Here is photo #1 of what will be a drawn-out exercise. This is the timing chain case, cleaned and painted. It was black when I started, took 4 days to get to this. Far from finished though as I'm waiting for the new timing chain and oil pump bushes to arrive from the US, plus the water pump seal and front crank seal, which come in the complete engine seal & gasket set. There are a zillion o-rings in a Daytona engine, hard to believe that they can leak oil at all! Engine block and heads are with the builder, also awaiting parts from the US so that machining can start. I suspect it will be February before I get it all back and can start reassembly. At least measuring has confirmed that the crank is OK, will just need linishing and fresh bearings. All the wear was in the top end, pistons, pins and little end bushes, plus 4 bores scored from broken rings. Image Unavailable, Please Login
great! I love threads like this. Hope to see a lot more updates Ian. Thanks for taking the time. Any 'before' shot? Greg
Short motor and heads are being done by a highly regarded engineer here in Sydney, while bolting the heads and everything else back together will be done by someone with no credibility - yours truly. I didn't take before shots because everything was so filthy. It looked OK in the car as not much of the motor is visible because of heat shields and plumbing, but it was ugly underneath.
It will get JE forged 10:1 pistons (standard comp is 8.8:1) and s/s valves with trick flow and seat profiles. Rods will be closed and honed. All bearings will be Vanwall. Apart from this, the guy doing the primary build is meticulous at setting everything up perfectly, spring heights, deck heights, piston to bore clearances etc. Last Daytona he did made 400+ hp and remained as tractable and docile as before, which is good because they are such p*ssy cats to drive around town yet have explosive performance from any revs - just like a BB!
Can't wait to see at a carb run please take me for run.Do you run the 9 inch rear rims and if so what tyre.
Yes, 9" rims with XWX's. They look and feel right on the car and are very predictable but of course have less grip than modern alternatives. OK for me, I'm only an 8/10ths driver who plans to get even older than I am now Come up to Sydney for a breakfast run next year, $75 on Virgin, Ferrari pickup at the airport!
here's a question for all the mechanical engineers here (where's Sammy L when you need an answer ?) : the ribs on the block look very superficial , so do they do anything or is it just for manufacturing purposes ?
No, they are right where the cam chain stresses the case. The chain runs around in idler sprocket in the middle of the "Y" (you can see the end of the shaft right next to the water pump stud) up to each cam drive sprocket then down to the drive sprocket on the crankshaft at the base of the Y. It drives the water pump along the way. An end plate goes onto the case at the top of each arm of the Y and has a bush which supports each cam drive sprocket, so there is load here too. Imagine all of this at 7000rpm! The case is only 3/16" thick, the ribs are needed to prevent cracking.
but is it trial and error or are there a set of equations for calculating stress areas ? I can remember Mitsubishi Magnas having all sorts of problems with crankcases breaking in large numbers and even BMW M3 were having engine problems of a similar nature so if these large companies can run into this problem how come you rarely hear of a Ferrari engine cracking or having stress fractures with subsequent recalls ?
I thinks its called 50 years of winning F1 and every significant endurance race in the world! The Daytona V12 is an evolution of the original Colombo motor from 1947, with design inputs from the best engineers Italy produced. They've had thousands of engine failures along the way to learn from, plus they always used the best materials and designers.
I know I am hopelessly biased, but seriously the Daytona V12 is an utterly remarkable motor, not only completely untempremental, but it has a feeling of zero internal inertia or strain. There is no flywheel inertia when you blip the throttle, yet on a level surface it will pull away in 1st at 800rpm. It was truly the best supercar engine in the world in 1969. The Lambo V12 was agricultural in comparison, Maserati had lumpy V8's, Porsche weedy 6's that needed to have their necks wrung, etc. The Daytona feels quite different to Ferrari's single cam 12's and very different to the 6's and 8's. Its got more torque than a 365BB and more top end power than a 512. Of course, emission controls were the end of great engines, it has taken a long time and a lot more capacity for Ferrari to come up with something better. Everyone should try a Daytona at least once! (if only to complain about the steering )
Colombo was well out of the picture by this stage and he only did the single OHC engine so I would say Lampredi had a lot to do with this car but I can't find anything in my Daytona book suggesting Aurelio was the chief engineer on this car. Bazzi would have weighed in as well I think ..... while we're on the engineers, I can't remember if Jano ever had anything to do with the Ferrari engines or just the ALFAs in the racing era ?
BB512 didn't achieve claimed 175mph top speed. Best result I recall was high 160's - I have the comparison road test somewhere at home. Daytona clocked at 175-178mph by several publications. Doesn't make the 512 a lesser car, its more a reflection of the impact of emission regulations on engine design.
Looking forward to seeing more of this thread (the on topic bits anyway). Should be fascinating, thanks for posting.
just thought I'd share a story about my first experience with Daytona engines.... ok, so I was 18 years old (gees... thats 18 years ago now!) and still a bit new to the job, been working on 308's and Mondials mostly... anyway... Things were going nicely and I get entrusted to do a full major service on a nice Daytona... all goes well... valve clearances, head torque, oil leaks (yes), points/condensors + dizzy phase and set up, carb synch and tune etc etc... the whole schedule... All is fine and done, custome rtakes car and phone rings 30 minutes later.... "WTF have you done to my car... it's stopped in a cloud of blue smoke, it's FKT blah blah blah..." send truck, recover car. Very nervous and anxious me begins investiagtions..... doesn't take long to work out what happened.... anyone wanna guess? (asking for it I know, but anyone?)
You dropped a screwdriver in the engine bay and it sat in between the headers and after a while of driving the plastic handle started to melt and smoke up.At least this is what happened to a Ferrari apprentice at a well known dealership
well......... when he picked it up, it only had about 1/4 tank of fuel..... he drove straight around to the nearest petrol station (oops I'm an Aussie now, it's only this memory that's english).. nearest servo...and filled it with diesel...to the brim.......and then drove it until it fizzled to a halt........ it wrecked the accel pump diaphragms, set of plugs, some fuel hose and filter... and smoked for a little while after but came good.
agree with the hp/torque of a Daytona to a BB.Remember Bill Alexander saying how when he owned his Daytona how at 120mph nothing would keep with it ,he was reffering to BB's,911 turbo's and Muira's.
