348 mods that make it faster

Good luck with it Ernie, mean that. I guess I was just saying each to their own and while stock may not be your thing (or mine either or I wouldn't have opened out the 'breathing' of the engine a bit) it's fine for some. I've got a mate with a Ford Fiesta that'll kick the ass of either of our cars, big turbo, custom methanol injection system etc, but what's the point? It's still a ford fiesta, just a fast one. He actually used to own a garage which put together custom high performance parts like the methanol system on his ford and his Scooby is also a bit mental (single button launch control with automatic flat shifting etc etc etc). Still looks like an estate car with a scoop in the bonnet to me.....

 

And you're still 45hp down from the 355 starting point. How much has that 32hp cost you? It looks like $5-6k worth of parts.

Ferrari already did the work with the 355 motor and it was not trivial work. Added a 3rd intake valve, ITB's, cams to match, another 1000rpm, more compression etc. It's no mystery on how to get a 348 to 380hp, you need more air and more rpms along with a little more squeeze. None of those are going to be done with bolt-ons. The blueprint is there with the 355 and 360 motors - which essentially just added variable valve timing and intake geometry to the 355 unit. Ferrari didn't leave much on the table and what they left with the initial 348 motor they grabbed most of with the spider, SS and GTS/GTB. I think your best bet for an added 10hp is to change the cam timing to match the later 348 cars, beyond that you're going to probably have to open the motor up and that will get really expensive really fast. I look forward to what you get, but I think you're near the end of the 'easy' stuff and it still is not at a trivial cost.

 

I hear ya Pete.

I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. One of which I'll be testing to see if it works early this summer. On the exhaust end of this power plant you are correct, that has been tapped out, and I won't find anymore power there. But on the induction side there is plenty of redesigning, and modifying to be done. We'll see just how much Ferrari left on the table with this thing.

As for the timing, I'll be addressing that when I yank the engine for it's major.

 

Joking aside, which exhaust have you got, Philip?

 

nouvalari super sport.

 

Mine too. They did something a tad different to mine, said I wanted it really, really raw, very race track like, and chatted to John about different options, they were looking at some different designs at the time. Mine actually pops and cracks quite a bit, even a little on idle, and on the over run it's great, could drive just lifting off to hear it all day, not sure what they did but I like it

 

Due to where i live i had to change back to the standard cats as noise was a real issue. High flow cats were much better.

 

Scaring all the horses, I'll bet

 

Lke this?
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YEEEAH BOSS!

That is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Nice job D! I can only imagine the head scratching that went on. Hahahahaha!

 

Daz, that's cool. What's even better? The 2 308s ahead of the 430s, 599s, and even 458!!!! To me that's kind of saying the biggest track driving 'upgrade' you can fit is a decent driver!

The 308 GT4 ahead of the 360? That must have stung

 

And Ernie, was just teasing earlier with the 306 bhp so sorry..............



.......... I'm sure it's no mpre than 304

 

Huh???

I missed that, but okay.

 

The 2nd 308's effort was amazing, but the 1st of those 308's was actually a 355 CH (not sure how they got that wrong) and both of the 355 CH's were on slicks the leading 430/599 was actually a 430 scud and he was significantly faster than everyone else

English humour Ernie....only a little bit more strange than aussie humour

 

Sorry was a bit subtle. PBB had his dyno'd and it read 298 at the rears (his is a tb not GTB/GTS etc), his setup is almost the same as mine bar the higher flow air filters I have so I thought that would make the difference up to just above yours, clearly it won't, I was kidding. But 298 is a good 'score' with just some really easy DIY changes.

 

It certainly was a good effort. There is a bit of mixing up though, imagine pitching up in your 599 to be beaten by a Tessa, or the 360s beaten by a 308GT4 and even a 246 Dino !?!

The driver is clearly a pretty important feature in all this.

 

The advantage of the GTC is a pretty nice blend of low weight (not far from the power to weight of a 355) and balance. I think they are used to it in Oz now (and in the UK for that matter where it has done very well in the FOC Hillclimb series) but the head scatching was pretty severe when they 1st saw her hit the track a few years ago

So by the time you do your mods and then shed some weight, get some bigger boots and brakes, you basically have a GTC which will perform as well as any 355 or 360 on most tracks (the slower the track the better though of course).

Of course you are absolutely correct Pete, the driver makes a huge difference, particularly at events like this when maybe only half the field are committed and pushing hard. The others are out for a drive, exercising their cars in an environment where they don't have to worry about being picked up for speeding. All good fun!!

 

Been doing some reading and this may be of interest. In order to race at Le Mans the Michelotto tuning house in Europe tuned the 348 engine (had to be the same block for the regs) but left 4 valves per cylinder and even left the same Motronic 2.7 in there. No turbos etc and one of the le mans cars was measured at 430 BHP at 9,000 rpm. So there's our target

 

Not gonna happen. The track changes to get this output is not something that you could live with daily driving the car. Obviously spinning the engine faster gets you HP. The intake system was throttle bodies. The cams were way steeper and the valve train totally different. Also, not sure, but the blocks may not have been 348, but 355's. We're looked at the 348 LM engine and it has these substantial differences.

Still, I'd be really happy with 360HP, up about 30 from where I am now.

 

The Michelotto LM cars had 348 based blocks, had to be because of the GT regs at the time, later iterations may have been 355 hybrids, not sure, but the 355 wasn't released when the Michelotto 348s competed at Le Mans. They also used some parts taken from an F40 engine, forget which bits but I'm guessing this would not be cheap. So, no not sensible - would be cheaper to turbo charge it!

 

Wow, genius! I cannot but come to this conclusion no matter how much we Stooge these engines...

No FBB we are NOT going to NOS these motors.

 

Not seen that but like I say Koenig across here in Europe do a twin turbo conversion kit with all the parts included. You guys would know better but I believe Norwood over there in the states have also come up with a twin turbo/biturbo conversion but I get the feeling you have to get them to do it rather than buy it in a box like the Koenig kit. If you're not quite so greedy they do replacement cam shafts with replacement ECU chips for an extra 45 BHP - basically takes your GTB/GTS/GTC up to about the same output as the standard Michelotto cars (not the Le Mans varient mind you).