Misc Ferrari Projects

A few things in process on our 308. Hoping to actually drive this thing again soon!


Sorry for the poor cell phone pics, but you should get the idea.
Top right corner shows the new Mallory fuel pressure regulator. Past dual stage pumps flooded the carbs, this is a boost compensating device now that will allow low (3.8 to start) pressure until the boost come in, the raises fuel pressure on a 1:1 ratio as the boost climbs. Watching the carbs while turing up the pressure shows me how much pressure I can run before it pushes past the needle and seat, so I think I can still run up to 6 psi boost before the float can't meter out the fuel. At that point it may be needing all the fuel It can pass anyway, so flooding may be unlikely. At least now, when the demand drops, the regulator will send un-needed fuel back to the tank so pressure drops back, reducing the raw gas, flooding and flames.
Also tonight will finish setting float levels and get the carbs back together. Have new main jets and air correcing jets installed. Playing with those combinations is kind of like picking lotto numbers, but I think I found the sweet spot according to plug readings.

Next was the ignition. Yeah, I should really go with an Electromotive crank trigger electronic system, but trying to stay in budget, I'll do the best I can with this.

Replaced the stock 32 year old coils with Bosch Super Coils. Likey getting around 18,000 volts discharge from the old ones, these are rated at 45,000. Ferrari calls for a .022" plug gap. I should be able to open the gap to something more reasonable and actually get a flame inducing spark.

Rebuilt distributors. New single points system in each one. Ferrari has a very complex method of running retard points at idle, then they cut out via a throttle position switch and the "P2" points trigger the spark during the advance curve. Now have a single set of points in each dizzy and a conventional muscle car curve that runs from 6 degrees BTDC at idle to 34 degrees advance at 5000 rpm. The factory's dual points system in an interesting theory, but different than how I have run dual points in the past. On one drag car I set it up to turn off one set of points in high gear and used that to retard the timing a couple of degrees for that final pull thru the lights, or when I his the nitrous button. Anyway, on this one I'm figuring less is more. Keep it simple.

Also new condensors and cleaned, lubed all the advance mechanisms. Bearings felt great. Here is one of the distributors coming apart.

Plug wires. Distributor caps looked real good, thankfully, because they cost a small fortune, but the old 7mm wires were getting stiff. Checking them all with an ohm meter, found a couple suspect ones. One completely broken down internally. I had a 7 cylinder 308. Now have new 8mm wires installed. The universal "cut to length" box of wires I found only had one coil wire, so I still need to make up one more, then the wire job is done. Here is the old stuff.

Note the bowl of cherries on the table. I have a really good helper when it comes to these things, and nourishment always arrives just in time.

That's all for now, hoping to get some of it back together in the next few evenings and try it out.

Oh yeah, the patient:

I don't understand the other posts but I love the last picture

Must be the way I feel when you guys talk about computers.

Surely you picked up some technical insight in the text above. (Besides the bowl of cherries. )

youre either a genius or crazy

want to try your hand on my Diablo some time??

There is no off on the genius switch.

ferrari looks great! are the 3x8 turbo?

sorry for my f-car noob-ness haha

No, the 3X8 is not turbocharged. This one has an aftermarket supercharger though.

Actually, in Italy in the 70s cars over 2 liters in cid had a big tax assigned to them. (Sounds like an Obama idea). So Ferrari had a local market 208. The tiny V8 was turbocharged to be on par with the normal 308 3 liter cars. The 208s are rare.

Other turbo V8 Ferraris included the 190 mph 288 GTO and the 201 mph F40.

Now your Ferrari education has begun. DC33 can fill you in on their racing history.

yeah I knew the F40 was turbo'd but you mentioned running boost so I was just curious. I didn't even think of it being supercharged! oh well it's looking good and that's awesome you're doing your own work on it! I would never been risky enough to pull that off even after years of experience.. but then again I'm still 19 and have time to learn

did the F40 ever really break 200???
I know they claimed to be able to, but from all Ive seen they never really came close to it

F40 <3

Google is your friend. Plenty of documentation of the F40 exceeding 200mph. That piss yellow paint has fused your retina and taken your cerebral cortex with it..

buuuuuuuuuurn!

'nuther couple of updates. Here are the new wires cut and laid out, along with the two rebuilt distributors. Change in plans though, I'm now going to put all the spark and advance management into one distributor. The likelyhood that the two distributors advance curve ever really were, or could be perfectly matched is remote. This will make tune ups easier, and realistically should make the enging run smoother during accereration. It will still have two, just one will only distribute spart to the proper plug, while the "smart" one will have all the features.

In case anyone wondered, here is where the timing marks are on a 308. There is a cover removed with a gasket. Speaking of genius, Ferrari put the oil filter right over this inspection cover, so if you spill any oil during a filter change, it has a really good chance of running right down onto the clutch. Ooops.

While all the plugs are out, it seemed a good time to check compression and do a leakdown test to check the general health of the engine.
Here is the leakdown set up on cyl #7. You bring the piston to Top Dead Center on the compression stroke, so the valves are closed. Pump measured compressed shop air into the cyl thru the spark plug hole, read % of air loss on the fancy little calibrated gauge. This is a super good reading, barely moving the needle off of zero. Looks like about 2% loss. It is normal to lose air past the rings, but seeing 10% is common. While under pressure, listen to the carbs, tailpipe, radiator cap, dipstick hole. Air whistle from any of those helps diagnose internal leakage issue. E.G., air in radiator = bad head gasket, tailpipe = bad exhaust valve. Takes longer to perform, but much better than a compression test.

I have a 2002 Yukon XL which had the infamous piston slap noise. GM played the "it's normal" card for a couple months, if they admitted to a problem they would have thousands of engines to replace. After running the course for a while with them, I took them my own leakdown results, proving the piston was sloppy in the cylinder and could cock enough to lose ring seal against the cyl wall. They could not disprove my results, and gave me a new engine with the 2003 resolution pistons. Side story, but told to show the effectiveness of this proceedure.

Quick update:

As noted above, I decided to put the points for triggering both coils into one distributor. The benefits are many, the downside is just pretty much drilling holes in an expensive piece of hardware.

Before anyone screams "go electronic", I had these points, and no sence throwing away $100, so I'll use them until next time they are due for replacement, then put electronic trigger modules into this very same arrangement. Best of both worlds.

ok, here is the layout of the added points to the dist base. As close to 45 degrees off from the single set, as the V8 fires a plug each 45 degrees of rotation.

The biger marked holes are to provide clearance relief for the points back-side, so they lay flat on the base of the dist. The scary part:

Ultimately ended up combining these little drill holes into a bigger opening to provide radial adjustment of the point set location.
Then the big unused circlular cut out is filled with aluminum plate to sepate the lubricated advance section below from the ignition half.

Setting up phasing. The cams on the distributor shaft open the points.
Since each distributor has a 4 lobe cam, and evertime the points open, the corresponding coil fires off a high voltage spark, every single 360 degrees of distributor shaft rotation triggers 4 sparks. Each bank of the V8 is managed as it's own 4 cyl.

So, my second set of points, 45 degrees of rotation around the shaft will now set off the other coil. Alternating sparks every 45 degrees = 8 sparks from one distributor. Ta, da, it's almost modern.

Dwell is the length of time the points remain closed during the cycle. The coil builds up a charge during this time. The spec calls for a dwell of 34 degrees. So using a degree wheel and ohm meter, each point set is individually set to 34 degrees by adjusting the point gap that is reached when they are fully open. This is a critical item, as for each degree of dwell the points are off, the timing is off by the same degrees.
Soooo, after the tedius job of dialing in both sets, I then check to see if they open exactly 45 degrees apart. They were not right on, it read 46. So had to loosen one set and move it, then reset dwell, then check for 45. Darn, now at 44. This went on for a while, finally found the sweet spot of 34-34-45! Scribed marks and tightened everything down real good.

Stay tuned for the next episode of, "This Old Car"

this must be like porn for you and Rick


I have no clue what youre talking about half the time

That means half the time you do, thus we're making progress.

well you did post pictures