Nice ride, so this may cause considerable offence... Stanceworks 308 GTBi (Honda K24 Swap)

Enjoyed latest episode.

Wish the repair well but I can say from my 25 years track driving that maybe 5% of these type cars ever make it through a full day of hpde.

Good luck and if anyone can make it work I hope its mb

 

It took some time, but we finally have our new 2.0L engine here and we're back to work on the car making improvements. Hoping to be back out on track by the first weekend in June for open testing, and ideally, we'll go faster than ever.

 

glad to see you didnt give up or even try cut losses. hope to see how this car performs soon
good luck!

 

Good Luck! No doubt the trans will be happier with a little less torque and the engine with a bit less piston speed, assuming you're sticking with current redline and shift point rpm?

I've not watched all you videos but I'm working on my suspension now told you may have some decent CAD models...any chance you'd be willing to share the files
?
[email protected]

 

I am not sure I have anything that'd be useful at the moment, I only have a very rough scan of the front trunk. I could scan other parts if need be, but if you want bare chassis without suspension components in the way, it might be a bit before i have it stripped down that far again.

 

Thanks, but don't go out of your way. I thought maybe you'd already needed to measure/draw suspension bits as part or your build and just sitting looking for a new user. All the frame points are in the shop manual so I can through them into CAD easy enough, but I'll need to measure the uprights.

Are you using any of the stock suspension bits or did you replace it all? My focus at the moment is anti-dive/squat to keep things a bit more stable coming off the throttle and onto the brakes...right now the nose move 2-3" I'm thinking. Its not horrible and I don't go fast enough for the aero changes to really matter, but it feels weird and needs a little time to settle.

 

Mike,

A slight redirection if I may: In your video series on the K24 you talked about composite body panels you had made and how they took a fair bit of rework until you were happy. I tried to find the video where this was discussed by haven't found it yet. Can you tell me who made the parts and what was the nature of the rectification work? I'm looking at trying to shed some pounds, the engine cover in particular, but don't want to splash out a bunch of cash for something that needs 80 hours of work. Would prefer to find a source in the States for high quality GRP/carbon panels, but no luck so far.

 

I replaced everything, the only factory aspect of the suspension is the pickup points on the chassis side, so I can't be a ton of help in that regard.

So the only two composite panels I've had are an engine cover, which I got rid of because of the poor fitment, and my carbon hood, for which I have the mold.
The engine cover we tried to re-work a good bit but it was just too far off for me to feel good about using.
The hood mold I have is a perfect fit. If you're interested in a carbon hood, let me know, but it would have the "LM style" duct my car has, and would require some changes under the hood to utilize.

 

Funny, I'm planning to do basically the exact opposite and keep most of the bits but move the chassis mounts.

 

@mk e - @M.Burroughs has a trick adjustable front sway bar that he is running. Though that helps with side to side, I am unsure if it may contribute to the nose dive, along with the H&R coilovers. I was looking at some coilovers that supposedly have some antidive magic built in by Intrax.

I know you are very smart and knowledged - so you may have this info already. But the 1988.5 328's came with a different front end geometry that promoted anti-dive characteristics - this was derived more in the 288 / F40 and Mondial. They changed the mounting points, angles and a-arms to accomplish this

Here are a couple useful old threads to piece it all together:
https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/308-328-gtb-chassis-diagram.405266/
https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/has-anyone-ever-built-custom-a-arms-for-the-308.346778/
https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/328-experts-factory-suspension-upgrade.159363/

In one of these it mentions lower pickup forks - interesting if you look at the parts on superformance - https://www.superformance.co.uk/328/suspension.html

Cheers,
Spencer

 

Did you fab the engine cover yourself, or source it from one of the overseas companies? There are a couple (that I know of) that offer one in glass, and one of those also has a carbon option. They are pricey (especially the cf version), so it would be disappointing to have it fit so poorly.

 

@sltillim - bring those thoughts on over to my thread, I don't want to clutter Mike's thread with talk of stuff he wisely replaced.

@M.Burroughs - I am courious, how does yours feel pitch wise? And I guess everywhere way? Or is it really to soon for a good assessment with everything else going on, I know track days get hectic?

 

I did not build the piece. It was an old one, I'm told, from the '90s. If I were to buy one, it'd be from Formula GT in Germany. They seem to make some beautiful parts, and the pricing is remarkably fair. It's only ~2000 Euros.

To be honest, I wouldn't feel comfortable stating anything in confidence. I don't have that many laps in the car, and a lot of those laps have been in the form of shakedowns and getting comfortable/finding limits. But I'll give my initial thoughts:

I don't, so far, have any real complaints on negative pitch, the car feels very planted under braking and so far it does not seem to unweight the rear too much or anything like that. The car doesn't upset or walk out, but it's also worth noting that reaching my braking threshold is one of the biggest factors I need to work on next time I am on track. My mentor, if you will, tells me I am leaving seconds on the table, as the AIM's data tells us the max G of braking is only being hit occasionally, and I am under-braking in a lot of places. So that may change some as I get further and further into the brakes.

The car does feel light in the front on positive pitch. I don't have experience in a mid engine car prior to this car, so I can't say now normal that is, but it was off-putting when I first drove the car and stood on the throttle. I was told this is a very normal sensation when going from a front engine car to mid, and once I got used to it, it hasn't been bothersome since. It's also only under full throttle and full boost.

I guess for discussion's sake in how the car is set up, the car's wet race weight with me in it is ~2638 lbs. 315s on the rear, 275s on the front. Was previously running on low boost at 640rwhp. I will say even with the G42-1200 turbo coming in like a hammer at 6k, the rear wheels have never spun, so I don't think I've got any squat-related traction issues.

 

Loved today's youtube episode, Mike (17th May).

 

mikes perseverance is something to behold but all the failures and missed deadlines are getting hard to watch. maybe next project should be a newer ferrari with more performance so it doesnt have to be rebuilt into a totally different car.

how about a 430 turned into a 333sp tribute style car. chop top and windshield off, add splitter, wing, roll hoop, air intake, etc. maybe manual swap it too. that would be a fun series to watch. and it would still be a ferrari
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Building a race car is har, like really hard. Hard to the point that just making it to the track is quite an accomplishment. Getting it reliable is harder yet, and usually comes after learning a lot of lessons by breaking stuff.

He raced it so I say great job and hope a trophy is coming soon.

 

Failures and Missed deadlines are what Racing is all about. Most people only see the cars on track, the hard work is way before all that. The most successful race cars all failed at one point.... and there is always missed deadlines. I think the build is amazing, and well done to a very high standard... to me it does not look like he's got a full race team behind him... this is a small group of guys doing this for fun... good for him.

 

It was amusing to walk down memory lane in the first few pages of this thread, keeping in mind the recent 2 broken engines

 

Oh no, did a 2nd engine fail?

 

It did while idling on the dyno before it was ever accelerated. Appears to be an assembly error by the engine builder and the engine has been replaced.

 

yes the replacement engine broke when warming up and now they are going for a 3rd. thats when the series jumped the shark for me. after watching 3 yrs of episodes, you need some kind of payoff. not just failure after failure. mike seems like amazing guy and i root for him to succeed but in hindsight, making a 308 into a frankenstein time trial racer was not a good idea. hope he tries my idea of 430 into 333sp tribute next time.

 

Everyone is different but for me I was captivated by the sheer effort put forward to try and make Gridlife. It reminded me of so many racing thrashes over the years. Pushing well beyond what was possible and it is inspiring to see. The failures so far have all been extreme and dramatic and that makes for great content. Having someone chase a bad sensor or a clunking sound for weeks on end is boring. A LOT has happened on this project and being able to experience it FOR FREE on YouTube is pretty neat.

As for the next project, a few people know what it is and I would ask if you do please keep it to yourself until it is made public. That said it is supremely awesome, will certainly ruffle lots of feathers, and will be the source of many a thread here on F-Chat.

 

I just hate when that happens (especially when I'm the engine builder and its on me) but it does happen. Hopefully 3's a charm.

I'm about 1 month shy of 17 years on the same stupid frankenferrari project....3 years is nothing and honestly on the low end of what it takes most people to build a race car. I'm sure they will get the engine sorted and get some track time. If it were me, I'd turn the rev limiter down to about stock redline and the boost to 5 so its making a safe 350-400ish crank hp and do some laps, and collect data on water, air, and oil temps. Then ease it up....I learned the heard way drag race or hot street engines don't live on a road course, at least not for me. But its not my car and everyone looks at problems differently....Mike and his engine builder will get it sorted or he'll find a new engine builder I'd guess.

 

he does go gradually with low revs and boost. he lost the 1st motor on half power and the 2nd one on idle. plus all the other parts that failed on him and needed replacements too. eventually, the 50 yr old delicate chassis will fail if he ever gets it up to speed. just not worth it when could start with a 430 instead. 1000 hp 308 is absurd concept at the start.

 

I sure hope that's not true or I'm SOL too,