friend added a Weber carburettor, a more aggressive camshaft and opened up the muffler. This raised the horsepower from 67 bhp to a hair raising 75 bhp.

But shortly thereafter, a cloud of blue smoke began to follow the car and Burkhard decided to stop driving Fiat.

Bovensiepen had always been interested in BMW cars, and when BMW introduced the 1800 in 1963, which was more powerful than the 1500, the customers who had recently purchased a 1500 was of course disappointed, so he saw an opportunity.

The BMW four-cylinder engine had four well-designed intake ports and only one small carburettor, so he recognized that he could improve the performance of the car with modification to its intake system, and with that, the first BMW-Alpina tuning kit was created.

The tuning kits cost 980 DM including installation and raised performance of the 1500 to parity with the newer 1800.

BMW´s R&D Department tested the Alpina kit and they found nothing wrong with Alpinas work, so Alpina got support from the factory which were invaluable for them.

That support made the companies products more desirable to BMW enthusiasts, but it also meant that installation of an Alpina system did not void the BMW warranty.

But Alpina didn´t receive immediate acclaim from the press.

Auto motor und Sport said that Alpina´s engine modifications would have a bad effect on longevity and reliability. Bovensiepen asked Auto Motor und Sport to test the car instead of just commenting on the concept of BMW tuning. That test showed that the Alpina-1500 was equal in terms of performance of the 1800 model.

The Alpina car showed no signs of stress or fragility.

Auto Motor und Sport were clearly enthusiastic about the Alpina´s performance.

They also noted that the quality of the car´s fit and finish was such that it appeared to have come directly from BMW.

BMW themselves were very impressed and when the higher-performance 1800 ti was introduced, it was fitted with engine components identical to those developed by Alpina.

That is the beginning of Alpina and if you want to read about the models that came after the Alpina-1500 just go to the other pages, and now some other information about Alpina:

The Alpina factory lies in Buchloe, Bayern.

In 1983 Alpina became a Registered Automobile Manufacture in Germany.

They produce around 500 cars a year.

The Alpina colours are blue and green.

I have already told you about the first Alpina product, the tuning kit for BMW 1500.

And when BMW introduced the two-door 1600, Alpina had a golden opportunity. The new car was smaller and lighter than the 1500/1800 cars, which made the Alpina very fast with a good power-to-weight ratio.

With this model Alpina had a more complete product line, instead of just tuning-kits, complete high-performance engines were available to the public.

These engines were fitted with special lighter pistons, carefully balanced crankshafts and polished connecting rods.

BMW 2002 ti was top-of-the-line in its model-range.

But the Alpina 2002 was considerable faster, with its 165 bhp engine.

On the Vallelunga race track it was one second faster than the Lamborghini Miura, and whole five seconds faster than Porsche 911s.

Alpina now had a very good reputation all over the world.

And in 1973 the Alpina 2002 tii was available as a complete and fully-developed car.

This car had equal performance with the 2002 turbo, but the Alpina were considerably more comfortable and enjoyable to drive than the turbo.

There was no turbo-lag, which were a big problem in the 2002 turbo, and its fuel consumption was much lower, and it was cheaper, about 1500 DM less than the BMW.

Alpinas 2002 product range was a success, and even in the mid 70s, when many of the smaller tuning firms disappeared.

For Alpina, BMW´s presentation of the 3,0 CSL provided them with superb advertisement for their products, because many of the components on the CSL were Alpina-developed.

But Alpina also offered a more powerful version of the CSL, the BMW Alpina 3,0 CSL. The engine was still, of course, a 3,0 litre unit but Alpina made a lot of changes to it. They fitted forged higher compression pistons, three Weber double-carburettors of the type 45 DCOE, bigger inlet and outlet valves and a new camshaft. A new special exhaust system is also fitted. The engine now has 250 bhp and acceleration is pretty impressive. 0-100 km/h in 6,7 seconds, 0-160 km/h in 14,8 seconds and 0-200 km/h in 27,1 seconds. That is faster than the Aston Martin DBS V8 and the Ferrari 365 GT and they cost twice as much. The top speed is 243 km/h. The handling is also better thanks to Bilstein springs and dampers. The brakes are better, the discs are bigger at front and ventilated all around. Inside the car the seats are racing items from Scheel, three new instruments are there and an Alpina leather steering-wheel. Here are pictures of this great sports car:

Concurrent with the introduction of the CSL, Alpina gained greater access to BMW´s dealer network, now Alpina wheels, spoilers and accessories were sold and installed by BMW dealers. But the actual introduction of a fully-developed Alpina car was not made until 1978. That year Bovensiepen demonstrated the new car for a handful of journalists-

it was the 3-series based Alpina B6.

RS.

http://www.bmw2002.co.uk for the full story.

[chuncomunco]

thanks for all the help. btw cahsel quoted me $3000!!! jesus. hahah.

[JayKehoe]

A4 systems, with complete linkage and airbox, come up for sale every so often. The problem is that you do not have the engine beneath the injection to really make it work . Moreover, you need to be able to tune the MECHANICAL fuel injection system: an archaic art form known to a hanful of mechanics in the USA. In theory, the A4 system should equal twin weber 45s. But, in practice, the Webers usually provide more output. If you like constant frustration. but if you are dedicated to period correct engine mods, get the A4 system. With the right cam( Alpina 300 degree only), head( Alpina valves and porting), and compression/pistons( 10:1 the Alpina way), you may be able to come close to the advertised 175 HSP( which exceeded the Turbo at the time). Oh ya, you also need Alpina headers and total exhaust, and a bit of the Alpina "magic" that they put on the few engines they built for the A4 standard. Do yourself a favor: save a lot of thousand of dollars, and have a strong engine built to either work with twin 45s, or a stump pulling stroker with a 40/40 DFAV and a 2.3 bottom. The cost will be about the same. DO NOT HAVE MM BUILD YOUR ENGINE. Why? see my previous posts. See my Many thousand dollars spent just to get the damn engine making the correct power: new stuff on a new engine! Enough. Save your sanity = avoid A4 unless you have a complete engine and a wrench who is a great friend, and you do not need estate planning..

[Tsingtao_1903]

Found this old post while researching Alpina history for one of my projects.  Fascinating read.

Edited April 11, 2018 by Tsingtao_1903

[JsnPpp]

Boy, a blast from the past!

 

My only comment is that A4 systems are not all that complicated - less than a stock Tii IMO. It has all the weaknesses you would expect, you need solid, tight linkages, joints, butterfly fit, synchronization, etc. But after you spend time with it and get it right, it really doesn't need futzing. Turn the key and go.

 

Jason

[markmac]

Agreed on that.

 

I bought my first A4 system in 1992 out of German, pre-internet of course and had to 'correspond' via mail (hard for some folks on this forum to even imagine what that is/was) to do the deal.  $1700, for everything minus the pump, but got a tii pump in the deal.  Ran it on my 73tii for years down in zooportbeach and had a lot of fun with it.  Took it off the tii, sold the tii for $7k (1996...it was a really nice tii), and the alpina injection for $5k - a high water mark for sure for one of those back in that year. BUT it had a NOS correct ALPINA 129.10 pump with it that I had purchased directly from Alpina ($2200), which again is good money today and serious money back then.  Wife didn't know.  YA.  Wish I still had both for sure.  Ageed with what Andrew said, above.  If its all right (and his is)_ set it, forget it and have fun with it.  I will say that you can probably get the same power out of a 10:1 CR motor with 45 webers and a 300 sport cam (160/165hp) for quite a bit less.  Red trumpets look cool, you can even get those now and plug them into webers....