Boxers are undervalued

One of the arguments has always been that with the transmission sitting underneath the engine, all be it to the side somewhat, it was not a good car to take racing as it had too high a center of gravity. However, that did not seem to stop people from racing them.

 

Looks like my old 79BB.

 

But the Flat (180 degree) Vee engine compensates for that somewhat and the transmission is better positioned where it is rather than right at the back of the engine from a C of G aspect. I'd fully agree with that point if the engine was in an upward Vee formation.

 

Steve: The heavy weight of the crankshaft, connecting rods, flywheel and clutch is much higher in a Boxer as the all set on top of the transaxle.

 

308 and BB both while keeping a smaller tidier package putting the engine on top of the transmission caused handling problems not experienced with more conventional mid engine layouts. Also on the BB and TR with the very wide engine directly between the rear suspension forced some compromises. Loved the cars but they were hardly famous for being the ne plus ultra of road-holding.

 

Glad you finally got into the Boxer camp John! As I’ve been saying for years, they are just much better cars to drive than the Lamborghinis of the same period. They are stunningly beautiful and appear more modern as well. I have also had the three variants and really appreciate the 365 BB from a driving and purenees perspective. They are the ultimate bargain of the collector car world.

 

I would not say my 78 BB is better to drive than my 80 LP400S. Easier to drive, sure, better in traffic, but not at speed or going around corners.

 

Agreed, Dyke. However, in a Boxer with 180 degree flat Vee engine, I'd have thought the cylinder block, 12 pistons, 4 camshafts, 24 valves, 2 cylinder heads, intake manifolds, exhaust manifolds, 4 x triple choke Webers or 2 FI units, linkages, air cleaners, distributor and wiring, 12 spark plugs etc, which are all in a lower plane/lower down than they would be in a 60/90 degree upward Vee engine, compensates to some degree for the high up and heavy crank, con rods, flywheel and clutch?

Also if the transaxle was not underneath the engine and further towards the back of the car, it would adversely affect the front/rear weight balance of the car, which is biased towards the back already.

 

Me too.....he talks with his hands a lot!! Lol.....

 

Maybe one day I can get my unique BB to a track for another Boxer owner to drive. It's been lowered, hp increased 30% to 470 and 80 lbs removed [radiator and exhaust]. My driving is limited to the mountain roads near our home. Sure is fun. What a beast !

I really would like a BB expert to see what he thinks of this car.

 

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365 Boxer.
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512 Boxer.
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John, the wheelbase on all 3 Boxer types is the same at 2500 mm. Please see my post from 2019 in the link here that explains what you are seeing, and why the area of the rear clam you've measured and photographed that meets the sill/rocker panel on the 2 512 Boxer types is longer than on the 365 Boxer.

 

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The 512 and 365 use the same chassis. The early 76 BB512 on my hoist has cut off remains of the 365 cable clutch and throttle cable pulley bracket from the factory. The pass through tubes still remain in place but are unused. The gas tanks on a 365 are basically rectangular boxes sitting upright so the rear shut line at the clam is basically straight down vertically compared to the door shut line. Compare those two shut lines on the 512 and you'll see they angled the clam shut line forward running parallel to the door shut line. This meant the forward edge of the 512 clam had to be made wider to fill the gap and the fuel tanks now have a different shape to them to allow the air intake ahead of the rear wheel to plumb air into the engine bay at the exhaust manifold area.

 

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Note the rear clamshell shut line angle. There is no other reason for the coach builder to make the change other than to create a more balanced visual in my opinion. That said, with the wider rear wheels and wider hips on the 512 they had to widen the lower body to continue the flared wheel opening. The change to the shut line could've been determined by the lack of realestate available to fit the flare.

 

Carobu did the work. I will pull together what I have on their improvements. Stay tuned.

 

having owned both, the LP500 was an infinitely better steer between 80 and 140, just so direct. Above and indicated 160 the lambo felt aerodynamically unstable and i wouldn't want to go through a bend at that speed or above..The downsides of the Lambo as it was really heavys at low speeds and visibility limited driving in some ways.

The BBi is just far more refined, but soter at the wheel, its also more stable at speed, but has nowhere near the roadholding.
Note BB can be upgraded to handle way better with modern rubber, but suspension will still be fort compared to a Ct.

Bi also has great visilbility and more useable more of the time.
CT is rolling modern sculpture
BB is rolling art.

 

Having owned mine a long time (30+ years) and driven it with youthful vigor and consequently spun once And caught a lurid slide once(never hit anythign either time) here are some thoughts on the layout.

the motor is indeed sitting up high. On the slide I had it felt like a giant hand was literally lifting the inside rear bumpier up and pulling the car forwards from that point. I used 4 lanes of an undivided two lane highway(ie across the 2 oncoming traffic lanes holding that slide till it settled. Luckily no one was coming the other way. it certainly felt like that crankshaft sitting up high was just pulling the rear acroos the road.

the spin was interesting in that at most I feathered the throttle in a bend and then it just snapped hard. Imo that was the tires. the sidewall is big and it stretches a lot. So on hard cornering the tread no longer sits directly under the wheel. then when grip is lost(say weight transfers to the front when drive to the rear lessens) those threads are snapping back under the wheel, so now you've lost traction and even though youre correcting you cant correct for the tread snapping back under the wheels. I think it spun on its axis 420 degrees, once again lucky, nothing was there and car untouched.

Once I had more experience and on roads I knew intimately as long as power was being added one could even crab the car sideways with all 4 wheels, such is the precision of the throttle. However if you have to alter anything at that point its tickets. Wider rears 275's just plant the tail of the car and its pretty impossible then to provoke out.

Stock youve got soft sidewalls, and weight up high, once grip is lots its reall hard to catch and recovery is a long wait in a lurid slide.

Ive spun my elise on track and the experience is not dissimilar, once a mid engine car lets go its a spining top. The thing is on boxers they really let go at lower limits with far less provocation and there is no warning before youre way over the edge, imo thats tires and where the weight sits. Its a learned art like driving a 911 you can really make it dance, and as with 911s modern rubber can tame it.

What you really want on boxer is wide rears, as wide as will fits. 275s and then really narrow fronts for great steering feel. yes the car will understeer, but the limits of that will be past the seats ability to hold you. Then of course you want more power to more fully enjoy all that added confidence.

Ive posted this before, but when Nick Mason etsted his BBLM at goodwood it was seconds quicker than his then new F40. A BBLM is the same chassis ands suspension as we all have with 400hp and running slicks The potential is there for a stock appearing 400+hp and more, while modern rubber makes sense of the chassis. Yeah the motor sits high, but the penalty was in period with elastic rubber, that really does not have to be a material issue now at all.

We all own a car that can with a little development better the experience and performance of a 288 while appearing completely stock(except for wheels)

 

Your experience may be more down to the weight distribution being Front 40%/Rear 60% rather than the transaxle being under the (flat) engine. If the transaxle was conventionally placed, behind the engine, the rear bias would have been even greater.

Congratulations on having owned a wonderful Ferrari Boxer for 30+ years.

 

Could be.
It is interesting that ferrari went for that transaxle solution. The pantera had the gearbox/transaxle behind the engine as god intended, but that was shorter v8. The muira went for a transverse layout. The Countach put the gearbox between the seats and then ran the driveshaft back through he sump. So its clear in the early days the 12 cyl was too long to do engine in front of gearbox. By the time of a Mclaren F1 a conventional layout was possible.

The testarossa kept the same essential powertrain and was a lengthened wheelbase anyway, although for cabin comfort and stability, so its possible to have put maybe the engine in front of the box and lived with a longer wheelbase. The 288 did that and even then they lengthened the 308 wheelbases and the motor sort a bulges in a bit.

The solution to the heavy steering below 80, tail happiness/snap oversteer and confidence when really pushing on is rubber. Ferrari went with TRX tires(designed for a 6 series BMW) when the p7 was coming in, some say that was enzo politics, or maybe by the 70s they were struggling with compliance issues in so many other ways they went with expedience. Maybe Enzo was old and still holding the reigns(plus anti me layout) so the BB was less youthful than a Ct. hard to say.

I agree the layout is not fatal, and its simply a car like a muira or 911 you need to learn how to drive, if you do its magic. I guess the fearsome reputation is because near the limit if you have to make an adjustment, it can and will bite hard.

For those of us who really enjoy the drive and using the car on road,(over a concors lawn), the solution is to complete that last few % development ferrari did not. same thing happens in the e-type world. Im not talking resto mod which is Imo a bastardization and ends up with a silhouette.

rather lets take our inspiration from the BBLM, and some period BBis that ran p7s. Today you can geta BBi style wheel in a 17 inches, that means you can fit wide rear rubber and great narrow fronts. At once you bring back the steering feel that was so beautiful in a 365, and you plant the rear so its not going to bite or is recoverable. The limit then becomes the seats and your neck. The other major drawback was the Fi system and what they knew how to do back then. The issue more than anything is the flat cams, so that great 12 goes flat a little after 6k rpm, right where you're expecting it to climb on cam for that lask 1k rpm of push and surge.

to the extent one is restoring a car, Newman has reprofiled the cams to give great lift with the Fi system, and that coupled with new pistons for a real cr ratio really turns that motor into a slugger which can rev sweetly to 7k rpm, a lightweight flywheel makes it snappy too. Its not just more power, its more power over a far wider rev range. Id even go for a shorter final drive, its still going to do 180 in 5th. Adda rear diff carrier so it wont go bang and youre set.

Oher than the slightly lager wheels there is nothing to such a setup that does not appear 100% concors stock, and its not different to any number of older v12 ferraris which when rebuilt go for more modern pistons and higher lift cams, or a muira s converted to a split sump for longevity..

Imo what happened is ferrari was on the right path with the 365 boxer. Then instead of making the platform faster and shaper they went chasing the more comfort Gt market and the boxer ended up falling between two stools. Thing is due to layout, cabin size cooling etc the BB was never going to be a Gt car, but enzo and others thought that's what the market wanted. In a sense they were right, cause the Tr took that farther and sold better, and then under Luca ferrari became a Gt car manufacturer and has had great commercial success doing so. However the cars they make now are simply not the same or even a modern rendition of what they always did, live/living drivers cars. The 355/F50 was probably the last of them, even then the BB was the last car they made without regard to legislation so it has a purity of form and concept.

The Bb suffers value wise because we are no longer in an era of drivers, so many find it hard going unlike an easy Dino, and then for those who are drivers the BB is seen as a bit too soft and slow for the compromise and effort involved, (get it on the right road on the right day and it really shines). Nowadays when these cars are savored for shorter fast drives, the 365 is rightly seen as more tactile evocative and involving. Just imagine the glowing praise of a classic magazine test of a BBI sympathetically upgraded as I suggest, that imo will change the market. a 288Gto for 1/10th the price, it would be worth it at 1/5 the price.

or eventually the BB will catch on cause its simply rolling art and a classic 12 cyl stick ferrari for rolling on to the lawn.

I am in a quandry with mine. At this point I want the development upgrades. Its what 50-70K in motor+ suspension rebuild/bushings(which most need due to age ) etc. So you take a totaly original clean 250k car and put 150k into it. You now have an awesome 400k classic ferrari. is that worth it, because the resulting car is maybe going to be worth 300k. In my case its not pressing because being meerly of some means Im spending on my track habit fairly furiously, plus keepign up the other cars and accumulating one or two other Ice cars before its over, plus boats, nuff said. I know one day ill take the plunge.

In November we visited freinds in sante fe, and then drove from there up into colorado. Those roads in northern NM up towards Co, perfect and I mean perfect for a boxer, so much so I'm keeping mine for that drive, perfect car for the perfect road.

 

Good day All,

Another Data Point: Chassis 40999 1982 512 BBi sold today for $335K USD... Although the sample set is small, the market appears to be trending upwards these days.

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/1982-ferrari-512bbi-chassis-40999.675642/#post-149096439

Cheers,

Sam