scratch built Mazzer roadster

It's not a stupid question. The kind of welding requiring a pneumatic needle scaler, which I have, is more akin to ship building and other heavy welding done with a "stick welder" or other processes using a flux to protect the molten metal from the atmosphere. Once you're done welding and the weld bead and the flux covering have solidified you need to chip the flux off. The welds on the rear sub-frame were done by the TIG (or Heli-arc) method which, like MIG welding, uses a shielding gas to protect the molten weld and there is a lot less to clean up. A needle scaler would probably tear up the surface of the tubing and joint more than necessary.

There has been some progress but not a lot. With spring time I've been really busy on a couple of other projects (including getting my 308 ready for a track event at Watkins Glen this last week. Lots of fun!).

The new, lighter springs came in and were mounted on the rear shocks and the steering column upper U-joint has a boot over it now, made with 3" (76 mm) silicone brake ducting hose. The rear sub-frame was prepped and sprayed black, along with the roll-bar braces and motor mount brackets. The rear sub-frame is ready to be bolted back onto the car and to have the aluminum tail riveted back on. We've also been working on the aluminum nose, getting it ready for primer and paint. I'll post some pictures when I get a chance.

Right now I'm concentrating on the 308. It's going to another track event at Pocono Raceway in two weeks and the Reading Ferrari Concours next week. The front tires rubbed the inside of the fenders under the cornering loads at the Glen and burnt the paint, particularly on the left front. We're fixing the paint right now and I've got to raise the ride height (which of course means it'll need wheel alignment work) a little and install different bump rubbers on the shocks. Lots to do.

Thank you for your interest.

 

You're welcome and thank you.

 

Taz, Thanks for saying that. I have some distractions at the moment but the project will be back on track soon I hope. Wil

 

Thanks for the encouragement. I'm a little pre-ocupied with tracking (and fixing) the Ferrari right now but i WILL be back to it.

 

Wow, that's a lot of questions!

1) The steel tube chassis has a healthy layer of primer and paint on it, I will spray chain lube or penetrating oil into some of the joints where aluminum panels come in contact with the chassis and most of the panels are fairly easily removable. Under the cowl, which is flush riveted in place and where those rivets will be buried under a thin layer of fiberglass (to prevent ringing the paint), I applied vinyl tape to the painted tubing framework, where the aluminum contacts it, for an extra layer of protection. The tail, nose, rockers (outer sill panels) and under-panels are all fairly easy to remove from the car for cleaning and maintenance.

2) I'm not an engineer. All the math was of the arithmetic variety, no calculus or super-computers used here. The whole thing was designed seat-of-the-pants, really. I spent years working on race cars and repairing space frame chassis and I think I have a reasonable grip on what is required to make a strong and stiff chassis. No, I never considered CF construction for the chassis, mostly because I'm just not set up to do that kind of work. I did consider having CF copies made of the original aluminum body if I ever wanted to make a second car. It would certainly save some weight and a lot of labor.

3) No, I made no such calculations. It's not a racing car and I would like to get in and out without having to climb. If I triangulated the top of the cock-pit closed, the car would be stiffer yet but driving and getting in and out would probably be a little less fun.

4) I would assume the rightward drive-train off-set in the chassis helps to even corner weights a little. The two major reasons though were: 1) The differential pinion shaft is off-set to the right and the drive-shaft is very short so it made sense to align the engine and transmission centerlines with the differential pinion shaft center-line on the vertical plane. 2) It made more room in the driver's foot well for decent pedal and foot-rest placement.

5) I'm not sure the steering rack cares what the wheel base length is. The front control arm pick-up points are set at the same distance, left to right, as they were in the donor car, so that the steering rack from the donor car would remain compatible in geometry. The rack location is adjustable, up and down, in the chassis to allow dialing out bump-steer and that is all I care about really.

6) Yes, I considered a transaxle but the car currently has very close to 50/50 weight distribution, front to rear, and no sloppy shift linkage. I wanted to use as many parts from the donor car as possible since early on I had delusions about possibly offering the car in kit form. Without that in mind I would have taken an entirely different route. For example, I would have fabricated all the suspension components instead of recycling Quattroporte pieces and I would have built the car around a V12.

7) The chassis would be drivable if it had a running engine but I'm leaving that for last. Right now the engine is basically a mock-up. The heads, for example are only held in place with two bolts each and they have no cam shafts in them.

8) Well, I think the chassis is a vast improvement over the Cobra's ladder frame design from AC. It's interesting that you bring up the Cobra. My car's design was influenced by the Maserati 450S and Mr. Shelby apparently competed in a number of races behind the wheel of a 450S, in the late fifties, before getting involved in the Cobra project, I've seen the photos.

9) Probably everything. I changed the nose at least 3 times and I'm still not totally happy with it but it's too late to turn back. You can't stick the baby back in the womb to try for something different.

10) I don't think I'll ever sell it but never say never I guess. Jay Leno seems to be a nice guy. I wouldn't want to bother him with my silly plans. I know that people in his position are hounded by guys with "great ideas" and I'm too proud to be one of them. If he asked to see the car I'd be happy to show it to him though.

 

Thank you for the compliment.

By "sprags" I guess you're talking about the rear trailing-arms under the eighties Quattroporte. As in Jaguars from about 1961 to about 1990 (I think), the Quattroporte rear sub-frame is attached under the car with flexible rubber mounts. As the back ends of the rear trailing-arms swing through an arc, as the car's suspension travels over bumps in the road, the rear control-arms and sub-frame must swing back and forth slightly , in the rubber mounts, to stay connected to the swing arms. You can imagine that if the sub-frame and suspension can move fore and aft, the mounts will also allow them to move side to side under a cornering load. That's all fine for a cushy sedan but not for a proper sports car. I rigidly mounted the trimmed-down Quattroporte rear sub-frame to the back of my car's chassis, so the original trailing-arms were out of the question. The solution was to make a longer inner fulcrum shaft and and to triangulate the rear lower control-arm with an adjustable heim-jointed link forming an A-arm. Since the link swivels on the same longitudinal center-line as the control-arm, there is no mechanical conflict in the rear suspension.

 

Yes, actually. We've been busy playing with (and working on) the supercharged 308 at various Ferrari club track events this year and we just had the last one in the north east for this season. I do need to work on a few things related to the 308 but we're getting back on the Mazzer now and hoping to get it on the road next season. We just resumed on prepping the aluminum nose (bonnet) for primer and paint. I hope to have the time to really make a big push on it this Fall/winter.

 

Took this photo today. The whole nose is being covered with a skin coat of polyester and sanded smooth to eliminate any small waves and minor imperfections. Most of the filler winds up on the floor. After this it'll be sprayed with liquid polyester filler, sanded again, sprayed with epoxy primer and wet sanded before color can be applied. It sounds like a lot of work and it is but the paint job won't look good or hold up without it.
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You have no idea! I certainly didn't when I started this project. Even though we've restored lots of cars, building the chassis and body from scratch and have everything on the car in the right place and working correctly and not interfering with something else is mind numbingly difficult. It made me gain a lot more respect for the people who design and build the much more complicated cars we drive every day.

 

Just scrolled through all the photos on this thread since I hadn't seen them in quite a while. Seeing the pictures of the front shocks and springs reminded me of experience this season with very similar equipment on the 308 with hard track use. We decided that the QA1 springs we had on that car were too soft and they kept sagging, making us have to re-adjust ride height several times. Once we had the springs off we could see that they were bent too so we installed stiffer and higher quality springs made by Hyper-Coil. I'm not real worried about the cheaper springs on the Mazzer because I've learned that no matter how many calculations you make to find the spring with the optimum rate, you usually wind up having to change them for a different rate anyway. The next springs for this car will be Hyper-Coils.

One of the Vari-Shocks on the 308 didn't feel right and had lost oil. It was handy to be able to un-screw the top off of the shock body and dump some motor cycle fork oil in there. This went on a day or two before the last track event so we had little choice. This winter I'll replace the seal but I'm going to be watching the Vari-Shocks on this car closely once I start driving it.

 

Thanks, me too! Right now I'm struggling with the mother of all colds and I'm having trouble doing my job let alone working on the fun car. Soon though, soon.

 

Thanks for the encouragement, George.