The (one and only) '0846' Debate Thread

And I'd bet that their desirability/values reflect that depending on the history of the car with that motor.

I guess I'd be curious to ask Paul500 if he was talking about a motor original to the car or a replacement?

Also if he is talking about a motor that started out as a bigger displacement motor or a original 250 GTO motor that was bored out.

But once again this is the 0846 thread and with respect for how the mods want it handled, I think it is best to keep excessive posts outside of the 0846 topic. Don't want to turn this into the 0858, 0900, and 250 GTO thread.

I guess enough to make your point but not beat it to death is the respectable level.

But as the 0858, 0900, 0846 or P3, P3/4, P4 /412 seem to cross pollinate maybe a Mod can step in and let us know how we can handle that outside the 0846 thread as from what I understand this is the only thread where we can discuss 0846.

 

It should do. Do all buyers do their due diligence though????? Some people could swallow the bullxxxx like what's been written about the subject of this thread.

 

Actually, it's very evident that many contributors to this thread have swallowed the bull****.

 

History defines history not individuals such as yourself.

Ferrari engine blocks run independant cylinder bore sleeves, and it is these sleeves that define the capacity not the block, along with matching pistons and rods.

To take any of these engines back to their original displacement is just a case of replacing these internal sleeves and matching items as a set. Very simple and straightforward to do, its one of the things Ferrari did when converting the P4 engine to Can Am spec and easy to revert back to the original displacement as a result.
They are in fact maintenance items and I doubt any of the original engines still run their original internals. I see no point in doing the reversion though, unless an historic race series dictates such a need if the cars are to compete again.

In architecture these days later additions to a structure are often kept to show the buildings continued evolution rather than carrying out faux reconstructions to hide these elements, I would say by keeping the cars revised displacement it leaves a small link back to its previous incarnation as a Can Am.

Again its all conjecture, unless all these engines are opened up and measured, and the results made public, the current owners can do whatever they like, as can any future owner, the cars in what ever configuration will always be desirable.

 

Paul

You could resleeve 0858's original 350 Can Am Engine to 330 and replicate the other 350 engine parts, and there are other's besides the capacity, but the fact that this 350 Can Am Engine was an original 350 Can Am Engine made and raced in the day by Ferrari and was never built and raced in the day in a P4 (Including it's block before being bored out) is Historical Fact. It is also fact that the 350 Can Am engine in 0858 has the exact same serial number as the 350 Can Am engine in David's "P4" Replica "0900". In fairness to this engine a poster in the proper 0858 thread pointed out that the stampings on Davids engine don't look authentic Ferrari.

Let's cut to the chase. 0858 was advertised as "330 P4" when it's engine was 350. Do you feel this is full acceptable disclosure?

 

Where is your proof of this "Historical Fact" and where is your proof that this engine was never run in a 330 P4 before being bored out when it was a tipo 237 engine before becoming the bored out tipo 247 350 Can Am engine. All tipo 247 engines were previously tipo 237 engines.

Also, I'm not saying it's true but Christian Huet states that 0846 used a tipo 247 350 Can Am type engine at the Le Mans Test Days in April 1967. The Classic Cars article that you published in your 0846 pdf states that it also ran at Le Mans with a 4.2 litre engine in 1967 with Chris Amon.

 

Sorry Paul but a Mickey Mouse re-body some 45 years later isn't an important or positive part of the cars history no matter who is defining it.

And as far as the motor goes it is more then just re-sleeving it from what I understand. Ferrari gave the motor a different Tipo then the P4 motor.

You can wish and hope all you want but there's the real deal and then there isn't.

 

There IS a difference. And that difference is construction Vs destruction.

0846 is a car that was built up from what would have been lost and is better off today due to the efforts to put her together. History was served well here due to 0846 is still with us. I doubt very little of that car is not as it was in the day.

Even 0900 is a car I respect history wise. Is it a factory Ferrari... I'd have to say no. But lets be honest here, it is pretty much as close as you can get to the car without being 100% the real deal that helps others get a glimpse of what one was like, and this was accomplished by using spares that did not diminish another car or its history. Something was built here not from nothing, but from surplus.

0846 and 0900 preserve as much original Ferrari as is possible whereas 0858 simply doesn't.

Here the body was built by Ferrari in the Can Am version whereas in the P4 version it is nothing but a sub-par copy by guys that didn't come close to replicating what the original craftsmen did.

Both 0846 and 0900 retain as much real Ferrari as they can whereas 0858 once had more then either but the tasteless decision was made to destroy that and make it less then it could be.

This is what happens when image and money are more important then history and reality. This is what happens when money defines history versus "history defining history"

The breed dwindles and the magic dies. Car by car.

 

The only proof that matters is that the motors are designated Tipo 247 and not 237 by Ferrari.

Different Tipos equal different motors in Ferrari's eyes and therefore are not correct for the car.

If numbers matching is important to a collector I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that at this level, having the correct motor in the car is more important.

Sure they all started out the same, molten metal, but it is what they ended up as that matters. In your example some ended up as Tipo 237 and some ended up as 247.

Similar? sure, but when it comes to originality they are apples and oranges.

 

If 0846 has actually been resurrected it should NOT have happened. Let us examine the words of Umberto Masoni of Ferrari Classiche below and take from they their TRUE meaning:

Dear Mr. Glickenhaus,

We wish to thank you for the extensive dossier you have sent regarding the above mentioned vehicle that as confirmed on our letter dated October 5th, we have examined in detail. The car was built on February 1966 as a P3 version and during its racing period, officially managed by the Factory, it went though several modifications in order to race the 24 hours of Daytona in 1967 as a P3/4. We also confirm that, as reported in your dossier, the car caught fire during the 24 hours of Le Mans. It was then totally dismantled and because of the extended damages detected, the factory decided not to perform any repair and to write off the chassis no. 0846. If some of the remaining components such as engine and gearbox were considered as possible spare parts, the chassis, because of its racing history and the fire damages suffered, was definitively scrapped. Therefore eventual pieces retrieved from the trash container should not have been used to rebuild or to revival a car which was written off, if this is the case. We all would like to see forever these glorious pieces but unfortunately the chassis no. 0846 had a sad conclusion.

Yours faithfully, Ferrari Classiche, Umberto Masoni"

0846 was written off and scrapped because it was structurally unsound and unsafe to use again due to extended damages detected sustained in racing and the fire damage suffered. Therefore, if it was the case that eventual pieces were taken out of the trash container, they should not have been used to revive a car which was written off.

People keep talking about history, so let us also now at last begin to respect and stop ignoring the "History of Ferrari" as far as they are officially concerned, which states that they definitively scrapped 0846. Now this really is a Historical Ferrari Fact which should be respected, not least of which for that fact's safety implications.

 

Without a tipo 237 there would never have been a tipo 247 engine. In my opinion the engine in 0858 should stay as tipo 247 as this respects the fact that the car lived and entered races as a Can Am car which should be celebrated and not denied.

 

Well Posted and True.

Lets look at Paul's "resleeving". You can reduce the capacity of a block by "resleeving" it. How would you make the heads that have been modified to accept a larger diameter bore work with that resleeved block?

Let's look at the block that is in 0846. It's dual tipo stampings are quite clear and public as to what Ferrari Factory Race cars it was in the day and what capacity it ran in those cars. When David tried to auction this engine years before I bought it, Doug Nye who wrote the auction description correctly identified it as 3 liter. When I bought it David in writing under the penality of law attested that this engine, clearly identified by it's stampings, was at the time of sale to me,"330 P4". Willful lying under oath?
Forgetfulness? Honest mistake?

When I got the engine back to the US as fully publically disclosed and documented many years ago I sent it to be rebuilt by Bob Wallace(Lambo Factory Developmental Driver and Engineer in the day) and Alberto Pedretti (Ferrari Factory Race Team Mechanic in the day).
As fully disclosed many years ago it was 3 liter.

Unlike David, (expert that he is?) Bob and Alberto knew and fully understood exactly how Ferrari used the same block casting to produce engines of different tipo's with different displacements. This same casting could be built as a 3 liter F1 motor, a 4 liter sports car motor, or a 4.2 liter Can Am motor. As NART Mechanic Wayne Sparling who repaired 0846 in the day explained the change from 3 to 4 liters was easily reversible. It did NOT necessitate boring the block. It was done by modifying the crank journals, piston skirt height and rod length. Wayne confirmed that P 3/4 0846 had raced in the day as 3 liter at The Targa Florio and The Nurburgring because the laps were so long that fuel efficiency was more important than capacity and at 4 liters at the other races. Bob and Alberto easily rebuilt the motor that is in 0846 today to 4 liters.

There are no P4 tipo stamps on the engine that is in 0858 today. It is not a dual tipo stamped engine like the engine in 0846. Being a mechanically inclined guy Paul, (based on the project you and your Dad are building) I ask what about the heads modified to accept a larger diameter 350 bore? What do you do to retro fit them to an engine "resleeved" to a smaller diameter bore? As an aside David has confirmed that the engine currentely in 0858 has not been resleeved and is 350 even though it was clearly advertised as being today "330".

 

I'll have to check this but I thought I read that the 4 litre engine has a half inch higher block so the castings are not the same which is how you tell the difference between a 4 litre engine from the F1 engine along with the horizontal distributors in the F1 unit.

 

Jim, when any car has an overbore during its life its usually still referred to by its original capacity, there are hundreds of thousands of cars out there sold as original displacement when in fact if measured they are in excess of that listed.

0858 was hardly your average car on a parking lot so I have no doubt the potential and then actual buyer knew the facts about its increase in capacity before handing over that large cheque.

 

and however much your procrastinate unless you own a time machine then its history and what's done is done, and there is nothing you can do, say or write that will change that fact.

Suck it up and move on

 

Be that as it may or may not be true how do you fit heads that have been modified to accept a larger diameter bore to a motor that has been resleeved to a smaller diameter bore?

 

Jim, I am just that, mechanically minded, all learned the hard way, usually in a cold garage working with my dad on all manner of machines over the years, but I am not an engineer. There are a number of ways as you mentioned to increase the displacement of an engine. Altering the bore by changing the sleeves/pistons is just one of those.

Having never tinkered with such a Ferrari engine as fitted to these cars I can only surmise based on reading technical info on the net, you clearly have better in depth knowledge, so can you list what work was done to the heads to convert them from sportscar to Can Am spec, are they a different casting then? and also identify how the capacity of the block was actually increased in relation to the Can Am version and I will ask my dad next time I see him as to how this could be reverted in practice. He is sunning himself in Dubai at the moment so it may take a week or so to find out

Based on overbores on normal engines, or re stroking the rod length/ piston height the heads are not typically altered from what I recall, but in relation to these engines I have no knowledge if this was also the case.

Its all academic really, for all we know the new owner has already had the cars engine altered to 330 spec or is just happy as it is at 350 spec and allowing it to keep tipping a wink to its past.

 

Material removed from ports to enable a larger capacity engine to breath properly. Removing material to enable a larger diameter bore to mate with to a smaller diameter head.

 

If thats the case with 0858s engine then regards the extra porting it would not have much of a negative effect with the bore capacity going back to original, I imagine some torque would be lost however. If larger valves were also added then these could mesh against the reduced diameter of the sleeve and prove an issue.

Widening the diameter of the head where it mates to the wider sleeves (if that was the case when they were updated to Can am spec) would cause a potential thermal bridge issue if the sleeves were taken back to the narrower original spec. A good engineering shop could add the aluminium back around the perimeter and remachine the bowls back to original diameter to combat this. I should think lots of in the field repairs happened to these cars in period, I bet all the engines have mods to some degrees from that time.

Given that all this would only be known via intensive internal examination and measurement of the engine, none of us would ever find out anyway unless we bought it.

Hey if the new owner managed to find a new/old stock body kicking around in Italy. maybe they also found a stash of virgin heads and blocks as well!

 

Maybe... One thing. Adding metal back to old casting even with modern techniques is a tricky process and can cause irreversible damage if something goes wrong.

The good thing in the case of 0846/0858/and "0900" is that every thing that has been posted about them is on Ferrari Chat and people can read all of it and decide for themselves what is true and what is not and write what they please as The Organizers of Amelia did when they displayed 0846 on their lawn.

There is no question at all that Ferrari scrapped 0846 and never sold it to anyone. There is no question that as per their request I have "endeavored" to make this perfectly clear with the press and others. There is also no question that many believe that 0846 as it exists today contains the majority of 0846's original chassis and other original 0846 parts. There is also no question that Ferrari in their sole discretion put 0846 into my garage on a website that they published many years ago, listing me as the current owner of 0846 and that 0846 is still "parked" on that website today. There is no question that legally the car that exists today for over 14 years is 1967 Ferrari P 3/4 0846 and that, that fact is recognized by US and Italian Motor Vehicle and Custom authorities and that the time that, that fact can be challenged by anyone passed many years ago.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

More bull**** by the omission of the communication you're referring to's most salient point. Let's have a look at this communication from Ferrari to yourself:

"we would like to take this opportunity to kindly request that you use
your best endeavors to have the press clearly indicate that this car has
been fully rebuilt, and as such, is not the original F0846 which has been officially scrapped by Ferrari and not sold by the company in whole or in part."

According to Ferrari your car is a fully rebuilt car, and as such, is not the original 0846. Do you understand????

I would suggest that you have not endeavored at all to have the press to clearly indicate this. If so show the forum where.......

Actually, I notice that this communication does not start with a capital letter as a sentence should. Please could you post the full sentence, or even the full communication, so we can understand it in its full context. It's very clear that there is a pattern of omission in many of the communications you post where their meanings then become different and more in line with what you would like them to mean.

 

A modest proposal to those who contend that it is not legitimate to refer to Napolis's car as Ferrari P 3/4 # 0846: please write what you contend this vehicle to be and then, please, just let it go.

 

At Amelia Marcel and I spoke about this. It's as if some would be a lot happier if what 0846 is today never happened and scrapped 0846 remained scrapped 0846, slowly turning to dust and disappearing forever. Marcel said 0846 as it sat on the lawn at Amelia was "Best in Show". Funny World.