Italian Tune Ups

jhjacobs

jhjacobs

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I just got off the horn with Murray (Blumax) and we were both discussing the benefit of Italian tune ups with the M30 (and M20) engines. He and I are both believers in the benefit of running our engines for modest period of time at 4000 or so RPM under load (basically going fast). This was actually advice given to my father by Denzel of Vienna when he was driving a 2002 in the late 60's. After driving in the city for a week or two your engine would develop a rough idle and jerky throttle response. To cure it you would need to get out on the Autobahn for a bit and let it rip for while. As I started driving and working these engines I noticed the same thing. When rebuilding M20s or M30s I could easily tell the difference between city and highway cars by the amount of carbon / crud build up on the intake valves and to a lessor extent on the exhaust valves.

Anyone have any opinions / comments?

If you disagree then I'll claim Blumax put me up to it! :twisted:
 
Dont know if it really does the car / engine any good ( too technical for me! ) but I do know I feel a damn site better once I have had my Csi out for a higher speed blast.

It really is a shame that more people dont de-stress in this way.
 
Dave B said:
Dont know if it really does the car / engine any good ( too technical for me! ) but I do know I feel a damn site better once I have had my Csi out for a higher speed blast.

It really is a shame that more people dont de-stress in this way.
Click to expand...

I'm with you! I don't know if the Italian tune-up works since I pretty much drive mine daily with at least a few WOT romps all the way up to 5,500. Makes for a fun commute and puts me in a good mood no matter how the rest of my day went. :D
 
... perhaps it works on the same principle as a placebo. It you think it helps then it does help! :wink:
 
Reminds me of two episodes...
1. Bill Cosby when he was pulled over for speeding and told the cop "I need to burn the junk out is why I was going so fast"
2. Walter Matheau forget the movie but he was some rich guy who had spent all his money...anyway in one scene he was told there was carbon on the valves of his Ferrari...from city driving and he needed to burn it off....
 
Italian tuneups?

Foot in mouth reply:

One excuse for running throught the gears is as good as another :)

I, for one, do not completely subscribe to the pedal-to-the-metal tune up theory of regular car maintenance. Getting the lead out or blowing the carbon out was more of a necessity when fuels were poorer (contained lead) and when fuel delivery and ignition systems were weaker and less precise. All of these things contributed to a less efficient engine that was "stoichiometrically - speaking" all over the board - resulting in plug fouling and increased combustion chamber deposits when the engines were subjected to prolonged idling or low speed operation. Nowadays, most mass produced engines must meet stricter efficiency standards and are less apt to have deposits, removal of which might be encouraged by higher tachometer indications. Preservation of the expensive catalytic converters is another "indirect" reason for this too.

E-3's and E-9's were right on the cusp of those good old days when gas was cheap and no one seemed all that concerned with what happened to dirty oil and exhaust. As a hunch, I would guess that fuel injected models tend to be less needing of an autostrada airing than the carb'd models. But, with new or decent valve guides/seals and piston rings I think the M30 can be tuned to run "fairly" clean even for prolonged low speed operation. I recently observed an M30 engine head removed from an E3 after 20+ years and was really amazed at how few deposits there were on the valves and pistons. (Head gasket blew between two cylinders)

Obviously, a car that tends to misfire because of mechanical wear can probably benefit by a little robust exercise. Same may be said for an engine that is designed less for in town commuting as opposed to visits to the country. A high strung 69 911S was notorious for fouling plugs if driven at low speeds. I have heard it was designed to idle solely for those few times when waiting for an available gas pump or when slowing down due to an accident on the autobahn. Seriously, I recall that the fouling issue with that car was so bad that the dealers routinely said keep the revs up, reduce plug gap, even run the gold wire plugs. A few years later Porsche went to the high energy ignition of its day as a fix (Capacitive Discharge).

So I guess I am saying don't drive fast because you have to, rather do so because you want to. But don't offer this opinion to the wife. :wink:
 
Naive question, if all it takes is high revs why not just drive in 1st gear
for a while even in city trafic. Or 5.000 RMP in neutral for minute
every day?
 
Re: Italian tuneups

bengal taiga said:
I recently observed an M30 engine head removed from an E3 after 20+ years and was really amazed at how few deposits there were on the valves and pistons. (Head gasket blew between two cylinders)
Click to expand...

Well, of course it was clean -- he was in the middle of an Italian tune-up when the head gasket blew. :D
 
EYETALIAN tuning--more old lore--

1) Bengal Taiga said something to the effect that "fuel is much better today than when leaded"--obviously he doesn't live in California where our beauracrats do the quarterly fuel re-formulations to "benefit the general population"--instead of the chemists at the refineries--so we have to dis-allow the "better fuels" for our driving juice here in SoCal

2) My old--actually younger than I--MM (see below) always suggested that "blowing carbon buildup off the intake valves" under load was most easily done by a "spirited drive" from time to time--being obedient and wide eyed I took his advice to heart--makes for nice grins--and does seem to clear/clean the head too!

3) As recently as today I stopped for a new battery for my 2002 at Black Forest Independent BMW service and this same subject came up and Wolf--guess his nationality--volunteered the comment that whenever pulling a head off a BMW motor he could tell how it was driven--even the newer ones--and that has totalled several hundred by now--Wolf has been massaging BMW's since the beginning of 1972 when I first met him as a beginning apprentice at Schneider Motors in Anaheim, CA--former home of Founder Joe S. who was the first Independent BMW MM in Orange County--and developed a loyal following of many/most of us in the earlier days of BMW when they were still a cult happening and we still flashed head-lights in greeting other BMWs--now one would wear out a hi-low beam switch weekly if that was still practiced

4) Will it work to simply rev your motor to 4,500--maybe--but best under load--and yes driving around in 1st or 2nd under load will work but--it's not as much fun--old ways--yes--does it work--seems to work for me as whenever one of BLUMAX's motors was be-headed it was clean--frequent oil changes help too

JMT
 
I propose that we do a scientific experiment. However, I refuse to be in the control group.

Murray - I'm glad you brought up the BMW highbeam flashing ritual. I really miss those days; it was almost a religious, or maybe cult as you say, experience. We Harley riders still do the same today with a drivers-hand-down wave.
 
Blowin cobwebs or the new Mediterranean diet?

Reading this thread makes me wonder about the two types of drinkers. Those that drink for pleasure and those who claim they only do it for medicinal purposes. Many of you seem to subscribe the medicinal theory of tuneups!

I can only wonder how this treatment got its name. Is there a blue cheese tune up too? (I can expect from AndyM's remarks, after he gets through with the main course tuneup, he might end up with a thousand island(s), or is it just oil and vinegar on the garage floor?):oops:

Chemistry has never been my strong suit nor has the history of fuel formulation and molecule cracking. I can easily accept Blumax's political theory of fuel formulation (MTBE?), but that does not mean today's fuels are worse that those of yesteryear.

My evidence is anecdotal, having seen my fair share of cylinder heads, including those spied at the local machine shop. Sure, there are some heads with deposits that are hard and coked. But the current crop of deposits, for the most part, seems not half as bad as it used to be - when they resembled something that Buzz and Neil walked on. According to my machinist (whose name is Heinz, btw) its the lack of lead and overall better combustion of the newer cars that accounts for the less crap-in-the-heads condition. He claims he sees more problems related to leaner mixtures and hotter operating temperatures. Another consideration is the fact that my (non stainless) exhaust systems seem to last longer. This raises another question: like reading tea leaves, can one accurately gauge the health of an engine via analysis of its tailpipe residues.

I can't comment on the gas you feed your pony near Disneyland, or your Wolf's-eye-view of combustion landscapes, but maybe Wolf should start working on newer cars or cars that are no longer running pre-1972 leaded fuels! :) Seriously, Wolf may be right, but does he really know all of the histories of the engines he services? Can he really attribute running the piss out of an engine to cleaner combustion chambers - rather than improved engines and related combustibles? Besides, Hans is so big, I am sure his size alone makes his opinion better than Wolf's! (I have never asked for Han's pedigree, but he keeps a clean shop and I think I have seen pictures of him wearing lederhosen!) :wink:


I guess you can easily find support for the notion that a reciprocating piston gathers fewer deposits, the faster it reciprocates. I suppose one might argue my tires will be less prone to sidewall cracking and be well seated if I take them to the top of their speed ratings. Conversely, my car will last longer if it stays parked in a climate controlled showroom. I will get fewer citations, insurance premiums will be lower, and I won't even have to wash it that often. (Since I started reading this board, I only wash my car in the dark, so you cannot see me with the hose!) Being a little more realistic, the tips of my W7DC's seem pretty clean no matter how many times per minute they are lit! I'll grant you that the static they cause on the AM band always sounds better - the lower my right foot is closer to the floor boards and the faster the distributor rotor is turning!:wink:

Over and out.
 
Re: Blowin cobwebs or the new Mediterranean diet?

bengal taiga said:
Reading this thread makes me wonder about the two types of drinkers. Those that drink for pleasure and those who claim they only do it for medicinal purposes. Many of you seem to subscribe the medicinal theory of tuneups!

I can only wonder how this treatment got its name. Is there a blue cheese tune up too? (I can expect from AndyM's remarks, after he gets through with the main course tuneup, he might end up with a thousand island(s), or is it just oil and vinegar on the garage floor?):oops:
Click to expand...

Actually, I'm not much of a salad eater. . .maybe we can have a lobster bisque tune-up, followed by a nice porterhouse. :D

I'm not sure I subscribe to the Italian tune-up theory either. I agree that the true Italian tune-up probably showed some benefit when cars had weaker ignitions and didn't have the benefits of modern fuel injection to compensate for changing conditions. If there was any notice in performance I suspect it was the result of burning carbon off the plugs and clearing up some of the ignition misfire. This would be most noticeable in cars that are over-carbed or set up to run a bit rich to keep things performing on the top end, at the expense of low-end and idle -- like that '69 911S you gave as an example. Seems like some a proper tune may be a better solution.

Granted, my car doesn't really need to be run hard, but it does beg to be run hard. With the cam coming on at 2500 rpm and a really lite rotating assembly, it just doesn't like puttering around too much. It kinda gets the herky-jerkies if you don't keep the revs up. Fortunately its just broken in (10k miles) and I don't need to worry much about the oil and vinegar on the garage floor just yet. The 3.5 has been fully tuned with a WBO2 and is at a perfect 14.7:1 AFR at cruise, dropping down to about 11:1 at WOT. Since I can see what its doing in real time, I'm not overly concerned about burning a hole in a piston during a spirited romp on my way to work. It's quite fun, actually. :p On the other hand, if I get 50k out of this motor, then I'll consider it money well spent and will build the exact same motor all over again. :twisted:

With the stock 3.0 well, no, I didn't drive it the same way -- mostly 'cause it smoked like a chimney and was pretty darn embarassing. The Italian tune-up didn't do anything -- other than accentuate the rod knock and provide a nice smoke-screen. :?
 
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