According to Wiki these cars had an unrestricted engine output of 550hp. Wow, anyone know what they did to achieve this figure from this little V8?
Kessel Racing has one 360 GTC currently for sale. They did mention that without restrictions the engine makes 550hp. Probably they oversized the cylinders, highest rev limit..but i'm not an excerpt to answer you 100% correctly. http://www.kesselracing.ch/products/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2011/09/360_gtc.pdf
Oops now I have 2 threads in this section after the mods moved the first one. I am no stranger to engine modifications, just wondering if they are still 3.6 litre. I am assuming bigger cams, bigger injectors, bigger exhaust, ecu re-map, more revs etc. Just wondering if the short block is the same.
From the factory/Michelotto, the GTC was rated at 445bhp, IIRC. So, block may be the same, but I'd expect it's been bored out for larger piston displacement. Probably stroker engine, also. New cams for adjusted timing. Maybe enlarged intake and exhaust valve ports. Who knows? Don't think you can find nearly 100bhp with ecu re-mapping, though. CW
The original Michelotto spec racing engines where horrifically expensive and I believe where sold in different 'step's' and didnt last very long. Quite a bit was written about a long time ago on this very forum in this thread; http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/australia/87362-360-n-gt-michelotto-s-n-11-resto-6.html Suffice to say comments like; Quote, 'Step 5 engine is only for use with Marelli engine management' Quote, 'Veloqx cars have aggressive anti stall programming, and idle too high for F1 gearbox.' Quote, 'About "step 5":a lot of 360N-GT,GT and GTC have currently the step 5 engine.I know s/n 000M,2016,2038,2060,2062,2066,2068. Currently it is the latest available updating by Michelotto factory. Injection and ignition looms,alternator,flywheel and clutch,power steering pump are a few parts of the step 5 update.' If you think about the level of work involved, its massively expensive and much cheaper to transplant an F430 engine, box ,e-diff, abs, ecu's, wiring, the whole lot from a breaker. if you so desired more power. Once you start looking at the injector size, fuel pressure and so forth you realize the stock fueling cannot handle much more than about 440hp without bigger injectors. Then you require full remapping and so on. Then things like throttle bodies get in the way so you either enlarge them (e.g. ones from an F430/599) and remap again and hit the next block, which is then the redtop intake itself which needs remaking in another material, which needs a bigger diameter bore and off you start all over again. It all starts becoming big big money, before long your snapping con-rods, destroying blocks and throwing pistons in your quest for even more out of the little 3.6 V8 as you creep higher and into the upper 9k rev limiter range so ultra balancing becomes mission critical. To get really big gains these days you'd use newer technology like direct fuel injection and repositioned much higher pressure fuel injection (as found on 458) and ofcourse more modern ecu's so you can monitor ion's before det occurs. All of this requires very deep pockets and is in effect where you'd need to go to close to 500+ on the 360. Not impossible but very very big effort.
Thanks Trev, some good reading there. I had wondered about a higher idle with the F1 system, but it obviously can work. (Like on the F1 cars of the era) It's not hard to treble the output of say an old 350 chev but 400hp from a 3.6 litre is already fairly highly strung. Although bumping the power by 25% doesn't seem too far fetched. I would imagine with a mild cam, ecu and exhaust upgrade, an extra 50hp would be achievable while keeping reliability. But as you say 430 running gear would be more practical.
The Step4 engine we ran made 442HP through a pair of 29mm restrictors which used to pull the plenum pressure down to 870-890mbar. And that still ran an F1 gearbox. Extrapolating out the plenum depression would give you a theoretical HP of 505HP. Throw in some wilder cams, intake monifold mods and lighter bits and you'd probably see another 20-30HP. If you could offload the stock intake manifold 550 wouldn't be too hard but you'd be tightening up the power band as a trade off. The Step5 was only for use with the sequential transaxle although I know of at least one car that had Bosch ECU's similar to the lesser GT's but remapped. That wasn't a GTC from birth though.
As far as I know, this car has been sold a long time ago to France. And it wasnt a original GTC, it was converted by Michelotto not build as GTC from new. PM me if you need more info.
