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alfa 33 identification

7K views 73 replies 10 participants last post by  gti_rsi 
#1 · (Edited)
33 1.5 engine problem refer to pages 2 & 3

hey guys, my name is jason im italian (which is why i opted for an alfa :p) im new here and i dont know alot about older model alfas but tomorrow night i will be recieving my very own alfa romeo 33, now ive searched and searched all over the place to identify this specific model 33, but cant seem to get a 100% correct answer. all i know is its a 1.5 twin carb
it has nothing else but a badge with alfa33 and the green cloverleaf (as seen in pictures below) and also has the oil pressure and water temp guages too which i read came in the cgl version.

the add/person who was selling it has stated that its a TI model, but ive also read that its a green cloverleaf model or a cgl model. and on some sites its states that the TI is the 105hp version other sites say the green cloverleaf is the 105hp type, another site stated that the gold cloverleaf version was the 105hp model and then another site stated that the cgl was the 90hp version. im very confused and dont know who or what to believe.

the owner of the alfa said it had dual webbers which came in the TI i believe? (correct me if im wrong as i most probably am)

i would just like some confirmation on what exact model it is (its a 1985 btw) and if its not too much to ask could someone give me a brief rundown on what model is best out of the few stated above?

sorry for the lack of pictures but these were the only snapshots i got with my camera phone.







thanks guys much appreciated, and look forward to associating with you guys soon. :)
 
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#44 ·
actually it was slightly better last night as it was a pretty cold night less sputtering but still a power loss, but in the afternoon it was horrid and yes the petrol was quite low recently, im still stumped on why it loses power after 5000rpm never did that until around 6500rpm even with the standard gear on but the filter and lid off. the first drive with the trumpets on it happened. and it was a relatively warm day.

how would i go about cleaning the jets?

is it possible that i might need to tune the carbs to suit the trumpets?
 
#47 ·
For the tacho, check you didn't knock any of the plugs off the ignition coil. Some of them can be very loose and I think one is the signal for the tacho.

For the sputtering on light throttle suspect a blocked jet, and for the loss of power at 5000rpm try putting at least the standard carb-to-airbox elbows back on and see if it still happens. I hear the dimensions (length, diameter, shape) of the stacks are significant and they could be causing airflow patterns that are not optimal past 5000rpm.

Interesting that your car does not backfire in those Youtube clips of the exhaust sounds!
 
#48 ·
she does back fire a bit if the cars in gear and coming off the throttle at mid to high rpms. will check out the connections tomorrow, as for the carb problem, i whacked all the standard gear on it and shes running fine, no spluttering or loss of power until just before i was running quite low on fuel, mustve picked up some gunk because not she sound like a wrx under light load until i put more fuel into her via the accelerator.

also, i tried putting the stacks into the car to airbox elbows, and instead of sputtering and loss of power on full throttle the car would sound and feel like it was detonating and wouldnt let me rev past 4000rpm (rough guess as the tacho no longer works).

im already getting fed up with the problems with this car, it seems everycar i get into something goes wrong.
 
#49 ·
If i were you i think i'd get the carbs set up correctly. Every 33 ive heard will backfire when returning to idle from high-ish rpm. What are your sparkplugs like? Also what make of carbs are on it? They may have been wound back for emissions etc?

Those trumpets seems to be more hassle than they're worth.

Electrical gremlins are well known and can (usually) be sorted by going over the connectors and binning anything thats original on the problem circuit.

Stick with it, they're worth it once you get the problems ironed out :thumbs:
 
#50 ·
carbs are 36mm idf webers. that seem to be out of tune abit.

trumpets were only $80 (aus $$) so its no big loss, just wouldve liked for them to be a bolt on upgrade. im considering getting some boxed K&N filters for it, the rectangle ones that bolt straight onto the carb. they seem to be the way to go at this point, as the other day i took the car for a quick around the block run with nothing on the carbs (no stacks or elbow fitment/filters) and she seemed to hold its power fine up high in the revs.

so im thinking its the stacks that arent a very suitable design for the motor. hopfully the box filters will work out fine.

ive gotta get some carby cleaner/fuel injector cleaner to unclog the jets now as some gunk has gotten stuck somewhere.
 
#51 ·
Ive never seen webers but on the dellortos, you can actuall screw out the jets with ease and clean them. I once had a dead cylinder couldnt sort. turned out someone had been at the carbs and had put them back together using sealent instead of gaskets. sealent reacted with the petrol in the float chamber and broke down. I pulled a length of sealent, 40mm long out of the main jet. Carb cleaner wouldn't have shifted that :lol:

With the filters on top of the carbs, watch out for poor running when hot as the motor will be pulling in hot air from the engine bay.

I know its a bit of a pain but the original setup with a good filter is hard to beat although you dont get the same induction roar.
 
#52 ·
yeah i took out the main jets the other night when i had the stacks on and blew into them to see if anything came out after that it was fine with a lot less sputtering. main jets are easy to take off the carbs in webers also, so i have to clean them check the connection on the coil for the tacho and make a temporary/alternate filter for the carbs.

in my prefferences i would rather have sound than optimal performance, thinking about it im never going to be in high revs all day every day so the hot air thing isnt such a worry, i drive my car alot at night (i work in the night) and the nights here are quite cold.

btw theres always DIY bonnet scoops to aid the filters :D
 
#54 ·
i wouldnt have done that anyway lol

but on a downside tonight the cars gradually gotten worse and worse, she now permanently runs on 3 cylinders :( major carb/motr tune is the only way to go at this point.
 
#58 ·
Blocked idle jet was the problem in my case but dont know the setup on the webers at all. hope you manage to sort it though. Should be fairly straightforward if you go through the system one thing at a time.

Please. Nobody would do a thing like that, because the result would look stupid.
Especially if they were rushing to get it completed in time for a track day and had never attempted any panelwork before..:eek:

Thats quite a sight :lol:
 
#60 ·
Another cause is that your sparkplug must have shortcircuided and it is not working as it should or not at all. This can be cause from carb overflow as in my case and it destroyed 2 brand new sparkplugs on the same cylinder. We discovered it when when we checked the color of the top of the pin whcich was brown instead of white as in the other 3. We changed the sparkplug and it was running ok again...
 
#61 ·
will be dismantling the carbs completely tomorrow to check all jets/needles are still in good condition and not blocked.

after that shell be getting a balance and tune to ensure its running right.

ill post back with the results.

i think she needs a good oil/filter/spark pluig change so thats on the to do list aswell.
 
#64 ·
not yet, shes getting a proper tune tomorrow so if she still does it i think the sparkplugs and leads will be getting changed. one thing i noticed is that both my uncle and my dad got zapped by the coil, so i might have to look at that too.

ill keep you guys updated.
 
#65 ·
That might be something to check first. When ive got a lead disconnected the coil starts shorting against the inner wing. Make sure you use good quality leads with ends that cover the entire plug if you are changing them. Low quality leads are a complete pain (ive got a brandnew set that didnt work properly)
 
#66 ·
its got relatively new leads in it by the looks of them and they're topgun i think which are a decent branded product.

my old corolla did that too me once, the coil was arching from both - and + contacts. was running exactly the same as the alfa is now, so i might have to check if its the coil doing something wrong. thing is on full throttle it runs smooth but ith a ****e load less power than before. ill get a video up tomorrow of its condition if a good n proper tune doesnt fix it.

oh and btw the sparkplugs are an unusual sight for me as theyre 4 seperate pins oround the electrode, i was like wth? weres the conductor pin lol. until i had a good geeze at it and cleaned all of them.
 
#67 ·
after i took it to the mechanics he inspected it and performed a compression test on no.1 and 2 cylinders, both were fine compression wise but cylinder 2 was dead it was still burning fuel with spark and compression but even when eliminating cylinder 2's spark and or air supply it made no difference whatsoever. he later confirmed a suspicion of a "tight tappet" meaning the valve clearance on one shim is too big and the valve isnt operating as it should (not to mention the very loud tappet noise constantly throughout the rev range in every gear thats seemed to arise out of nowhere).

and because of the tight tappet problem my original suspicion of a burnt valve is possible as a tight tappet poroblem can cause burning of the valves.
 
#69 · (Edited)
took it to another mechanic, managed to get cylinder 2 working again with carby cleaner played around with timing n crap, now it runs like its on 2 cylinders can barely get up to 80k's

recons its fuel surging. to do with the carbies not putting in enough fuel. great! now i have to treck down to nerang 30 (minute drive most likely longer because of the car) to get someone to look at the carbs...

when will it end.....
 
#71 ·
im completely lost right now, got one mechanic saying its a fuel surge problem, another saying its a tight tappet (whatever the f##k causes that is beyond me) and another saying its a burnt valve, dont know who to believe at this point. just hoping its the cheapest option lol.

took out the main and idle jets and found fine metal shavings blocking off some of the holes, going to have to find out where those shavings have come from or else they might keep coming back. cleaned them up and loaded the carbs and jets with carby cleaner (a whole cans worth.) still no improvement, havent checked the fuel pressure and flow yet but will do so in the next few days, from what i last saw when i took off the rocker covers the tappets and shims looked fine although im no expert on how to tell if something isnt right but none of them seemed to be out of line (ie less/more clearance than others).

lots of things to do, in so little time before the cruise im signed up to go on with another enthusiast site. im just hoping i can get it back on the road soon, im missing driving the damn thing. stuck with a suzuki vitara for work atm. :p
 
#74 ·
ok well i dismantled and removed all bits and pieces from the carbies, and found the source of metal filings, previous owner snapped the bolt off into one of the carbs doing a dodge spec fix drilling out the snapped off thread and usig a nut to make a new thread, so the long bolt could screw into that. if you can understand that sentance, a cookie for you. biggrin.gif

so the drilling of the snapped off bolt thread caused the fillings to enter into the float chamber somehow, no s##t about a quarter of a teaspoons worth. cleaned out the carbies/jets + all the other little bits with some petrol that i collected after testing fuel pressure and flow earlier (pressure and flow is fine by the looks of it so that kinda rules out the surging).

atm the carbs are sitting out to dry.

only thing left to check is the valves and tappet clearances. hoping it isnt a burnt valve.

suggestions?
 
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