356 GT4 BB/512 BB/512 BBi euro specs vs US specs

You seek the unknowable

HP measurement has gotten a lot more legit in recent years compared to that era (and the maximum value can be somewhat misleading as it's not easy to always be operating at the engine redline and stay out of jail - mid-band torque can be more important off the track...)

 

Steve has it right...

They were so few and far between that no one was documenting dyno results after conversion.

BTW, many conversions were just to get the import bond refunded.

A lot of cars were then returned to original tune.
You will have to have an expert review any potential purchase, to see exactly where you stand with the machine.

The ones that went to Canada were far more likely to remain original.
Rifledriver and fastradio would be the U.S. Shop Owners with experience on these cars.

fastradio owns a 365, Rifledriver, a TR...

 

You would have to look at each Boxer in the USA on a case-by-case basis. Who knows what was done 30 years ago? Also who knows what has been undone over the last 30 years?

One thing I have seen that is pretty consistent is that the door beams were installed. Some cars had the USA side marker lights put in. Others like mine show no evidence they were ever installed.

 

Best and purest BB's have never seen the indignity of a conversion. EPA/DOT work had no standardization and conversions ranges from minimal and reversible to mutilations with extensive nip, tuck, and lost parts. Best bet for unmolested Boxers in the present-day US is to find well-maintained EU cars with known histories and import them. It's tougher than finding a car imported and converted in-period, but with the relative ease of the worldwide market in the present-day, likely worthwhile in 2014.

 

Some BBIs had the tea tray bumpers put on. Most did not. What thye got was a bit of iron added behind the stock bumper and maybe a rubber strip added. This is all easy to remove if its still there. Us cars pretty much all had door beams which probably adds some small weigth albeit in the middle. Side marker lights are ugly some added to bumpers easy to remove some added to the front clam harder to remove.

My car had straight through pipes with cats when I got it. It was certainly faster than when the restrictive stock exhaust was put back on, aklthough heat from the cats was an issue. Boxers need to breathe and an aftermarket exhaust really opens a BBI up as they are corked at higher revs. After the dissapointemnt of the stock exaust I used the stock headers(which apparentlya re pretty good) with a stainless copy of the anssa sport, rewstorign the lost vigor.

As to power, if acar still has cats they are easy to remove and you are just a Tubi or soemthing else away from havign more go than a stock boxer. But to run properly a BBI must have a properly funtioning FI system, and all boxers need a proper functioning advance on the distributor, most boxers that seem to run fine are really running sub par.

As to condition, because boxers were such a special treat in the USa and because we had a 55mph speed limit one can still find pristine condition BBIs here. This is unlikely in Europe and pretty much any BB will have need to have been redone by now, becasue they were not so well built and rode hard and put away wet. If you wnata really nice orig car the USA is the place to find them, and the mods easily reversed.

Any BB needs to be fully sorted to run well. Think suspension bsuhings, all hoses brake calipers, an EO and all abovementioned subsystems runnign as they should. Most BB run Ok and a 80% running BB is a 150% different to a great runnign one. These are very sensitive machines to setup int he true Italian fashion. But once sprted and setup you have many years of reliable consistent motoring ahead, and they will ask for little except regular fluid changes, plus of course an EO every 5-7 years.

Start with a good car and get it fully sorted. A fully sorted BBI is going to be much better than a so so BB.

As to the power story. To run the injection unit they had to use slightly flatter cams, that is a fact. So a BBI has more TQ maybe less hp although that is debatable, For sure the BBI power is produced a little lower down in the rev range. BBIs are great between 4k and 6k revs with power trailing off after that, although its hard to notice the drop in pull in 3rd gear. Someone hwere worte ina while ago and ahd run a BBI againsta BB there was little to no difference in speed, although the screaming revs and induction roar of the Bb had its appeal, at the price of lower speed incalcitrace.

My own experience was running my BBI neck and neck against a daytona down the main straight at LRP there was zero difference up to about the 130ish we hit.

For modernt raffic a BBI works great, very tractable lots of Tq and frankly if its running peoprly you need soemthign more than a 360 to outrun one up to 150 or so. The AC though on all of them is crap, even if it works the heat soak and greenhouse undo the tepid air,pretty worthless other than maybe at night.

BBs seem to like cool days, they tolerate heat but you will cry for mercy before they do on a hotish day.

In short you can still find great condtion US BBIs. Euro cars have all been redone by now to varying degres and cost more, BBs cost a lot maore and have been redone or seriously need it. I woudl say that any low mileage BB or BBI is gong to need sorting to run great so figure 10-15K with the Eo while youa re at it. the trick is finding someoen who can speak BB to do the work.

 

365 was rated at 360HP when in production just like the BB512. I would be interested to see the headers ferrari used on the dyno which from what Ive seen for the 308 it doesn't resemble the header it needs to install it in the car.

 

Reversing the bumpers/beams/door guards/lights is doable. It just depends if you want a car that had all those parts tacked on in the first place. Often its tough to tell the extent of the DOT federalization until you get the bumpers off. You'll also discover the creative US wiring for "charming" period US stereos, the marker lamps, the cell phones, etc that don't appear as often in EU cars.

Euro cars are not bad cars because they were driven. There are worn-in, worn-out, and pristine cars on both sides of the pond. Mechanically, if one wants to drive a 40-y/o car at speed, all subsystems should be inspected and repaired/restored as needed anyway. In my opinion most Euro BB's were maintained more consistently than the "unloved" US BB's that suffered through neglect in the '90's.

The EPA conversion side is different. The cats that were put in often ran *very* hot so, if one's still there, repairs sometimes need to be made to the material around them. It's easier to mechanically reverse an injected federalized car than a carb car; the carb cars often had re-jetting and changes to all 4 carbs in addition to the expansion tanks, cats, etc that were required on both carb and injected cars. Plus, the earlier carb cars often had more extensive and inconsistent federalization as they arrived at the start of the grey market era. You'll see very few EPA federalized carb 512's and just a few dozen EPA'd 365's due to that challenge.

It's probably a reasonable bet to search for a clean injected federalized US car (if you can live with the DOT portion), but is still search worldwide for a non-fed carb car.

 

The carb mods and timing mods of the carb cars was for low-octane TEL-free fuel which was mandated starting in 1973. Carb cars (and, to a lesser degree, the lower-compression injected cars which dropped to 8.8) were designed to run high-octane leaded gas, and that wasn't what was available for EPA testing nor on the road. That's partially why there are so many complaints of US-market fed BB's running poorly - they we're reverse engineered to pass the sniffer and run poorly from day 1 at the port.

 

And I'll wager a fiver that it didn't have an alternator on it either

 

Compression ratio on 512 boxers is quoted at 9.2:1 carbed or injected but actually measures out at 8.75:1 when Im taking them apart. The 365 and 308's rated at 8.8:1 are actually under 8.5:1!

 

No doubt! Its interesting the 365 was rated at 380HP then 360 and 344 depending on the publication.

 

DOT conversion for Canada on my carb car consisted of swapping the tail lights around so there was a red light visible from the side and the front signals were changed to orange from white. I swapped the tail lights around yesterday so conversion almost undone lol.

My 84 went to the US when new but was a france car so it had the octagon nuts already. Tail lights reversed on it as well and small reflectors screwed onto the U channel on the tops of both bumpers. Finally, the addition of a curtain rod in each door pretending to be a crash bar. The car had no exhaust mods whatsoever and the frame is untouched.
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My car is full euro spec. No cuts, welds, bumpers or door beams. Euro sport headers too.

 

my BB is also remains in true Euro spec (France/Pozzi) Pete...but with a new Timevalve exhaust, including headers, in the spring of this year.