In the Alfa world there are plenty of “performance” modifications/options on the market, from large manufactures to others that produce their own products like we do at Alfissimo. Many of these performance options on the market may in-fact improve your cars performance, while many will not. 

The question is, what are the right modifications you really need? 

When it really comes to performance, the right balance of modifications is very important for your Alfa. Having all the available modification components on your vehicle is not the approach we take here at Alfissimo.  Let’s discuss a few things before we move on. 

The current generation of Alfa’s (Giulia 952, Stelvio 949, 4C 960) are, in general, very good right out of the box. Of course there are some strategies in place for automotive design/engineering for a car for masses (i.e, Big rubber bushings, low camber spec, steering response etc…). Let’s call it functional safety. Now, there is nothing wrong with any of these aspects per-say but we can definitely improve upon them to yield a car that can really perform. For normal street driving the car may be fine for you, but even using some of the modifications can help with improving tire wear which you may not think of as a performance modification but it’s important. You may not track the car but modifications are still in place to improve the vehicle for all situations including street use. Again it is a balance. 

How much improvement do we need? 

This is the question most need to ask themselves. There are owners that believe they need every single upgrade available to them. They want to purchase all of it –even before the car even arrives in their driveway without ever driving the car as is, stock.  This is the wrong approach. The car needs to be driven, experienced, pushed to the limits to see what it really may require for modification. Even then – it takes time. There should be a good amount of time behind the wheel of the car to understand it well in various conditions. This time varies depending on your experience and knowledge of vehicles and modifications or track experience. This time is where you find what it does best, what it lacks and what potentially could be improved on or maybe not. Can you live with some of the deficiencies in the car as there is a lot of give and take with modification. An unpredictable rear differential might not be the end of the world and you just learn how to drive better with it and focus on more important modifications. 

Modifications really depend on your goals for the vehicle. 

Now that you spent some good hours in the seat, this is where we need to investigate what we can improve and if we really need to improve it for the use of the car. Are you looking to improve the power or handling or both for your driving habits as a normal driver or are you using the vehicle for track use mostly? Are you in-between? Driving it around town, to canyons to track.  This is where we need to look at what Alfa presented us right out of the box. 

One thing owners tend to think is everything has to be maxed out. Stiffest springs, lowest suspension, widest wheels/tires, highest HP tune, stiffest suspension bushings, Loudest exhaust, largest diameter exhaust, Largest open cone intake filter, largest turbo and so on. Again there is a balance, even race cars have a balance. Let’s call this a balance of performance. Part of this equation is working with the engineering you have on the vehicle and the other is modifying that to work for your needs. (Later we will dive into some of these modifications that are function and many that are not)

Let’s look at the Giulia, we do not plan to discuss the 4C in this article, let’s focus on the Giulia Saloon and Stelvio. 4 cylinder models and Quadrifoglio. The Quadrifoglio was designed designed first and everything else from this. It was designed as a daily saloon that can hit the track on the weekend. This is nothing new for Alfa Romeo’s since the beginning. As we all know Alfa Romeo comes from racing heritage and many owners over the last 100 years track their alfa’s religiously. 

Ok, let’s get back to it. Now that you have had time in the saddle, you believe you have experienced the car, understand what it does well and what it does not.  Now you are ready to modify it because you have the itch to do something to it, you want to improve that deficiency. Your patience and new knowledge are what can help make better decisions on what you really need vs what you may think you need to upgrade the perceived deficiencies in this well known excellent platform. 

We always say start with one deficiency, if that deficiency works into two or more modifications we can still work with one at a time. What was it about the car that you felt needed to be addressed? Did the brakes overheat on the track or canyon run? Do you feel the car needs more refined power? Maybe the suspension needs to be a bit stiffer, steering a bit more precise, less floaty feel, more confident feel at high speeds and so on. 

Choose the deficiency that you want to address first. Choose that component that best addresses this issue (i.e, Suspension too soft). 

Ok, the suspension is too soft. Do we dive into coilovers and completely change the shocks and springs, bushings and so forth?  I’d say NO! Remember start simple. Try, for example, the GTAm suspension software upgrade we have available on stock springs, see how that works for you. Again, put some hrs in the seat, then make a decision on what is next. If after some time you just find it still too soft, clearly the springs are the culprit for you, move to replacing the springs (i,e Alfissimo PERFORMANCE/CORSA Springs). After installing, go through some more testing and decide from there what is next if you need anything else to improve the handling performance. If you do not want to maintain the factory shocks/springs then coil overs are your only option. 

The main reason for bringing this to your attention is that you need to systematically think about upgrades and not haphazardly install parts due to the fact that they are there for you to purchase and install. There is a difference between a race car and a street car. You don’t really want to drive a race car on the street. It’s not really comfortable, practical and parts tend to wear out quicker or become damaged on the street. Many add too many modifications ruining the overall comfort, reliability and function of the car. They end up disliking it. We have seen this numerous times. Some we advised to remove many of the parts for stock  or removing for a better product and were much happier. Others give up and sell. 

There are many products we produce that you can use in conjunction with each-other, yield excellent results for street or street to track use without changing the overall design and function of these cars. Springs, Suspension tuning, ECU and TCU tuning, caster/camber kits etc… all work well together for example and there are plenty of examples of this with our customers on the street to track. Adding uniballs on all the control arms where bushing use to be maybe the wrong approach for street driving. Again a full time track car is far different from a weekend driver to track car. Chose your upgrades for the function you are working towards. 

Our next article will dive into some of our products and what they do. We will start with the most popular upgrades we offer and hope to give you even more knowledge to make better decisions on upgrades. 

Ciao!