Sorry Mike I don't think he did. Fabspeed does however have an off the shelf set ready. Had I not already had my headers I would totally buy a set from fabspeed.
I just ordered a set of Fabspeed headers. I plan to do the full montie induction upgrade this spring including throttle bodies, plenum, hoses and air boxes. I am hoping for chips. I plan on a before and after dyno runs to document the changes. Stay tuned. Hoping for chips. Hoping for chips. Andy
ATA BOY Andy! Be sure to base line your car with all the stock stuff, stock cats, stock single can muffler, stock headers, stock injectors, etcetera, etcetera first. That way you can truely see the difference in power versus how it came from the factory. Did you already make an appointment at Competizione for the base line pulls?
Now that we have the exhaust end taken care of (headers, hiflow cats/test pipes, free flow exhaust), let's go to the induction side of the engine. We'll start with the throttle bodies. I found a calculator for estimating the size throttle body need for an engine based on the number of cylinders, bore (in inches), stroke (in inches), and rpm for max power. High Performance Math The F119 has a bore of 85mm, and a stroke of 75mm. Converted to inches gives a bore of 3.34646", and a stroke of 2.95276". Plugged in the numbers, ran the calculation = a throttle body size for street use of 65mm, and for racing 74.77mm, I'll round that up to 75mm, for an engine making peak power at 7000rpm Hmmmmmm???? So why did Ferrari use dinky 54mm tbs? Then it dawned on me. Ferrari runs the F119 as two separate four cylinder engines (which is a whole other issue I'll address later). So I plugged the numbers back in and ran the calculation on only 4 cylinders = a 54mm (actually 53.99181mm I just rounded it up) for a "race" engine making peak power at 7300rpm. The early Motronic mapping had lower rev limiters, 7500ish/rpm, so that calculation would pen out, and explains why Ferrari used that small throttle body. Based on a four banger that may be okay, but the F119 is a V8. So why would Ferrari restrict the output of the 348 when the F119 is capable of so much more power? My guess is they didn't want it out performing it's "big brother" the Testarossa. We've seen that the F119 heads can support 430hp-500hp, and we know the 348LM cars made around 430hp. Can you imagine the public reaction if the 348 had out performed the Testarossa???? The "mighty testarossa" getting out performed by "the worse car Ferrari ever build". Hahahahahahaaa!!!! Yeah that would have been some mud in the eye. I rans some more numbers based the displacement of the engine. The F119's total displacement in inches is 207.8". The Calculations based on that number yielded throttle body sizing of 66mm for street up to 76mm for race, on an engine making max power at 7300rpm. I also ran the calculations based on liters, and the numbers came out the same 66mm & 76mm throttle body sizing for a V8 displacing 3.4 liters (3405cc). To me this makes it clear why the F119 doesn't produce the power it is capable of with the stock intake setup. But even running as two four cylinders the throttle bodies are too small. I had mine ported to 57mm at the throttle plate, and tapper out to 62mm at the throttle body inlet. Then DeeGee "Time" and I did before and after dyno test on his engine with my ported tbs. The result was +4hp to the hubs (sorry guys no dyno sheets for this). Now +4 extra ponies may not seem like much but extra power is extra power, and I'll take all the extra power I can get out of this engine, naturally aspirated of course. Plus when I had mine done the cost was less than $200. An out fit called MaxBore can port them for $125 each tb. So get your throttle bodies tapper ported for some extra breathing on the stock intake.
Just some history on this 348 Dyno runs. I had just completed the major service. All emissions had been removed. The ECU's have been tuned. The tests were run with a few different configurations. I believe the highest output was with Fabspeed headers, test pipes, and capristo stage 3 muffler. (They told me there was no hp increase however over stock muffler, I found that hard to believe) Nothing ever came out of them doing any intake work. It is by far one of the best sounding cars I have been around, at low rpm, it has a low growl, quite unique, as she climbs thru the revs she screams. It is not a great setup it you have neighbors within 1 mile of your home.... My neighbors always can tell me when I came of the mountain. My wife can't stand it, because I can't hear here talk. (I think I just convinced myself, this is the best setup and married man can ask for.)
Ernie, if twin stock throttle bodies have more area than a single 75mm why do you think they are insufficient?
Because the engine is breathing through them separately. One bank sucking air through one tb, and the other bank through other the other tb. The engine is NOT breathing from both 54mm tbs at the same time, which would totally breath better than a single 75mm. Each bank breaths from only one tb. The cylinders on the right bank line up (4)(3)O(2)(1), with the throttle body positioned where the "O" is. When piston #1 is on it's intake stroke, it evacuates a lot of air from the plenum. Then as #3 starts it's intake stroke it has to draw in most of it's air from the 54mm throttle body, because the plenum still has to be refilled. Not only that the air has to change directions inside the plenum. The velocity from #1 is going right, but #3 is on the left. So as it changes direction it loose velocity, on top of trying to refill the plenum AND fill the cylinder at the same time. All through the single small 54mm tb. Then #4 starts it's intake stroke, because it's on the same side as #3 the incoming air is still carrying the velocity in the same direction, to the left. But, when #2 begins it's intake stroke the incoming air charge has to change directions again, towards the right. The way Ferrari designed the stock plenum, it gets two induction pulses going right and then two induction pulses going left. Right/right, then left/left, R/R, L/L, R/R, L/L, over and over as the engine runs. The engine has to work it's butt off to get the air in. Remember its a V8, and there is an intake stroke every 90º of crank rotation. But because Ferrari keeps the plenums separate, each bank only sees an induction pulse every 180º of crank rotation, same as a 4 banger. So it totally makes sense to me why an ITB setup makes more power. 1) It can breath from the atmosphere, it is not restricted to the 1.8L of air each dual plenum holds, 2) the sizing of the individual throttle bodies can support more air, because they are matched to the cylinder and only have to drawn in air for ONE cylinder. They do not have to refilled a plenum, nor does the incoming air have to change directions. It just goes straight in. 2a) Half the engine does not have to share a single tb. From what I have seen work is 1) run ITBs, or 2) run an open plenum, where the engine breathes from the same plenum, AND through two throttle bodies at the SAME time, Or a single LARGE tb. That is why it's my opinion the 54mm tbs are way too small, coupled with the plenums being too small, and the biggest choke point in the whole engine. The F119 can't breath the way it needs to in order make the power it is capable of. And I didn't even get into the choke point inside the runners. I'll get to that later.
So they never got around to it huh. Send your throttle bodies to MaxBore and get them ported. Then get your runners ported.
Did DeeGee's engine have any other mods at the time you compared the two sets of TBs? That's a pretty small gain (granted it's cheap) if the exhaust was really flowing freely, but it is more reasonable if the car had a stock exhaust with OE converters. You don't get nearly as much out of breathing mods until you open up the exhaust to the point that it can get rid of the extra air more easily, so I'd look for more gains from bigger TBs on your car than on an otherwise stock car.
Oh yeah, he has freeflow exhaust, I think we was running hollowed out cats, his runners were also ported, he modified his plenums for more volume, and his ECUs had a nice Une on them. We were there to test the plenum mod, it produced nothing, power was dead nuts the same. Then we took of his tb's replaced them with my ported tb's, did three pulls = +4hp to the hubs. Removed my ported tb's, put his back on, three more pulls and power went back down to where is was. The ported tb's are an inexpensive modification that do yield more power.
I have never driven a nitrous powered car and do not have first hand knowledge of how it drives. Still, I wanted to weigh in on the subject. NOS seems suited to drag racing, stop light challenges and showing off down the boulevard. I cannot see it being useful in a driving scenario involving me. Doing the canyons, autocross, DE or fun track day, NOS doesn't seem to me to have any practicality. I get that it makes power easily and reactively inexpensively, so it has its proponents. I, for one, am sure I could not handle the coordination to drive a car aggressively and be able to hit the shot dot at the proper time to maximize its efficiency. Also, 10 secs doesn't seem like much time if I'm pounding around Chuckwalla. I assume there's a slight delay in the NOS power boost effect, so I'd have to plan a bit ahead of its need. I'd rather deal with turbo lag. If all I wanted to do was embarrass 355 owners, then I suppose I'd sign on. The mods I am after are ones that will make the car faster and more competitive in a real world driving situation. Plus, as a gearhead, I look forward to installing more ponies in this engine on a more permanent basis.
And now for your listening pleasure, 9 minutes of the F119 powered Denon Spice race car. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_X2OttEtyY&spfreload=10[/ame]
NO is a treat you should try sometime. Like all mods it is just different. A turbo is different from NA is different from a torque motor vs. HP motor. You are correct in your assesment and that is why NO works perfect for a streetcar. 99% of owners will never see a track or any place they could sustain wot for any significant period of time. That D cylinder of NO in my garage is many years old because I road race as you know. I know what it takes to build for road course racing. Thst NO lag is delt with too just like BMW M4 has what feels like a seemless turbo. NO is perfect. It is just a very viable option for a streetcar. I could spend easy 10K building a race motor. The same performance could be had for 1k with NO assuming it is a streetcar not a road course car. If you want a road course car you have to pay the price. NO is the corvette of power adders...supercar performance beer budget.
I get the impression that the 348 was deliberately strangled/held back by Ferrari to prevent it from out performing their flagship model - the Testarossa, hence why more power can be gained with relative ease. Had the 348 been allowed to achieve it's full potential power "back in the day", then it would have been difficult to justify the extra expense of the Testarossa when it could be out run and out handled quite easily by it's cheaper sibling. The problem for Ferrari was, the market that the 348 was in was advancing rapidly performance wise, with the likes of Lotus, Porsche and even Honda, making cars that could outperform and out handle the 348 and so they had to update it, hence the GTB/GTS series being created. The problem was, it was too little too late, and the potential from the 348 was too limited to better it's rivals by the sort of margins that Ferrari required, especially on the chassis side of things, and so they created the 355 to put them back at the top of tree by a healthy margin. With a change of philosophy concerning Ferrari's replacement flagship in 1996, going from a large, mid-engined sportscar to a front engined GT car (the 550), there was no need to restrict the 355 power wise. Sorry for rambling on a bit - Just a theory I've had!
@Ernie We can max the TB and taper it and do the runners - so that's as good as it can be and still look standard. So what to do with the air plenum, their still the limiting bit - yes. The later cars had a slightly bigger plenums - but i doubt it solves the problem. What about.... a) join the plenums together ? or b) 3D print larger plenums ?
With the weight of the 348 small changes make a big difference. Couple weeks back I had the chance to do a few get up and goes with a Testarossa. More then held my own with the few small mods I have. I would say dead even until 80-90.
It occurs to me that the search of more air need to start further back in the air chain. That is why one removes the screens in the MAF's. I propose to start at the air intake boxes and check/eliminate any restrictions. Has anyone done that. How restrictive are the hoses comming into that dinky single air box. With two boxes similar to the 2.7 355 and non-restrictive hoses and straight runs the volume of air has got to increase. Any thoughts?. I am aware that two air boxes will not look stock but will say Ferrari. And provide more air if one is considering the total package. Start at the beginning and free the volume all the way through the exhaust. I would appreciate constructive comments. Andy
I'm not surprised TBH! Based on the improvements that have been made by yourself, ernie, fatbillybob and others on here, I'm convinced that Ferrari quickly became concerned that the 348 could outshine the Testarossa and took action to make sure it didn't happen. An additional problem with the 348 matching or even surpassing the Testarossa's performance would have been that in many ways, the styling of both cars is very similar (side strakes/rear grilles over the tail lights), so it would make no sense for anyone to pay more for a bigger (on the outside not the inside), similar looking car that is actually slower.
Now your thinking. In little over a week Tim and I will be testing an intake I had modified. I tested it a few years ago, and lost power because the engine ran way lean. The engine wanted more fuel than the stock open loop mapping was feeding it. The power curve was virtually identical, just lower on power across the entire rev range. So it got shelved because I had no way to tune in more fuel for the increased breathing. Plus I didn't wanna melt the pistons, or burn a valve. But now that Tim has cracked the Motonic 2.7 tuning nut, and I have found much better injectors, it's getting dusted off for a new round of testing. Keep your fingers crossed for the Stooge Skunkwerks. About the runners. They are choked down just before the injector port. It's my guess Ferrari did this to increase the velocity of the air, in an attempt at getting the stream of fuel to atomize before it entered the cylinder. All it did was create a restriction, even with the old single hole pintle injectors. While the increased velocity may have helped some with the fuel, it hurt breathing. I had the runners ported so the inner diameter of that area of the runner match the i.d. of the bottom exit of the runner. I did not have the bottom ported it remains the same size. Inside the middle of the runners is what gets ported, and there is enough material that it can be done without weakening the runner walls. I never did before and after dyno's but my guess is the ported runners are good for an additional +5 to +10hp. The new Gen3 four hole injectors do an excellent job of atomizing the fuel, so the "venturi" is unnecessary. Even with the stock injectors it is an unneeded restriction. The other area of the runners that needs attending is the entry ports/"velocity stacks"/bell mouths. They don't have a nice radius to help the air enter the runner smoothly. So in addition to porting the runner, get a nice radius put on the bells. The incoming air needs a smooth entry to the runner so that it doesn't delaminate from the port wall. Delaminated air basically "shrinks" the port reducing the amount of air able to be ingested. So get as nice a radius as possible put on the runner bell mouths. This article goes into great detain about bell mouth shape. http://www.profblairandassociates.com/pdfs/RET_Bellmouth_Sept.pdf
Why not just make a big box out of alum for the plenum and bolt a horseshoe to it for good luck. Or get some alum plate cut some holes in it, weld 2" tubes as runners. I love making parts it's how we got those old mountain motors to go. Alum and epoxy until it hurt EDIT Carl and me are going thur or friday to dyno our cars
