What other chassis has the Maserati Biturbo motor been used in, if any? If any, was the motor using forced induction or was it naturally aspirated?
The Barchetta used that engine too. http://imcdb.org/images/074/921.jpg Other than that, I can't think of another car.
The biturbo engine was only used in the biturbo and was only a turbo engine. The original 90 degree V6 biturbo engine is a variant of the Merak engine. There was a 6 valve per cylinder prototype engine made I believe in 1985 which was a very impressive albeit maintenance nightmare of an engine which was never used.
I don't think it's correct to state that the biturbo engine is a variant of the Merak (C114) engine. Apart from the basic configuration of 90 degree V6, the engines have basically nothing in common. I think it's appropriate to consider the biturbo engines as a separate "family" of engines. Cheers, Gabriel
Correct. However, the V8 Biturbo first appeared in the Shamal was the intended motor for the never produced Chubasco. It was also used in the QPIV and eventually was altered for the 3200GT which then got the new v8 to become the Coupe & Spider. The 6 valve motor was never put into production. It's not clear it even would have worked very well. It also appears from the design to be a much easier valve adjustment and not a maintence nightmare as suggested. The turbo Merak is a real factory car . It currently resides in the Panini collection and has nothing at all to do with the later Biturbo motor. I do know of a discarded Merak that got a Biturbo motor stuffed into it by a private person. Bob S.
However, (I haven't been there myself, so this is from what I've read and heard...) there's a turbo-engined Merak prototype in the Panini collection in Modena. As far as I know, the engine is of the C114 type (i.e. Merak/SM/QP2/LigierJS2), not a biturbo. Surely, someone seen the car and knows for sure? Cheers, Gabriel
Bob: Thanks for the clarification. Sorry for the cross-posting; I got a phone while writing and didn't see your message before posting mine. Gabriel
No problem Gabriel. I saw that Merak at the Factory before the collection was sold to Panini. There were other variants of the Merak engine developed for racing. Walter has an excellent set of posts about that effort somewhere on here? Perhaps in the Merak pictures thread? I have a full set of photos of the 6 valve prototype engine but I wan't able to quickly find good ones on the web showing the valve train in detail. The valve adjustment is by screw with a lock nut instead of cam removal with shims. It would be interesting to hear from the test engineers how well this thing ran if at all. Bob S.
That being said, the 6 valve variant sounds much easier than the 3 valve. I thought I read somewhere that the 6 valve engine yielded around 280bhp? I thought the basis of the original biturbo engine was started with the Merak engine, and then changed in big ways.
That's a common misconception. They are both 90 degrees. That's it. I agree when you look at it the 6 valve it seems to be the easiest to adjust but does that design really hold up and do the 6 valves really yield better performance? They did pretty well with the Cosworth designed and cast 4 valve heads getting 330HP out of 2L. I own one of the 4 valve 6 cylinder cars but I'm not a big fan of the front belt drive with the rear chains. The V8 version looks like you can change the shims without pulling the cams but I don't know that for certain. Bob S.
