FrankenFerrari - V12 Ferrari 308

In reply to mke :

If yeh another V12 guy!  But wow weather a build!!! 

Sir I’m impressed.  No,  in awe!  

what kind of a car do you drive for a DD?

Lof8 said:

what kind of a car do you drive for a DD?

2012 bmw 328 with 133k miles on it

Mke, thank you for taking the time to share your incredible project and skills with us.

ScottyB said:

i feel....so.....inadequate.

incredible work.  every time you hit an obstacle i just keep thinking, how in the world would anyone solve this in their garage?  when the sound clips roll in someday i'm going to actually pop a bag of popcorn just to properly take it all in.

There is a sound clip, a few actually...its still a little sketchy but it makes noise

This is probably the best one

https://youtu.be/2cOeKkw_0JI

Then this was like first run

https://youtu.be/Pz-Oj4xJi2w

First motion....I wouldn't really call it a drive

https://youtu.be/03hto9oANvk

I haven't posted it yet but I wrote the ecu program that's running the engine so there's an awful lot of new and untested going on all at once.....

Wow, just wow. I take junkyard cars and rework them all the time but they are usually still worth $500 when I’m done with them.

I was impressed with this car a long time ago when I saw it run at a Pocono event while supercharged. But it didn't run really well that day. Fuzzy memory, but I think it was around 1997. Possibly later, I worked many events there. Def. want to see it run somewhere fast when you complete it.

TurnerX19 said:

I was impressed with this car a long time ago when I saw it run at a Pocono event while supercharged. But it didn't run really well that day. Fuzzy memory, but I think it was around 1997. Possibly later, I worked many events there. Def. want to see it run somewhere fast when you complete it.

That's too far back for it to be me or this car.  I bought it in 2000, it was running supercharged in 2002 iirc

In 97 I was still running bikes....I'm on the orange Harley (the first engine I cut apart and welded back together, the frame as well), I think  Daytona in 96?

<snip> I haven't posted it yet but I wrote the ecu program that's running the engine so there's an awful lot of new and untested going on all at once.....

Well that's it. After 8 pages of some of the most astonishing drivetrain fab work I've seen, I come to this. Stick a fork in me, I'm done. I can't think of the word that means "more impressed than impressed".

Thank you for sharing. This is awesome.

Man the exhaust stuff looked sooooo boring after the first six pages... <yawn>

In reply to mke :

Could easily have been 2002 or even later, I recognize the PA classic license tag, wheels and color.

Really amazing work!

You mentioned a couple times how the V12's length was creating problems.  Did you give any thought to mounting it in the chassis longitudinally?  Like a 288 GTO?  Would be child's play compared to what you've already done.

Can't wait to see more!

Would it have been easier to CAD design a 4 valve head and machine it, instead of chopping up the Testarossa heads?

Nader said:

Really amazing work!

You mentioned a couple times how the V12's length was creating problems.  Did you give any thought to mounting it in the chassis longitudinally?  Like a 288 GTO?  Would be child's play compared to what you've already done.

Can't wait to see more!

I think every project has some basic rules or ideas that its based on.  I've learned over the years that I am just not a body guy so the odds that I could saw up a ferrari or any car (...except maybe an Aztek) and weld it back together prettier than it started life are really REALLY low so that is off the table.  I could do a GTO re-body since there are body kits (I have a GTO front valance on the car already) but that still wouldn't get me a V12, just an 8....although I saw an ebay add for a car that bizarrely was a 308 GTO rebody with a billet block V12 using TR heads....what are the odds of that?  I called the guy and chatter a bit, it wasn't finished and he wanted ...$250k i think it was, I'm still not clear about how it was installed exactly in a space that should be about 8" too short.....

After I had all the part and was running into problems I got chatting with a 512BB owner and he wondered why I didn't just use the whole TR engine/trans as it.  

"That won't fit!"

....yeah....it turns out it probably will.  Cut the trunk out and rotate a couple suspension mount 90 degrees (just rotate, not relocate) and it SHOULD go in.  There is a 355 with a TR engine running around out there, the deck lid is raised a bit but other than that you've never know.  So that is probably a very really possibility with minimal car cutting.  So far I've had to do 0 car cutting...this is technically a bolt-on conversion :)

I guess the shorter answer is there are just so many cool projects waiting to be done and so little time.

TurnerX19 said:

In reply to mke :

Could easily have been 2002 or even later, I recognize the PA classic license tag, wheels and color.

Maybe then.  I was having ECU issues, it ran great then it doesn't stuff.  I had it to an autocross where the fan put a hole in the radiator, the throttle cable frayed and stuck a bit and for the life of my I could learn a mid-section of the course...there was a section were I literally saw no cones.  Just a terrible day.  A few weeks later I took it to willow's glen  where the ECU did its WTF thing and my 1 run ended with only 4 cylinder still running...it moved to the shop for a new ECU after that......and ended up with a V12.

Jay_W said:

<snip> I haven't posted it yet but I wrote the ecu program that's running the engine so there's an awful lot of new and untested going on all at once.....

 

Well that's it. After 8 pages of some of the most astonishing drivetrain fab work I've seen, I come to this. Stick a fork in me, I'm done. I can't think of the word that means "more impressed than impressed".

First, I've kind of left the computer stuff  for the end since I know most car guys find it really really boring....its critical to a good running efi engine but boring. 

Next let me scale back my statement a little.  The ECU I'm using now is an Enginelab https://enginelab.net/products/

This is the same as the AEM infinity (my hardware if AEM, I just run the enginelab version firware/software).  The enginelab version (which is what AEM starts with) gives you a toolset to setup a functioning ECU, but there is no "model" or control logic in it, you need to write that using the tools they provide: 

https://enginelab.net/documentation/

I absolutely LOVE this thing.  You can set it up to do most anything you can dream up...but you have to youknow, actually set it up. 

I added a model that gives me the % error TB to tb to make sync easy and also use the info to trim the cylinders in between TB syncs

My factory tach died some time back and it was really expensive to fix.....so I bought a $50 Sun tach and put the guts in my factory tach.....but it was not exactly calibrated.  So I added a tach calibration function to the ECU and now it reads perfect, much better than even OEM.  I also have a function that lets me control the fuel pump speed to match MAF so my huge pump doesn't overheat the fuel.  Next up is a function to drive the factory oil pressure gauge....the sender died and they are NLA, I have a pressure transducer that I can use to send oil pressure to the ECU, then I'll have the ECU drive the gauge with similar model that I use for the tach. 

I love this thing.  I do make a copy of my model available to anyone that wants it, its posted here :

http://gemellocattivo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=153

After I got the belt on or really as part of it I dropped the engine in quick to see were the water pump and alternator would fit and realized I had a problem with the right side fuel tank.

Now that I''ve posted pics of cutting and welding all sort of things...like gas tanks it might be a good time to talk about what happens when in hindsight you aren't as careful with gasoline as perhaps you should be and set the frikin house on fire then have to clean up the huge mess.

Edit - I should expand on this a bit.  As the project got closer and closer to ready to test my wife was getting more and more nervous and on one particular warm January day she popped down to tell me she and the kids were heading out and ended with "you're not going to try to start that in the house are you?"

A couple hours later everything was looked good....but the car was still on stands....I'll just run it a little here.  It started fire up, I couldn't have been happier for about 5 seconds, then I heard a whooshing sound abd turned to see flames floor to ceiling behind the car.  Sh!T!!!!  Fire Extinguisher!  Sh!t its not working! (as in in the now smoke filled room I have no idea how to make it spray).....so out the door I go a little singed and tripping on the way out over a hose.  My wife had used the warm weather to wash her car and just threw the hose into the basement, GREAT I need a hose!  I sprayed the car and the ceiling and walls waiting for the gasoline to burn itself out which it eventually did and thanks to the hose no structural damage, black sooty smoke through the whole house as this happed right under the HVAC ducts, but not structural damage.

I'd been system testing for a couple weeks, setting up different bit of the ECU, confirming sensors, trying to get the crank and cam reading right.  Normal stuff.  During that testing I realize one of the injectors had a pitched wire that casued the injector to open anytime power was on.  I had to pull the intake to fix it but I got it fixed and finished all the testing leading up to the ill faked test run.....it never occurred to me to look for the fuel.  If the injector was open anytime the power was on then it must have been spraying fuel, the fuel wasn't on the floor but it HAD TO BE SOMEWHERE....like in the exhaust for example.  These are 1000cc/min injectors and the best I can figure there was 1-1.5 gal of fuel sitting in the exhaust the blow out and ignited when the engine started.

Which then leads to not being allowed to work in the basement anymore and building a new DETACHED shop...which leads to another opportunity to make a bad choice to dig at night and dig through the geothermal pipes you put in a few years ago.....

But over time...and more bad choices like risking the rain forecast on concrete day

.

and thinking it wise for 1 person with a come-a-long to raise walls

or not listening when your friends try to tell you there's a lot of space in the lot that you are going to want leading to  you to decide its a good idea to cut up the new trusses you bought without loft space

Eventually you get a new shop and baby gets a new home

This is basically where its at, couple year delay to get the shop built.  Right now I'm pulling the engine