FrankenFerrari - V12 Ferrari 308

Do you ever find yourself wishing that Ferrari had spent a little less time making their castings so pretty and a little more time focused on making their engines seal properly, maybe even with fasteners everywhere they are needed?  

Fluid retention is for people who can't make pretty castings.

Fasteners add weight.

Sorry, that was Lotus.

GasTungstenArc said:

Do you ever find yourself wishing that Ferrari had spent a little less time making their castings so pretty and a little more time focused on making their engines seal properly, maybe even with fasteners everywhere they are needed?  

LOL, remember that some of this is my own fault ...there was a good deal of sawzall use 

And that is probably a good into to the torque arm that is supposed to be on the top of the rear valve cover on a 308 and is clearly not on mine.  The 4? V12 conversions the were build in the 80's all followed the path of the 1st, which moved the torque arm to the rear of the differential because that is at least as far from the crank centerline and looks better.....but its also wrong  the only real mistake I saw in the book/manual converter #1 (David Goldsmith) put together so I won't be doing that.

Why the stock location is right and the goldsmith location wrong takes a little explanation. The 308 V8 is a flatplane crank so it vibrates twice as bad as a 4 cylinder with no balance shafts.  The solution to that is  4 fancy motor mounts at the lower 4 corner of the eng/tras assembly that are rubber but also have a spring and let the motor/trans bounce up/down a LOT  but not front/back or side/side without that vibration transferring to the chassis.  But that cause the assembly to also want to rotate about the axles and because the mounts are basically in a horizontal line with the axles, the reaction to torque at the axles is a rotation that an up/down at the mount, which they are not designed to stop.  The OEM ferrari torque arm is basically horizontal to the ground and perpendicular to the mounts free up/down motion leaving the engine free to bounce up/down due to engine vibration but not with torque. 

The Goldsmith design has 2 mistakes.  First it assumes the reactions are at the crank, but the crank forces are constrained fully by the transaxle so the net reactions are at the axle making his arm design way too short.  The second is that its inline with the motor mount so torque reaction cause the engine to move up/down at the mounts and the mounts are designed to not stop that.  Together I think that torque arm just make the problem worse than no arm at all and he does talk about shifting issues and solving it be replacing the front (iirc) motor mounts with daytona mounts which are I guess the same size but solid rubber...which is also an issue because the the 2 rear mounts will still reaction up/down to torque.

Stupid simple part...stupid complicated explanation but it's been on the to-do list a long time and with the engine running (and even running badly still making enough torque to spin the 285 tires) and the cam cover coming off it seems like time to get it done.

A torque dogbone mounted to a gasketed part that is held on by 6mm studs--what could go wrong?  

In reply to GasTungstenArc :

yup

2V setup was bolt-on, the QV setup the mount was cast into the cover and much prettier

I don't have a shaking V8, I have a smooth V12 so I'm 3/4 thinking replace the mounts and ditch the arm.  I guess mustang urethane mounts can be made to fit or I could make something

Syscrush said:

Fluid retention is for people who can't make pretty castings.

Which is why I don't even need to see the car to know the casting are VERY pretty.  I need to figure out whats going on.

I was ALMOST able to put the rear cam cover.  When the intakes are off this time I'll add a bevel to the outside edge so the cam covers will clear incase there is a next time.  I thought it kind of cool the the cover bolt bosses dropped right into clearance around the TBs like it was planned.....sometimes I amaze myself 

I'm now told the urethane mustang mounts fail in sort order and are not worth bothering with.  Looking quickly this morning I could lower the stock torque arm  and mount it to the rear edge of the cam cover....that wouldn't look bad. 

There is of course no car structure to bolt it to in that location, just a sheetmetal panel so that would be additional work to add but not a lot of work I guess.  Still thinking

ShawnG said:

Fasteners add weight.

Sorry, that was Lotus.

I think "subtract lightness" was the Lotus expression.  

mke said:

I don't have a shaking V8, I have a smooth V12 so I'm 3/4 thinking replace the mounts and ditch the arm.

That V12 doesn't need flexy rubber mounts. As the owner of a solid-mounted I6 that revs to 10,000 RPM, I don't think you should hesitate to make stiffer mounts with a bit of isolation and ditch the torque arm.

In reply to mke :

Apples and acorns, but I replaced the fancy fluid filled engine mounts that VWAG used on the inline fives with Mustang transmission mounts, and they survived with zero issue for many tens of thousands of miles. They were fine when I dismantled the car after the rest of it crumbled.

In Audiland the only time I had heard of problems was with turbocharged applications where the exhaust manifold and downpipe would cook the mount. Because people would not reinstall the heat shield, which is a pain in the ass at best.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

So you're saying the solid mounts transmitted so much vibration from that engine missing a cylinder that the car crumbled around it?

In reply to adam525i :

I am pretty sure that the acres of salt used in Cleveland did that handily.  When I was done with the car the seats didn't move, only one door could still open, the rear lights didn't work because the electrics were fried from salt blowing at them, and (the reason I stopped driving the car) the wiring underhood and at the fuel pump was crumbly and the car no longer was reliable.

It DID drive the last 50k or so I had it dragging a cylinder because something was geschtupped in the CIS distributor, no fuel was flowing to cylinder four...  A low compression five cylinder running on four cylinders is very slow

I'm being told that testarossa mounts should fit the 308 brackets. They are $100 each so that would require preapproval but nearly a bolt-in solution, just make spacers and find long bolts and no torque arm needed.....this seems like the way

Cam cover off, rear head retorqued.  some of the nuts, particularly the ones on the ends and around cylinder 3 (a leaker) moved well over 1/4 turn, the others were under 1/4, some as low as 1/16th might....almost like the liners I set the fit up nice and snug to the block moved a little deeper once it warmed up.  Anyway, this is clearly enough to cause a leak and they were loosest where there were leaks so I'll try to reach the front head then put it back together and see what I have.  

I did learn that the intakes are flat impossible to remove with the cam cover raised even 1 mm.  I had to tap it back into place then remove the intakes...its a tight fit.

mke said:

its a tight fit.

Sell shirts with a picture of your engine bay and that slogan - you'll cover the costs of your engine mounts no problem. 

I'm glad to hear you're planning to go with the other mounts - it just makes so much more sense then the torque arm for this application. Also glad to hear that you found loose head bolts. Good luck with the front bank.

front head retorqued.  The main wrench just fit, I had to cut the other one a bit but I got it

All the exhaust side nuts turned 1/4-1/2 turn and 5 or the connectors the clips just snapped off, the black jacketing and heatshrink are not where I left them.....its way to hot there for the coils to remain there blocking up what little air flow there is. More work.  This is why I like the tefzel aircraft wire though, that's all fine

Do you have a prosective new home for the coils, or are we gonna see liquid-cooled ignition wiring? 

On the subject of moving the coils - I've wondered a few times why you chose against a coil-on-plug setup. I decided against it for aesthetic reasons, but I wonder if there are other reasons to not use them.

In reply to Syscrush :

It was mostly and aesthetic choice....80s cars have plug wires.

location wise I will try to fit them on the left side because its easier to shorten the wiring harness than lengthen, but there is more room on the right for sure.

its probably also possible to keep them on the front of the engine but move them off the firewall and over by the TBs where any airbox I build would hide them...and not change the harness at all.

I need to look it over.

This is currently my favorite thread on GRM.

jdogg said:

This is currently my favorite thread on GRM.

Ha...I'm guessing it may be many folks favorite. It may also be close to the longest thread. Rumor has it there will be a giant gathering of readers for a celebration parade once this beast is fully functional. 

CBaird said:

jdogg said:

This is currently my favorite thread on GRM.

Ha...I'm guessing it may be many folks favorite. It may also be close to the longest thread. Rumor has it there will be a giant gathering of readers for a celebration parade once this beast is fully functional. 

This is nowhere near the longest thread. 

It is pretty amazing though. I love seeing updates.

Pretty amazing indeed!

Here's an update then

Cam cover gaskets should arrive Tuesday along with a new sump gasket so I can clean out any coolant that may be hiding in there.  Another 10 quarts of 30wt breakin oil +5 qts of 20/50 to top it up (empty it holds 14 qt I guess) + new filters arriving tomorrow.  Something is leaking pretty bad, I'll try and find that while I'm under it.  Between the gaskets, oil, stoppleak I'm $300 into the head gasket leak at this point so hopefully I won't need to do it all over with the added cost of head and exhaust gaskets.

Also arriving some the correct 8.5mm x 3mm lower injector o-rings.  Harder to install I couldn't get the idle under 1500 rpm so I'm thinking they may have been leaking air.  I also had most of the throttle return springs disconnected which was done in an effort to try and get the actuator to pull less than 5A so I could use the driver in the ECU....that effort failed and I have an external driver on a 15A fuss so might as well make it safer and put the springs back.  and clearance the sides of the manifold so its possible to remover the cam covers without removing the intakes.

I needed to play with the tach again....the way I had it setup it was buggering the 5V output from the ECU.  I bought a $13 freq to volt converter card...and the tach is working again.

Then cooling as it was running hotter than it should.  I bought a 160F T'stat so I'll swap that once it arrives but t]stat open the fan was not able to hold the temp down.  Could still be the leaking head gasket but...the radiator core is 21x18, the fan is called an 18" (maybe 17.5" really) and is 2950 cfm which is about best out there.  If I add a should it will be flowing air over about 30% more core area which would probably fix the issue....

Definitely  start with the shroud. 

A tstat won't change cooling, just the temp the engine kind of targets to run at if that makes sense