F50 Inlets- poor design and materials

I know this may be unrelated, but you bought that yellow F50 maranello motorsports had right? well im assuming you did. anyways would you be able to send me some high res shots of your car?



Ohh & sorry to hear about your problem, i thought the f50 would be relativly trouble free

 

I'd think those parts need to be replicated my a machinist in aluminum.

Plastic is just *going* to fail with that kind of 'attachment' (or rather lack thereof.)

 

Scott's description is pretty clear.

The smoke tester pressurises the inlet system, and even at zero pressure, the smoke cmes out the caps around the O ring surfaces, both top and bottom of the plastic tubes. More so if you flex the plenum, which is easy by hand.

Better/larger O rings will help, but that may strain the plastic even more, and if you look at the photo closely, you can actually see and bubble in the moulding right in the weakest point... near the bolt.

I agree... a machine shop job to make some alluminium tubes seems the best fix.

Anybody know about the turbo cars... what did they use.... also, what about the snorkelrd F50 (yellow i believe)... what inlet does he use?

 

did that yellow F50 with the snorkel have a changed manifold? what modifications were done to it..

i've seen threads before but no-one really gives any precise answers...

 

Incredible how much dirt is sucked in because of this! As I remember, I had to machine some stepped aluminum plates (thin) and attach them to the molded plastic flanges. I also had some latex foam sealings fabed to fit in place. These were a low enough density to maintain a good seal but not dense enough to cause any more distortion.
The owner of the car I rebuilt (engine) lives at the end of a long dirt driveway. You can only imagine how much crap was in the intakes due to this.
Inspect the air filter fit as well. As bad as the intake runners if not worse! A major problem area.
Dave

 

Yes Dave... the filters are crap too! On this car the LH filter box foam lining has come adrift and partially blocked the intake tube...

hand built by craftsmen........

Interesting that the filter surface area is the same as 550 and 355.... and 550 struggle to breath through their filters. I know capacity of F50 is less, but it has more power as std. Flow = Power.

Got any pics of the inlet mods you made?

On Scotts car, the leak is from both top and bottom surfaces, on almost every cylinder, as labelled here....
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

OK...

So is the lower O ring that seals them, on the TOP of the alloy stack under the wide flange of the plastic pipe, or is it fitted to the short extensions on the plastic pipes and seals on the inside walls of the alloy stacks. If so then larger O rings will be fine... as the clamp load won't change.

But what about the plenum to plastic pipe seal....

Malcolm... Parts page please!

 

Sorry to hear about the problems, after seeing your car at Carl and Phil's, I'm still drooling. Will you be taking the car to Calder?

 

Looks like bigger o-rings would fix the inlet-to-throttle-body seal.

I still say, replace the dam things with aluminum. Possibly a whole new aluminum lower-intake with velocity stacks integrated.

 

I agree

But he's just bought the damn thing and want's to drive it!!

Plus, I'm hoping somebody has a part somewhere so time and costs can be reduced....

 

On the turbo F-50 we built we made aluminum trumpet assemblies. We bonded in extra thread serts into the carbon plenums to get more attachment points. Under boost the plenums still flexed enough to loose the seal so we had to bond the trumpet to the plenum and we machined the the lower groove so the 0-ring fit properly in the throttle bodies. The plastic trumpets lower o-ring groove is to deep and does not allow for the o-ring to have enough 'crush' I believe. I recently returned that car back to stock and decided to run the plastic trumpets, my fix for the problem was to run a bead of R-730 around the O.E. o-ring between the trumpets and the plenums and let that assemble dry on the bench. Then I ran another bead of the 730 on the base, just above the factory o-ring and bolted the two plenum-trumpet assemblies to the throttle bodies. I tried o-rings with the next thicker cross-section and could not get them in the throttle bodies. I dynoed the hell out of the car and had the owner put some miles on it and the 'fix' is working fine. I know this is a simplistic approach to the problem but the R-730 is well suited for that enviroment, only time will tell how smart a move this was.

I have the aluminum trumpets, if you would like I can send them to you and you can see if that is the approach you want to take. If you like them we can agree on a price, they are not worth a lot to me since I don't think I will be building any more turbo F-50 anytime soon, and I would rather see them getting used than spend eternity in my attic.

I will be gone next week so e-mail Mike ([email protected]) and he can send you some pictures or send them out if you are interested.

James Patterson
Norwood Performance

 

Man thats horrible.

-Cheers

 

Thanks James.

EXACTLY what I'm looking for.

I'll be in touch.

Another fantastic response from Fchat!

 

360C,

You mentioned there are other problems with the F50. Please post them or pm me as I would like to fix those on mine as well.

thks

Nick

 

360C,

thks for your quick response. Regarding the air inlet problem, please let me know once you have a solution. On the fuel injector issue, when I took dlivery of the car (with 250km on the clock) about a year ago, the engine was not running very well as I did not feel any power even at high RPM. It has improved a lot since I used an engine cleaner of some sorts (through the air inlet). I was wondering if this is also related to a gummed up injector. How do you plan to deal with the injector issue? Lastly, how do you check if you are getting ful throttle or not?

thks

 

Someone mentioned the F50's airfilter is of the same size as the F550 and F355. Does that mean I can use the K&N filter for F355 or 550 on the F50?

thks

 

Hi Yimn

To check for full throttle, just put your foot right down and have somoene check the butterflies to be fully rotated.

Adjustment is tricky though, as access is laborious.

The Air filters are the same size as 550/355, but a different construction, due to the type if fixing. The F50 one has a wire mesh to stop deflection under suction (a sure sign of restriction). And the 550/355 filter sponge sealing edges are not suitable for F50... although some ingenuity could resolve this.... or just source the correct filter.

I don't use K&N.. long story and repeated history of dissatisfaction... use BMC for best quality (but highest price by 50%+) or Green Cotton available through EBC.

I think the injectors would probably clean up with use, and/or addition of cleaner to the tank... but seeing as the inlet is coming off to fix the leaks... we may as well get the injectors ultrasonically cleaned and checked while we're in there.

Plus, running with poor injector spray pattern isn't going to help engine and/or catalyser performance....

But I think the cats may end up in the cupboard anyway!!

 

Maybe you could contact Motor SpA in Modena, Italy. I think they know that F50 very well. Also they are often occupied with troubleshooting/upgrading/improving and are very closely working with the factory (being an official dealer). It's not much but maybe it's of any help.

Ciao, Peter