HMD: In his article, Stan Fisher suggested that this Alfa contract was one that went up for bid. Is that true? Was there a competition?
RC: I don’t remember that. However, we weren’t really privy to that. Don Black needed to find someone he could trust and work with. So, overall no one else had the experience we had with emissions, testing, certifying…things like that.
However, I was still not convinced of the engine’s durability. So, Don said, “Ok, let’s do this: conduct two of the durability tests that Alfa runs for itself and see if you’re not convinced of the GTV6’s durability.” One test was called the “Autostrada del Sol and the other was the Mille Miglia….quite difficult durability tests as we would learn…” .
HMD: I had no idea that Alfa Romeo had names for their tests?
RC: Yes. These tests were very well defined and very difficult. Basically, when Alfa signed off on any engine, it had to pass many durability tests. Let me just give you an example of what this test involved.
1. Start up, and stabilize the temperature by running 70% throttle for 30 minutes
2. Shut down, heat soak, and 15 seconds later started up, hold at 85% of red line for 2 minutes
3. Do it again, hold throttle again for 85% of red line for 2 minutes
4. Shut down, drain the coolant, fill the motor up with cold water, hold throttle up to 95% of red line for 20 minutes.
So the motor would be put into a major shock and a power output in environments that you would never see in real life. But, this was one of the many “hoops” you had to jump through to satisfy Alfa. This is what the standard V6 went through in testing in 1984. No one would ever run a car at 90% of power output, you’re just never gonna do it. It was a very rigorous testing procedure.
HMD: The 2.5 liter put out somewhere around 160 hp.
RC: I recall the engine dynoing out at 130 hp to the flywheel. Also, I remember because once we completed the project we were all quite fired up to know we’d added another 100 hp, to the Alfa’s power output capability. The leap from 130 hp to 230-240 hp, is significant.
HMD: Stan Fisher wrote that Bob Bornaschella commented on how the Alfa V6 was one of the toughest motors he’d ever seen. He was impressed with the drive train’s durability.
RC: Well, we were all impressed! And this is what it took to prove to us that the engine was viable. Our next job always depends on doing a good job with the job at hand. If the car’s motor falters, and we’re associated with that, then we don’t get the next job. We were all surprised at what we’d learned regarding the motor’s durability.
So now the question was, how many are you going to build? We were just an engineering firm at that point, just taking orders. We hadn’t yet had anything to do with marketing or distribution. After the initial “thrust,” I think the first article was in Road & Track as a driving test review.
HMD: Right, Csaba Csere.
RC: He was impressed with the project, especially because it had been done in the aftermarket but to an Original Equipment standard and level of compliance.. That carried the car for about one year.
HMD: Right, I remember he was fired up about the car. Alfa must have also been fired up?
RC: Yes, Alfa was also fired up. Alfa said, “Ok, we’ve accomplished the mission here, which was to better the Biturbo and give our dealers something to sell.” But the option was fairly expensive, it took nearly $30k or more to get one fully optioned out.
HMD: The advertised price was between $27k to $29k.
RC: Yes, those were starting prices. We sold the cars to the dealers for like $16k or $17k. That was their opportunity to make about $10 grand.
HMD: So, simple question: did you make money?
RC: It certainly wasn’t the most lucrative engineering project. Producing the cars in our shops wasn’t that expensive. You know, there’s probably about 200 man-hours in each Callaway Alfa. We’d take a new car in and test it, make sure that there was nothing wrong, then take it all apart, take the engine apart, cut the pistons, put them back in the same block and order, set them up with a better head-gasket… I don’t remember if they were all dynoed or not… I think they were, I think they all went on to the dyno and there they were all checked for leaks… not so much for power output, we just didn’t want the thing to self destruct. We were very concerned about putting the car back together without any leaks. It took almost a full day, to test.
HMD: You guys had your own dynos, obviously.
RC: We had several!
HMD: Wow! Quite a little production line there.
RC: It had to be.
HMD: Tell me, why IHI turbos?
RC: It was the newest high-technology turbo. They could spool up quick… really very high quality build. I remember they had Ni-Resist turbine housings, and “Inconel” turbines, very impressive, higher flow compressors than anyone else… fewer failure rates….
HMD: The fact that they were smaller I’m sure helped too.
RC: Right. That allowed them to spool up quickly
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