That is a fantastic-looking car. Dang.
That is a fantastic-looking car. Dang.
Perfect weather for HSR Fall historics this weekend. It's a smaller event than the Mitty in April but the racing is always fun. I just did the day on Saturday and got to see friends race and hang out in the infield.
E=M3²
Maybe somebody else got pictures of it from the outside but the Mondial got mildly hustled around the track at lunchtime for the parade lap. This is the only shot I have taken from the backseat:
3 deep and laughing the whole way. The crew cab has perks! 
New o2 sensor and vacuum lines swapped in. Also, local FAF (pre Ferrari of Atlanta) tuning tricks booklet from the early 80s acquired on eBay with a bonus hat!
To wrap up the season, I headed down to Atlanta Italian Car Day at the Ferrari dealer and put the Mondial in. Super gorgeous weather and it's Italian and runs so I felt obliged to participate. Fully aware there would be seriously expensive cars in the show, I'm not trying to win anything. Arriving intact is winning.
Holy cow, some beautiful cars out there. Allow me to dump a few:
Best of Show Bizzarrini 5300 gt strada:
Merak:
And my personal favorite, a running, spotless, efi Biturbo zagato:
Some other mildly 
collectible 80s Italian stuff inside:
99 mile GTO:
92 year old Fiat:
Rare color specs and other assorted oddballs:
At the end, one of the last awards wasn't judged but a series of questions the last being "Who has the highest mileage Ferrari?"
Nobody raised their hand as if stating a number would instantly drop their resale value. I kind of watched and 40k was the highest anybody would admit to. When I said 86k, I got some looks ranging from "that's too bad" to "Hell yea". It's an interesting scene and I love being on the absolute far end of the spectrum at these things.
So it's an "award winner" along the lines of Miss Congeniality at the beauty pageant. 
You are having more fun with less Ferrari. Economics major?
That is an award I would glady take any day! :)
Well-earned! I bet you would also win the Most-Enjoyed award if they had one.
another bullet point for the eventual BaT listing: award winner at major Italian auto event. ;-)
chandler said: I looked for a long time for a set of those to adapt and run on my mazda5, great looking wheels
FYI- For those who might want a set of 348 Speedlines, there is a set on BAT with no reserve currently.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/ferrari-348-speedline-wheels/
A Belgian Ferrari junkyard used a picture of my car for the cover of their annual calendar and sent me one. There is something poetic about being a junkyard model for people buying used Ferrari parts. Talk about a niche group.
I am a fan of the broken down pair sharing Miss February:
I have some delamination on the warning panel and Ferrari club member Joachim expertly reproduced it and sent it to a few other Mondial dudes for FREE. This community is so generous.
Mitty '24 in the books 🏎️
US front side marker lamps blemish both Ferraris. The little Euro dot was so much nicer. I have plenty of those gears, most of mine were free. The one that wasn't, though.....
TurnerX19 said:US front side marker lamps blemish both Ferraris. The little Euro dot was so much nicer. I have plenty of those gears, most of mine were free. The one that wasn't, though.....
Mondials didn't have the "dots" in Europe. Front marker is 1/2 inch more narrow and the rear marker wasn't added. Doesn't keep me up at night at all.
In reply to crankwalk (Forum Supporter) :
Not worth the effort to back date for sure. You can't feel it at the apex!
I'm just now realizing that you're the same guy that had the sweet green 240Z! I love your taste in cars!
crankwalk (Forum Supporter) said:
It's been a long time since I saw a Mondial in the flesh, but I do NOT remember them looking this good. Rad!
Lof8 - Andy said:I'm just now realizing that you're the same guy that had the sweet green 240Z! I love your taste in cars!
Thanks sir!
If anybody needs some enablement, this is on Facebook in my town:
1982 Ferrari Mondial 8, $37,500, listed 11 weeks ago.
I had been sitting on the new control panel screen and card for a while so I decided to do this on a long conference call today. Multitasking!
Gently pry the frame back, Deoxit on the board and connectors.
Replaced the bulbs with some LEDs that are the 2700k "warm" variety to not stand out.
Buttoned up:
It works and the lighting matches. This kind of little thing is so satisfying and I would have probably never done it had Joachim on the Ferrari board not made extra and just offer them up to folks for free.
Looks great!
Summer is here and this car is hot as hell inside. Black leather everything just radiates. I may see what all this a/c system needs to get going again cause windows down barely cuts it this time of year.
Last Sunday at the neighborhood brewery with a sort of start of the summer get together:
Ceramic tint would really help with interior heat gain and can be had in 70-80% VLT.
Exhaust day is here two years after I originally bought this setup. The previous owner of the exhaust no longer needed it and sold it cheap because he is swapping a Tesla drivetrain into his car.
The factory California spec Mondial QV exhaust is the most restrictive, heaviest, clunky afterthought of an exhaust system I have ever seen. Not only that I want to have a better sound, I had suspicions that this exhaust wasn't in great shape.
In the shop behind the ragtop bug.
This low of a car requires 2x4s and a careful dance of shuffling jacks around so the bumper doesn't bottom out.
Extra hands were appreciated as this thing weighed a ton.
Unburdened by what has always been:
Posting up a photo of the rare smog pump belt in case somebody else on the Internet might need it later down the road:
The air pump belt was removed and all metal EGR tubing removed and welded. The remaining opening on an EGR valve up higher near the intake manifold was capped off using a rubber foot cover from a barstool.
New exhaust is in, but the tips are wider than the factory set up so I will have to open up the surround on the rear heat, shield, a.k.a. the diaper.
And sounds!
After firing it up, all was running beautifully and sounding great, but I was idling at 2200 rpm. I thought that I had not disabled the EGR 100% in a way that left it on warm-up mode and wouldn't come off to heat the cats. Actually what it turned out to be was I needed to just manually lower the idle from the throttle body stop. These cats were so clogged that the idle was raised so high and only would come up to 850 RPM with the stock exhaust. Once the new mufflers were on, it could breathe so so so much better and just gained 1000+ rpm. Thankfully also the heat coming from the back had to be dropped in half. The factory twin cat set up before going into that giant box of a muffler got hotter than just about any exhaust on a street car I've ever seen.
I drove it home about 30 miles and it runs so well. Exhaust burbles on the overrun on decel and just uncorked Ferrari noises now. I also may have dropped into 2nd through a few tunnels on the way back.
A couple little things to button up before it's 100%, but it shouldn't be too much more work before calling the exhaust done.
That's sounds awesome
Sounds great! Does the "new" exhaust still have cats too, but just less of them, or smaller ones?
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