FrankenFerrari - V12 Ferrari 308

In reply to crankwalk (Forum Supporter) :

Last time I had it aligned at a local shop they used the shims they had on hand and got it to factory spec with no issues.  I've lowered is a bit more since then but with it not really running/driving and me planning a suspension rebuild I've not attempted aligning it at the current ride height. 

This time I'm also planning to add more camber and the problem there I'm told is the bolts holding the lower forks aren't long enough so I'm planning to deal with while I'm at it this winter

I've got plenty of camber before the alignment but I think that's a function of it being way way low. It handles great but I have more negative camber dirvier's side thatn passenger and  I'm hoping to have enough adjustment either way. Those Ricambi shims are a lot of money for washers with slits cut in them. 

In reply to crankwalk (Forum Supporter) :

Now I'm really wondering how low is "way way low"?????  

followed by how was it achieved setup wise?

Id 1k seem really big for this.  says the guy with 12 1480s on a 6cyl

Id 1k seem really big for this.  says the guy with 12 1480s on a 6cyl

Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) said:

Id 1k seem really big for this.  says the guy with 12 1480s on a 6cyl

The goal was to only be spraying fuel into a moving air stream so the fuel vaporization cools the air not the port walls and that means short duty cycle and that means big injectors.  Originally the plane was to use the show injectors the ducati 999 came with but I got talked out of it and into this plan thinking the ID injectors are well enough matched that it should work out fine.....it still might.  They shipped today so now I wait.

So the tires did not go as planned.  The discount tire place told me they no longer mount used tires, too dangerous.  I stopped by a small place I drive past and he tried, he got 1 but they are just too wide for his machine.  But 1 is enough for a test fit....

Clearly I was just being a big scaredy-cat and 315s would probably fit.....but they really want a wider wheel......what the?!  the wheel company now has 10.5, 1,11.5 wide blanks....hmmmmmmm....anyone want a set of 18x8, 18x10 wheels?

(the forum software has started doing some weird stuff to the pics.....the look right everywhere but here, sideways, upside down...yuck)

In reply to mke :

Regarding injection timing... this is definitely something to play with for sure.  One of my tuner friends found something crazy like 50hp in an LT1 (the 90s Camaro engine) with injection timing.  He also let on that there was benefit to timing the injection so that it acted like an "air door" to prevent reversion, but I suspect that this is also highly dependent on port geometry and injector placement.  An injector that sprays perpendicular to airflow will actually be impeding it.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I heard similar things, like 3-5% with sub 38% duty cycle and correct timing.  That's what convinced me to try it.  Maybe someday I'll make it to 5he duno and find out.

Eh I have always had the best luck on close injector position by spraying on closed valves and closed for a hair. They are nice and hot and the initial reverse pressure wave from closing is passed. I have seen power swing in just a few degrees around valve close event. The further you move the injector back the less it matters. 

In reply to Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) :

I've hear that too....kind of case by case.  For idle and low power I am spraying on the closed valve and the dyno will decide what I should do at high power I guess.

In other news here in rural PA the major tire places will no longer mount used tires, it took about 6 tries to find a place with the right equipment willing to do it.  Walmart was still fine doing it but said nothing under 40 profile on their machine.  I'm thinking about popping down to tirerack to grab a pair of fronts tomorrow or maybe next weekend because I believe its finally going to drive in the coming weeks :)

Yea my advice is try stuff on the dyno. Didn't know you were local-ish to me. Most poeple don't pop down to tire rack 

mke said:

In reply to crankwalk (Forum Supporter) :

Now I'm really wondering how low is "way way low"?????  

followed by how was it achieved setup wise?

Im running the Hiro Performace coilovers and they were maybe 1/3 the cost of the QA1 and Moton setups. I don't know if they have a 308 option though. It rides and handles fantastic but at that level, just eyeballing it I'll need to take camber out. .

The new wheels look great on the 308!

Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) said:

Didn't know you were local-ish to me. Most poeple don't pop down to tire rack 

Morgantown PA area,...Im sort of remembering oxford area for you?  The delaware tirerack is like 35 or 40 miles and in person will save me about $50 which is the cost to mount and balance.   It for sure pays on 4 tires, 2 it depends but these are kind of pricey so I guess worth the drive. 

crankwalk (Forum Supporter) said:

Im running the Hiro Performace coilovers and they were maybe 1/3 the cost of the QA1 and Moton setups. It rides and handles fantastic but at that level, just eyeballing it I'll need to take camber out.

 

The new wheels look great on the 308!

A buddy just put those on his 348 (former) challenge car....still waiting on the feedback.  Did you get damping curves with them you can share?  kind of trying to decide where I want to go with mine.

If you like the wheels I can get you a set...I know a guy :)

I don't have the damping curves handy but they are 32 way adjustable that actually works and custom spring rates are free (or at least they were a couple years ago when I ordered them).

Who makes the wheels of you have a link? I like my 348 wheels for this setup but I'm always watching out for 5x108 options.

crankwalk (Forum Supporter) said:

I don't have the damping curves handy but they are 32 way adjustable that actually works and custom spring rates are free (or at least they were a couple years ago when I ordered them).

 

Who makes the wheels of you have a link? I like my 348 wheels for this setup but I'm always watching out for 5x108 options.

If you can find the spring and damping info I would love to see it...as I said I"m giving a lot of thought to revalving my shocks and don't want to cross into horrible to drive, but I'm not really sure where that line is exactly.

The wheels are my design that I had manufactured in China.  Mine are 18s, I did a 17in design for another 308 guy.  They have standard forgings and can do any design that fits an available forging pretty cheap, it was around $2k delivered last order I think. 

Its got A052 tires all around now.  I'm told these like about 3-3.5deg camber to work right so kind of funny...I stopped at the small shop that helped yesterday, but they were closed and since these were new tires the big store would do them so I dropped them.  When I picked them up the small store guy was there at the big store so I had to apologize but did talk to him about getting on his alignment machine and he was more than open to helping me out when the time comes. yay.

I bought a replacement powersteering unit, it will be here in a few days and I can get that sorted, I REALLY miss the power working.  But for now I'm out of things to delay myself from looking at the ports.

I'm struggling to get a picture, but driving up the driveway and seeing it, this thing looks a bit like a drag car now. ...it's a good look imo.

I was trying to work on #7 but the leak in #12 was so bit it made it about impossible to find other leak so I started with 12.  This one the leak is very high in the port so it wasn't causing much oil problem.  I put the air hose into the crank vest could hear/feel the air coming out.  I ground it and you can see the issue, a whole lot of spray cleaner, then filled with the H-450 Alumbond and really worked it in trying to some bite in the crack.  It says 4-5 hours to harden....and I don't want to disturb it.....I decided to add some heat thinking it will setup a lot faster and its probably a good thing to cure it closer to operation temp so less stress running.  Now I'll wait a couple hours then move to another.

Hmmmm....looks like welded something shut on the cam cover and probably sanded most of the weld away so it blew open on the pressure test....more glue and back it it tomorrow I guess

Port repairs continued today.  this morning...ok, around noon, I found and glued a hole in #7 and walked away to let it harden.    While that was hardening I checked my notes from when I did the porting to confirm this area is really not a very critical to flow, just make it smooth so I cleaned up 12 and its done.  Just now I found and glued a hole in 6.

While the 7 was hardening I took a look at the front bank TB linkages that were giving me trouble.  When I originally designed everything I wasn't really thinking that I needed 2 different designs so the front bank was a last minute change and clearly suboptimal as some were hard stopping on the spring and a couple the screws were backing out while it was running.  

I found some much stiffer springs to hold the linkage against the adjusted  and cut them to a size the works well.  Then I repurposed the softer springs to help secure the adjusting screws....hope fully this does the trick.

Here's  the rear bank for comparison...you can see the springs are in different placed because they operate in the opposite direction.

Hole found and fixed in #3....I think that's it.  I'll do another look tonight to be sure.

Ebay steer unit guy canceled the order, new offer made to a different seller.

Since I'm waiting on the injectors I'm thinking I might make new a-arm mounts to correct the roll centers and maybe add the antidive in front. I look at it tonight.

I didn't actually do anything last night but tonight I did the final sand of the glued ports and a final leak test and didn't find any leaks....hopefully that means there aren't any more leaks.

Then I pulled lower a-arm mounts from 1 side.  I've hear they are a pretty marginal design and I'm pretty sure they were supposed to be straight (and the forum software rotated the pic 90 degrees)

Anyway, mostly I just stared at it a bit.  The stock mount are offset 20mm which seems quite a lot and it does make me wonder wft they were thinking?  Its like they designed it and moved the chassis into production before the suspension guys finished or maybe more likely it didn't drive great and this was part of the fix.  I'm leaning to making new wheel carriers but I want to give it some thought.

There is a plan kind of jelling in my head right now that involves a spacer on the bottom of the wheel carrier and a barrel bolt  to reach through the spacer and grab the bolt on top of the balljoint to let me space the lower ball joint as low as I want to set it.  Its the first idea I've had so far that I don't hate anyway. 

I've read that for motorsport type use roll center general want to be 15-30% of CG (about 2.5-5.1 for me) and on a rear drive car the rear should be closer to 15 and the front closer to 30 to get good grip on the drive tires....which is opposite of stock 308 setup that got worse when I lowered it  and might explain why I was always hunting for rear grip, removed the rear sway bar, tried softer rear springs and such.  Dropping the front balljoint lets me easily get up toward 5" in front even with stock a-arm forks

Then in the rear a small  change to the forks gets that looking pretty good