Bambina: GT4 / 360 Swap Blog

The 288's chassis was lengthened ahead of the rear wheels, enabling the engine/transmission package to be rotated 90 degrees. The critical dimension for what Mr. Law proposes is from the centerline of the transmission's output shafts/rear hubs to the rearmost portion of the transmission which, based on the drawings above, looks to be in the neighborhood of 650mm. So yes, the transmission would definitely extend towards the vicinity of the rear bumper, but my guess is it wouldn't be hanging out like an old 356's stinger exhaust. But, the problem for Mr. Law then becomes shoehorning a longitudinal engine between his longitudinal transmission and his seats....and if that were an easy task, you'd see a lot more GTO clones with longitudinal engines and transmissions.
- Dave

 

Yes, on both ends! There is much less room to push in the cabin of a GTB / GTS. Here is an old thread I consulted before my purchase. There are more and somewhere I saw a pic of a 348 or 355 shoehorned in but the axles from the diff to the hub were canted forward at an extreme angle... Can't find that pic immediately.

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/can-you-put-a-360-engine-in-a-308.164525/

 

It's been a while. I'm still parts gathering and planning. I have spent a lot of time researching and money buying. None of it is sexy or exciting, except when I recieve a package. So I am going to start sharing my plan.

I am almost ready to pull my motor. It is stripped down. It has been a hard decision on whether to keep or sell. I have decided to keep because if the car were to ever sell, I think it should stay with the car, or if I absolutely hate what I build, I can reverse it.... It is going to be a very expensive coffee table, in near full functioning state. I got some beefy angle iron and I am making four brackets where the engine mounts and bolting on some heavy duty caster wheels. as far as parts for sale - the only thing I'm sure is going is the exhaust muffler. It is an original thermal reactor with "fake pipes" a la service bulletin No 266/9 (to be specific). Its old and pretty beat up but still in tact. My god it is heavy. But it has the factory shrouds (mostly) and is OEM correct. I'm in San Diego - anybody make an offer! (I am keeping the hangar springs).

Stripping wasn't easy. some of the exhaust and air pump equipment were pretty stuck or brittle and required a little of encouragement from an air saw or cutters.

I still have to remove the carbs and intake manifolds, to which i am curious to see the condition of everything underneath.

I just removed the rear engine and trunk lids. to make sure they don't get damaged, some pool noodles with a slice made great edge guards and wrapped them in moving blankets moving plastic wrap.

I did get a 3D scanner and Printer. I made a full scan of the engine in the bay - I will share.. It is actually 3 scans meshed into one. The results are pretty amazing for my second scan. I wanted to gather the measurements for planning and create some overlay of the 360 motor scan to make a precise fitment before cutting anything. I haven't figured out how to do that yet... CAD is hard! I am using fusion 360 personal edition. It's like learning a new language. PS - I have no engineering background - i just like to learn and figure things out. I know I have frame damage. I want to scan the full chassis to look at it in a 3D plane to see how far off it is. I would hope some of that would justify the scanner costs so I can direct a repair shop exactly what to do. It was like my first divorce lawyer said (i've had two in the last 10 years), "If you want to save money, figure out as much as you can yourself then direct me exactly what to do, and i will do it. Every question, email, call, moment I spend in thought, analysis, action and my team's action will cost you money." I am taking the same approach here.

The plan is coming together. In basic with more details to come but here are my next steps

• Get engine out
• remove the belly pan
• scan chassis and identify misalignment
• Chassis to a frame shop for repair
• Design new engine / chassis mounting points
• start assembly - some old parts, some new
• re-wire entire car - add modern stuff and systems
• design new bumpers and performance body add-on parts
• tune
• drive and enjoy for decades!

Simple, right?

 

Oh -
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I joined a great facebook group of 360 owners. They were very nice and they had a couple "brian's" that jumped in to help a bit with some questions. I shared my how I am manual swapping for under $2K with existing parts, however not factory correct looking, but 100% functional. I shared some drawings I have of the f131 engine/trans and a member photoshop'ed these for me - He did it quickly so the scale might be a little off. Interesting to see at scale how close the GT4 wheel base is so close to the 360, yet looks so much smaller in person. the F131 is quite a lump. It goes more forward than I anticipated but again, scale is close but not quite 100. I will definitely have to fab a new firewall and push in the backrest of the luggage shelf - there will be less shelf, but I still have my trunk! Take a look! the back half drawing is the "final" and closest to accurate. we had to raise it up between the frame rails.


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Looks like you have a plan, time to start cutting?

 

I admire you. What a project. Way cooler than a Toyota engine in a 308.

 

I'm about to pull the motor - I have completely stripped the f106. I bought some steel angle iron that I have to cut down and drill holes, I got some very heavy duty but good looking casters. I am going to bolt them right up to the engine mounts so i don't need a dolly tray. strip the fiberglass belly pan. Scan the entire chassis (the bottom) and see if there is, in fact, some uneven frame alignment from an accident repair. If so, I have to bring it to a collision shop for a little snip snip pull and sew it all back together without messing with the body and turning the whole thing cockeyed.

I figure if I walk in there with a fully measured out 3d scan and say "do this and this and nothing else!" and say I know exactly what has to be done, they might not charge me a $10k assessment fee or say "well you just don't know how off it really is"... Or the "you know we don't have any laser scans for this car so we had to do all this research and laser alignment, flights to maranello (that you're paying for) and then figure it out". They'll get me somehow.

Then I get to the fun fab work which I will probably also try to design but sub out the actual fabrication! If I need to I can probably reduce costs with the "send cut send" and hand off - I don't know how to weld. Then rewire the whole car!!!! I still have a lot of systems to figure out:

• Do i delete the modern EGR system?
• keep the intake plenum neumatic / vacuum system for the variable runners and crossover
• Suspension coil overs - maybe keep the current koni's and then get a set of intrax or nitron 3-way. Nitron is kind of local as they set up shop a little over an hour north.
• wheel specs - going 17". I am keeping this one to myself for the reveal. New shoes!
• brake specs - but pretty sure I am going with a full wilwood motorsport setup 6/4 piston calipers f/r with 12 inch rotors that are 1.25 wide - still got to make sure these will fit. I went to the Nurburgring last october - I learned to just get the best brakes possible... spend money here!!!
• try to find some cheap headers I don't mind cutting up in case they dont totally fit.
• Get the right engine oil cooler and a trans cooler - figure out a mounting and ducting system
• Design and print out a custom Air intake ducting route from the original passenger side intake behind the window. I bought a 360 intake pod but it's really big and would take up too much space in the engine compartment. I have some ideas and concepts and products I've studied. I am going to 3d print the whole thing in carbon / plastic filament that will withstand the heat. I may print them thin for structure and skin them in carbon kevlar weave because it's so damn beautiful to me. this will be a challenge....
• some inline fuel pump/filter/regulator that will work with my existing gas tanks.
• Fuel level reader - Holley has a new cool sensor for this that isn't too expensive.
• I have to figure out the hydraulic clutch - I am disecting the Hill Engineering throw out bearing to find the actual bearing but keep the hydralic part to save some cash.

some crazy things I am doing and already have parts:

• quick steering rack with electric power steering (i have the rack and there's a local company that makes power steering kit that will work and its only $800 - I have to fab the mount... Im not paying 3K for that EZ system out of europe. maybe 10 years ago...
• Brakes - I am kind of going overboard here
  • adding ibooster - an 100% electronic brake booster where I can control pedal throw feel and pressure. I have one out of the honda accord and its the same as tesla booster - $150 - no vacuum lines running from the rear to the front. But I am complicating the wiring loom.
  • BMW E46 M3 has a Teves ABS system that can actually act as standalone ABS that is flashable with the CSL programming. I have the m3 master cylinder, pump/computer, yaw sensor... This was all like $500.
  • this means I need to redo the brake lines with individual hard lines from the Teves ABS unit to each corner
  • hall effect speed sensors at each corner and trigger wheels. Rear is easy as I can do this at the diff. Fronts will be more challenging.
• Find modern gauges that my ECU can control but keep the housing and needles faces from the old controllers
• GPS Speed sensor -
• Bosch 82mm drive by wire intakes - these are designed for the porsche gt3 and 918 spyder.
• 82mm MAF housing but using the OEM 360 maf sensors
• The newest Bosch Wideband LSU 4.9 O2 Sensors with CAN connection to my Haltech ECU - the most accurate lambda / AFR data for tuning
• EGT - Exhaust Gas Temp sensors/ probes that get mounted into each header tube just out the block into a haltech analyzer / translator to the CAN network into the ECU - I will see the temp of each cylinder and the ECU sees this and combines it with the wideband data to adjust maps in realtime to how the car is performing - its a self learning system - so when it fires to:
• Smart Coils - IGN1A "smart coils" will take the custom map data and each spark event is absolutely the most powerful and efficient - custom ignition time and dwell for each fire. its really amazing ( I still have to get the smart coils). Its sort of like the electromotive system that Nick and Scott were selling that was much better than the other electric ignition systems - but this is all built into the coil and controlled by the main ecu.

Lots more too. I literally think about this all day, every day. but I need to get more actual work on the car done... And I only have so much money. But this is my dream car and it will be mine until I cant drive! I spend too much time monitoring ebay and fb marketplace looking for used parts to save a buck. I've saved a lot vs if I were to just be paying retail for this all - like thousands!

 

I love what he built but I have a weird code about keeping the engine for swaps to be able to still call it a ferrari. Plus i love manual NA cars. It will be interesting to see what I can get as far as power out of the f131. Its first and foremost a a street car. Can I get the stock claimed 400hp, the challenge stradale 420, which was mostly just tuning. will I fall short of it all? I think it would be cool to at least meet the stock car out of the box (as much as I am...) then work on getting over the CS with more advanced tuning and possibly upgraded modern injectors. Maybe some cams in the future... Or maybe I'll just be happy!

 

Quite a list! Looking forward to seeing you work through it.

 

Forgot, I see stock looking gauges on your list, I run most of the stock gauges with the ECU so that is also an option if you want to keep the dash stock looking

 

1 more thought. If you don't weld and are not going to learn then finding a local(ish) race shop seems critical to success. Any weld/fab shop could in theory do the job, but in reality the odds of getting nice light weight parts from a shop that mostly builds railings, trailers, or bridge parts is pretty low. I think a race or restomod shop is what you're after. Most any race car builder will be able to mount the engine, fab or modify headers and fab and weld all the little brackets and piping you'll need. Its probably a good use of time to find the options and go talk to a few and see examples of their work. The shop you want is the one with a 2 year waiting list... the guy I used, I'd say I was in the shop about 8 or 10 times for maybe 30 minutes each (he did bends for me as I don't have a tubing bender) and twice I watched him throw people out. ?He did amazing work and could afford to choose which jobs he took....you need to find a guy like that I think.

 

I have a drifting shop that I have already spoken to. San Diego is littered with trophy truck / sand rail shops and a lot of hot rod guys. I don't want to reinvent the wheel for mounting the engine but I don't want to be stuck with ferrari parts for something like an engine mount. Again, the BMW's are great resources because there are so many and the e36/e46 has a top load engine mount. They have factory uprated and aftermarket options. The used cross members are online for $150. I could cut it to fit and make it suit my needs and its designed to work with the mounts and pretty robust.

I would love to find a used set of aftermarket 360 headers but i am not sure if they will fit. I suspect they will. I check almost every day..... I will have them weld v-bands, run some magnaflow universal high flow cats and valvetronic mufflers. I am not sure if I will do any cross over. I am not running the stock 360 exhaust layout - it just takes up so much space! The v-bands are great as you weld on the mount on each end and then you take apart any section pretty easily.

 

@mk e My '75 speedo and tach are cable driven - are the later cars wire / sensor fed?

 

I seriously doubt that is the case for either tach or speedo. But if you have photos to prove me wrong, I'd love to see them.

 

I know the speedo most definitely is, just saw the tach is fed by some wires near the points - so no there. Are the later 308 speedometers electronic?

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Did some research and found a listing for a 308 GT4 speedometer cable that looks really long, so looks like I need to update my perspective there. But still can't find any evidence of a cable driven tach.

 

Yes, to electronic speedometers for later cars. My GT4 engine manual (not sure the year of it) show the speedo sensor mounted on the right side of the gearbox, just as the GTB/GTS did.

 

All these years I've believed the cabled speedos retired with the 246 Dino. Live and learn.

So where does the drive end of the cable attach? Gearbox?

 

Yes and when its not attached right or needs lube it will let you know with a screech! I would love to not change my gauges and make them work with the modern ECU! I may have to add one ugly digital one that tells me what's going on with the ECU. I figure I will have to add a couple extra switches for the steering input, muffler baffles and anything else. I was thinking about having different throttle settings - not sure yet. I want to make a small panel, oem looking, oval / race track shaped, silver anodizedb aluminum with black vinyl trim under the bottom center of the dashboard. I'd like appropriate gt4 switch gear to make them look as close to possible.

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The ecu can control a lot of stuff with optional outputs or the switches can be hidden in the ashtray so similar. I read the OEM 308 speedo sensor into the ECU and I control the water and oil pressure with a pwm from an optional output on the ECU. I also use the ECU to open my exhaust valves at a pre-set mass flow value so I know all that is possible. Lots of options you just need to figure out setup options your particular ecu has.

 

Can you share exactly what power steering setup you are looking at? I'm going to do something different with mine I think so looking at options