Um... DUH.... (was re: 12V spark plug change)

Shaun Folkerts fiatlancia at earthlink.net
Sun May 12 23:19:17 EDT 2002


Hi Q - As an owner of multiple Italian cars, I can tell you all from firsthand
experience that it does indeed work. Italian cars love to be driven, and reward
the driver when given the opportunity. They HATE to sit. Call it
anthropomorphizing or whatever you will - the fact is that the cars DO respond to
being driven, and driven hard. It just can't be completely explained by science.

And, to the lister who told of the 2+ hour trips that his 200 responds to, I
concur. My '89 200qa is a whole different car after a good long stint at highway
speeds. I almost hate to put it away after that - it just wants to continue to
'play'.

Shaun Folkerts
"fiatlancia"
86 CGT CS
86 4kq CS
89 200qa
http://home.earthlink.net/~fiatlancia/auto.html


"Fisher, Scott" wrote:

> Ah.  It's an old phrase meaning to drive the car like you're mad at it for
> 15-20 minutes -- shift at redline, use full throttle in all gears, and
> otherwise run a fair amount of air and fuel through the system while
> simultaneously making sure everything is up to full operating temperature.
> Originally coined in the Fifties, the term refers to the way that Italian
> sports cars of the time (especially Ferraris and Alfas, frequently
> overcarbureted for low-speed street use) tended to foul plugs and otherwise
> get gummed up when driven at low speeds and low throttle openings while
> puttering around town.  The simple cure: run it in the part of the RPM band
> in which it was meant to be run, for long enough to clean everything out and
> get everything moving the way it's supposed to.  It seems to include roughly
> equal parts of letting the increased cylinder temperatures from
> high-load/high-RPM operation burn off the unburned gunk left inside the
> cylinder head, and letting the increased volume of gasoline clean out the
> jets in the carburetor (or fuel injection).




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