September 15, 2017

As a bona fide 2002 nut, I spent too much time dreaming of Alpina-modified 02s, the best being the 2002tii version known as an Alpina A4. In addition to the usual suspension and braking upgrades, Alpina was known for their tweaked motors. The standard 2002 had about 100hp, the tii had 130hp, and the Alpina A4 and A4S had 165-180hp, achieved through a four-throttle injection system, a tweaked kugelfischer pump, a 300* motorsport cam, and high compression pistons.

I bought my first A4 injection system in the late 1980s, but never got around to installing it in the 2002tii I had back then. (Ironically, I sold that tii and bought a gray-market 1980 e21 323i.)

In 2002, I bought “Sandy,” a Sahara beige 1973 2002tii with a low mileage Dave Cruise motor and Franz Fechner 5-speed. I installed an Alpina A4 system I had found on eBay.de.

September 23, 2017

The Alpina has a good friend in the garage with it, a Fjord 1974 2002tii.

October 3, 2017

If you read my first blog entry, Sleuthing the Car (how I found my Alpina), you likely recall the noise about whether the car was “really” an Alpina. That begs the question: What is an Aplina. Its easy to answer for modern cars. After all, Alpina, now, is a bona fide car manufacturer (with their own Vehicle Identification Numbers and VIN plates) and the cars they build are Alpinas. Case closed.

But back before they became a manufacturer in 1983, Alpina was just a BMW tuner, like Dinan is now (and Ruf is for Porsche and AMG was for Mercedes Benz). The parallel to Dinan is striking, as if Dinan modeled heir business after Alpina.. Like Dinan, Alpina back in the day, was the premiere vendor and manufacturer of parts to modify your BMW and builder of BMWs that they modified. And, like Dinan, you could get the modified BMWs directly from Alpina (or Dinan) or you could get a BMW modified by an authorized Alpina (or Dinan) dealer. And, eventually, they were both sanctioned by BMW.

So, a pre-1983 car being presented as an Alpina usually falls into one of three categories: a car that has some random Alpina parts installed on it by God-knows-who (that isn’t really an Alpina), a car built by an authorized Alpina dealer/distributor (which may be an Alpina, depending on your definition), and a car build by Alpina themselves.

A little Alpina background probably helps. They began tuning BMWs in 1962, first by strapping a pair of Weber carburetors on the M10 in a 1500 sedan. In the 60s, they developed motors with Webers, increased-compression pistons, longer-duration camshafts (notably the BMW Motorsport 300* camshaft), and porting, polishing, and combustion chamber machine work on the head. While this unleashed lots of locked-in horsepower, it wasn’t all that innovative. Indeed, it was fairly common work that many talented machinists could accomplish. What made Alpina so special was they were the first to do it regularly and their work was pretty damn good. Then they designed some pretty neat (and very expensive) parts of their own, like the A4 four-throttle injection system for the 2002tii (they also put the A4 engine in the early e21 3-series cars).

Alpina then took a a page out of Carrol Shelby’s book and put in bigger motors. The e21-based B6 2.8 is a perfect example: They took the M30 motor out of the 5-series and plopped it in a the small 3-series two-door sedan; the earlier ones had unique fuel injection, but about half-way through the run, they changed it to stock BMW L-Jet Bosch fuel injection. Alpina, essentially, followed Shelby’s model (bigger motor in smaller car) but used motors from the original manufacturer (BMW). Their other trick was turbocharging the bigger cars that already had the bigger motors, like the 5- and 6-series (the B7).

October 8, 2017

Although the car was authenticated by Alpina, I assumed the worst – that the engine was not an actual Alpina lump. Yeah, the shell was touched by the Hands of God, but the previous owner who piped-up on BaT said an unethical mechanic pilfered many of the precious parts. I feared the motor suffered that fate.

When the car was finally in my hands, I looked for the four-digit hand-stamped numbers in the block and head. I found nothing, not knowing where to look. My fear of the worst grew, but I knew I’d be able to really inspect it once I pulled it out of the body, and I’d figure it out from the serial number on the block.

Every project – at least every project I’ve done – has a pace, a rhythm; it’s own timing. But taking the engine out stalled. Removing a 2002 motor is easy, especially on a carbureted car. A 323i is a bit more complicated and, frankly, I was intimidated as I couldn’t find an English-language manual. The physically bigger motor, the unfamiliar Bosch K-Jet fuel injection, the lack of instruction on how to go about removing it, and my old-man status making me reluctant to lie on the garage floor under a car – it all added up to a lot of inertia. Motivation was also lacking because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do with the motor: rebuild it stock or take advantage of advances made since Alpina built it in 1982.

After months of hoping the motor will remove itself, I decided I had to actually get going. Late nights in the garage, disconnecting this or that, finally gave way to actually hooking up the cherry-picker and pulling the motor out. My 16-year-old son helped, much as he did with the Inka 2002 touring, almost ten years earlier.