F40 LM Restoration

Me Too! At present it is mostly the tear down phase and a few horrors to come, but I hope next week to be able to start posting some construction as opposed to destruction.

Upsetting what we have found as regards past maintenance but then I suppose that is what you expect from an old racer.

As someone once said, there is no such thing as a cheap F40!

 

Well we now have the manifolds and turbos out. Unusually this car ran twin KKKs with twin waste gates and produced about 640 BHP before it was fitted with adjustable boost which apparently took it to 720.

Anyway, no surprise that this is all in as bad condition as the rest of it. Turbos and wastegates off to a specialist for rebuilding and refinishing, the wastegates needing to have specific care taken so they dont blow off even slightly early. Everything will be cleaned up and probably ceramic coated.

The destruction continues.
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Thanks for the suggestion Gregg. I will look into it.

 

Finally a first sign of some construction, limited though it may be.

Whilst we have the chassis on the jig and importantly the engine still in, we are changing the single LM cross brace to the more rigid GTE style.
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Construction again!

This is the fuel tank saga. In short they very badly needed replacing.

Original car ran with tanks cloaked in a sort of rubberised paint and were well past their sell by date. They are different to road tanks as fuel pumps etc are external for racing. We looked at fitting new cells which only have a 5 or possibly 10 year life(jury seems to be out on this) and as I plan on keeping this car a long time, we decided we did not want to have to take her apart again in a few years time, so we wanted to do better and evolve. Also as the US cars had alloy tanks, this was hardly stepping into the unknown.

Consequently we decided to avail ourselves of Mototechnique's metalworking skills and fabricate our own. The interiors are being sanded to provide a key for a sealant, and then the tanks themselves will be clad in carbon fibre and then filled with foam. This solution is FIA approved so the car can still race if we ever wanted to and yet provides a belt and braces solution which takes advantage of modern developments in materials, has no weight penalty (possibly a small saving), and will hopefully last the life of the car. More detail as they get built up but here you can at least see the start, together with dry fitting in the chassis as they go along.

If, in years ahead when I am gone and the car is with a new owner, anyone who was totally hung up on originality can always revert to the cells, should they still be available.

Always amazed at the skill of someone taking a flat piece of metal and teasing it and cajoling it into complex shapes. I could not even do that with paper.
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For those of you who are kind enough to follow this thread, a straw poll.

The engine, as it is coming out imminently, we have a choice:

1. Refurbish the existing KKK turbos and wastegates and refit as it originally ran

2. Fitted updated turbos with twin wastegates for hopefully better performance assuming turbo technology has moved on but still similar to how it ran.

3. Fit LM style IHI turbos and single wastegate as LM

Ideally were I to maintain twin wastegates, it would be good to be able to fit some form of electrical boost control rather than the current bathroom knob. Is that possible?

In short, what to do to the engine whilst we have it out, aside from all the normal pulleys, belts etc.

Please bear in mind that suspension, brakes etc are all being upgraded and evolving to Michelotto LM spec as per earlier in the thread. Also I want to maintain or enhance value not just go for the ultimate in performance terms.

 

It makes it worthwhile when there are comments like this so I know it is being read and appreciated. Without, why bother!

Thank you

 

I think I am heading that direction too. But would be interested in your reasoning?

Thanks

 

Well that did not help me much in my decision making on Turbo options!

Anyway, progress.

Finally a filthy engine is released. 24 years of road and racing grime removed in a few hours and what a result. We then will break down the gearbox and on Michelotto's recommendation, replace second gear as it is apparently a known weak spot when you start pumping more power through it, especially when used in anger as in racing. Also considering changing the crown wheel and pinion as apparently this car ran in excess of 220 and again on his advice, he suggests a reduction to give us a top speed of about 190/195 which is what he gears his current race cars to, even at Le Mans. The gain, obviously, is in acceleration.

Note still dry fitting the tanks as they are gradually made up, but in a week or so they should be all clad in carbon and good to go.

Whilst we have the engine out and broken down, thinking about pulling the heads just to check as it would be a shame to go this far only to find some problem later. Apparently recently rebuilt but after what we have found so far, it might be nice to see for ourselves.
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