FrankenFerrari - V12 Ferrari 308

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to mke :

I have had oil pans hold water and seep oil on a running engine.  Much shrieking frustration, especially since the oil pan was about 12-16 hours to R&R.  So I welded it in place.

In hindsight, it might have worked to fill it with kerosene and set it in a container full of flour.  But it might have needed engine vibration to make the cracks leak, too.  *shrug*

hmmm....maybe I'll go put some soap or alcohol  or both in it to help it leak.....

Everything except the bolt tubes and bottom plate are welded inside and out so its just those bits I have any real worry about.

mke said:

ZOO (Forum Supporter) said:

This is a terrific thread -- I sure wish there was a way to bookmark to certain pages though? 

It needs a table of contents!

I think you can book mark a page......and you're right I should put links to the different topics in the 1st post....in my spare time I guess ....... ;)

The members here would kill me if I kept you from project progress.  I'm interested in your solution for wheels, so I will continue (slowly) reading from the beginning unless anyone remembers a page range.

In reply to ZOO (Forum Supporter) :

it starts about p16, more refined thoughts p25, p32, ends p38, and I added this at the bottom of the first post

mke said:

Syscrush said:

What about stiffening the body through the passenger compartment and using that to stiffen the frame? Bond some carbon fiber beams on the underside of the floor, or do a sandwich construction with layers of foam and carbon sheet?

the issue there is how to attach the CF to the steel?  That is not so easy with structural stuff you want to stay attached....glue and rivets maybe?  With steel sheet I can just weld and know its good so that is where I'm leaning but I'm only t the plotting phase....I must be strong....I NEED a running engine.....

The first leak test failed with 2 small spots, I did add both soap and alcohol.  The 1 was just the drain plug not fit enough the other though was fit under a bolt hole tube

Looking closer there was a tiny black dot at the base of the weld.....with a bubble hiding under it when I ground into it.  I rewelded it yesterday and was all dry this morning so back to ferrari parts ....mcmaster is still saying "expected to deliver this week" on the lapping bar 

mke said:

In reply to DaewooOfDeath :

I've designed exactly 1 suspension so suggest away :)

Sitting in my amazon cart waiting for me to get the engine back together and need it  is scale....I would love to know what this engine weights.  I'm the k24 guys numbers are right...but also wrong.  I have no doubt he measured what he measured, those numbers look similar to what others found, so they are right.  They are also a bit wrong in that as you race prep older ferrari stuff weight comes off...I'm pretty sure race weight on a 308 engine/trans is about 650, still a big number but its a 50 year old design, it was good in its day.  The V12 is very litterally the V8 with 4 more cylinders....the TR heads will drop onto a 308 block....port angle differences but they are the same, boxer pistons fit 2v 308s, TR pistons fit 4v 308s.  The 60 degree v12 block is an older design (which I learned the hard way when I discovered the head stud locations are a little different) but they use the same connecting rods, bearings, cam sizes....so small changes.  All that said I expect the eng/trans with everything I've done to weight about 800lbs, I'll be sad if its 1000 but that is certainly a possibility....but I'll get that number before the engine goes back in the car.

Installed the trans is sitting 1/4" higher that stock....it was that or notch the already soft frame to clear the flywheel.  The engines crank though sits 2" lower and 3" forward of the the V8s so even with the added height of 60deg vs 90 and added weight 12 v 8, I'm pretty sure new mass center is lower and f/r split similar to stock or at least to the V8 with big supercharger that came out....but what to do suspension wise has been on my mind since I first bolted the 80 or 100 lbs of blower parts onto the top or the V8 and I'm clearly still undecided.

New rear springs arrived yesterday, 8" to replace 10"

Siting with the adjusters full up so rear as low as possible here it is

Last time when I measured the front I was looking at the valance and getting about 4.5".  last night I laid down on the floor and discovered 4.5" at the valance is about 3.25" at the frame so the front goes plenty low.  Right now the frame in the back is at 4.5" with no engine.  If the engine is 1000lbs with exhaust and everything and the spring 500lb/in each and nearly 1:1 motion ratio the rear will be 3.5" full low so I guess it works out  as this might work at an autocross but is too low for street use. 

I can rise it about 2" which would be just about stock or perhaps a touch over so these springs seem good length wise.

 

 

 

The suspension design I've done has been basically to copy Steve Hoelscher's MR2/X19 autocross cars and then correct for weight distribution. https://www.mr2oc.com/threads/sts2-mk1-suspension-setup-w-host-xhead.298272/

Some disclaimers compared to what Steve wrote:
1. This sort of car will ride pretty rough for the street. I'm a crazy person, so this was no problem for me, but you might feel differently. I ran these setups basically backwards from Steve's cars. I was using FF cars, Steve was using MR cars and my logic was that a FF car driving in reverse is basically an X19 (or Ferrari 308). This meant that my ride frequency was much higher in the back of the car than in the front, which didn't matter much for handling but does tend to feel harsher on the street than having higher frequency in the front, which is how you'd end up tuning. In other words, even if you copy exactly what I did and run in backwards, it should be less harsh than what I had, and what I had was harsh but tolerable.

2. I think I was running higher relative roll centers than Steve did. I tried lowering the car to approximate what he had and, while it might have been faster, I thought the high roll centers felt better. For my FF stuff, I got the best driving experience with the rear roll center roughly  12 inches off the ground and the front roll center about 7 inches off the ground. Higher than that caused jacking in the rear, lower than that created too much roll in the front. Since you are working on a MR car, you'd basically run everything I did backwards. 

3. It's incredible how quickly a truly independent (ie, no anti-roll bars) setup reacts and deals with small bumps. I KILLED people in long, bumpy corners with Hoelscher's setup. 

In reply to DaewooOfDeath :

I've been slammed with home projects......note to self, when stucco looks sketchy  don't hit with a hammer to see how bad it is....

 but finally got a change to read through the thread this morning, thanks for posting it.

When I  did the suspension on the FSAE car about 2000 it had no swaybars and use a progressive linkage so we could tune both the wheel rate and progression rate to get what we wanted.  When I did it I was thinking there is no need to add a bars we can live without.  In practice I was less in love with it than on paper as it was a lot of bother to adjust but it worked fine.

For the 308 I think there are a few things that would need different form the MR2-x1/9 sets discussed.  First up is my rear tires are wider than the fronts about is proportion to the weight bias so they shouldn't be overloading and I shouldn't need to be shifting a bunch of roll stiffness forward....I don't think(?).  The other difference is I don't have struts and can probably tolerate more body roll.  Last is a LSD so so keeping weight on the rear inside tire is a lot less critical.

Concept wise though light bars is where I'm heading.  Where my head is stuck right now is how much I want to think about and possibly mess with virtual roll center heights.  I have a very bad habit of letting projects expand into the realm of stupid but it would be better......

I mentioned it before, but feel compelled to say again that this car deserves the blade-type rollbars that are adjustable from the cockpit, IMO.

But maybe drive them with actuators controlled by your do-everything ECU...

Syscrush said:

....But maybe drive them with actuators controlled by your do-everything ECU...

See, now you're just trying to trick me into it because you know how much I love hooking stuff up to the ECU 

I THINK the bar(s) will play be a relatively small part in the tune so I'll just say "we'll see" to cockpit adjustable blade setup for now.  Where my head is now is the springs are stiff but should be close for the suspension as is....but if I raise the roll centers back up to pre-lowing or maybe a bit higher then softer springs would probably be better.  I still need to get the rear suspension into onshape and see where that is.

Right now my thinking is new spindles/uprights.  The rear stub axles break with sticky tires...20+ years ago only slicks at the track were a problem but last year a buddy broke his at on DOTs at an autoX  so at least the rear needs attention be the car gets used in anger....and that means thinking about geometry.  Front and rear the upper A-arm mounts are welded to the frame, movable but not all that easily.  The lowers bolt on though so changing the lower arm angles is easy and the bigger wheels give me a lot of freedom at the splinde side....although it may be a challenge to keep bump steering in check if I start messing up there but steering effort is fixed so I have more freedom than I did.

Front and rear the upper A-arm mounts are welded to the frame, movable but not all that easily.

Say no more!

In reply to Syscrush :

Ok, I give up....what on earth is the point of that?  I was thinking about cockpit adjustable right height but upper rear A-arm length?

 Stucco Orca approves of this build

Rigante said:

 Stucco Orca approves of this build

LOL

.....good thing I fixed it before it got loose in the pool :)

mke said:

In reply to Syscrush :

Ok, I give up....what on earth is the point of that?  I was thinking about cockpit adjustable right height but upper rear A-arm length?

It seems worthless to me, too - he refers to DAS but this won't affect toe much - is real-time camber and caster adjustment valuable? I don't see how.

BUT he's done so much stuff that's so interesting and that has exceeded my expectations by so far that I'm eager to see where he goes with it. This is the guy who designed and built his own freevalve system for a Miata using largely off-the-shelf parts and open-sourced it:

https://www.thedrive.com/tech/39377/the-diy-hero-who-built-a-koenigsegg-style-freevalve-miata-engine-is-making-it-open-source

Rigante said:

 Stucco Orca approves of this build

This needs to become a common meme and response on the forum.....

Stucco orca just made my day!!!

Lana bought me a really nice saw yesterday....since I already have a miter saw I'm almost scared to find out what I'm building her for mother's "day".  To be fair it could just be to speed up the stuff I already know about....

Mcmaster is now saying the 13th on the lapping bar

That's a nice saw, but compound miters scare me. I have a tough enough time getting 2 45's to make a 90.

In reply to Syscrush :

You and me both.  I guess at some point I told Lana if she wanted nice basement stairs I needed a better saw and mother's day saw the start of new stairs (se what I did there with saw :) )

I have the framing in and was about to order the treads but there is a design delay while we re-discuss all the possible designs I could have build but didn't and which the current design could be converted into with how much additional work.....luckily I decided to screw everything rather than run the airhose and nail

mke said:

luckily I decided to screw everything rather than run the airhose and nail

I heard from a contractor once that part of the benefit of doing everything with screws is that it makes you less hesitant to take stuff apart and fix it if you realize that you've done something not quite right. He wasn't talking about design/style choices, but it works that way, too. It seems like something that should be a good metaphor for an approach to work generally: set yourself up to make it as clear and easy as possible to get to the final result you will be happy with.

I have to say: I really don't understand why those cuts for the treads on the stringers would be on an angle away from normal to the side face like that. What's going on there? Is it so you can put some kind of wedge-shaped cleat between the tread and the stringer? Or are you mitering the end of the tread to the stringer for some reason? Or maybe it's something else altogether...

Syscrush said:

I have to say: I really don't understand why those cuts for the treads on the stringers would be on an angle away from normal to the side face like that. What's going on there?

It has to do with me doing everything the hardest possible way  

The rest of the stairs in the house are made like this, if you look you can see the risers are mitered to the stringers :

The stringer are 5/4 x10 and laid over the drywall...super easy for the builder as they drop in last but not all that rigid.  I used 2x10s for the stringers so they can have the same 1" overhang but lay on the wall studs.  That means I only mitering 1/2 way though...or only need to is the better answer.  Then the risers will be glued and a couple finishing nails. 

I did the first set of upper stairs this way to practice were it didn't matter and would be covered with trim and they came out pretty good.....night and day different in the feeling walking on them as they are much more rigid.  that's partly the stringers and partly that I glued everything I guess but they are much stiffer.  As I already practices on the uppers the section that didn't need fancy mitered risers didn't get them on this lower set.

That makes perfect sense - it didn't occur to me that the part you're angle-cutting could be for the riser instead of the tread. Implicit assumptions are a funy thing.

The end result is a very tidy look. Nice work!

I did a built-in shelving unit at home and wanted it to look like parts were cut from a single contiguous block of material - I built it with MDF using just corner butt joints, but then glassed the whole thing in using fiberglass and epoxy resin. I got the look I want and it is as tough as you'd guess. I wanted it to last 100 years and I didn't want to ever see the outside corners with chipped-off paint or plaster. It's looking like we're on track for both goals.

Syscrush said:

That's a nice saw, but compound miters scare me. I have a tough enough time getting 2 45's to make a 90.

So the compound is mostly to fix things not fitting up, at least the way I use it.  Here the 1 stringer was kind of wrapped so the riser didn't fit right, 2 degree on the compound and it fits like a glove....its not right, but at least it looks right 

Still no car content and probably won't be for a while.....but I have a fancy high efficiency water heater now, the electric company had a rebate that basically  covered the upgrade

The stairs are just waiting on the the 8 wrap around treads I had to order

and the stucco is finally all fixed.  I like to let the base fully cure before top coating, I read it helps with even color and cracking and it means I get a 30 day break......I'm kind of scared to use it now though. 

Theater platform is up next then a bathroom I guess before the main floor goes in.....which is why it will still be a awhile before I'm back on the car.

this is outstanding, is there anything you can't do?