Using social media and having “control rooms” to do the “front running” by 20 or 30 other cars is crazy. I originally bought my 1975 Popular Hotrod car #ProjectTalladega to do a “reasonable speed run” but it really is not easy to get 2 more like minded guys to do a run with you (even if they have no financial responsibility). A non-stop coast to coast run is possibly a bucket list item that won’t get filled for me. I do know that after spending 9 days and 5400 miles in my Miata with my father in law I know I would not do the OLOA or a C2C with any less than 3 people….it’s a “young man’s game” and I no longer am ;-)
Here is the cannonball Jaguar I mentioned that Collins/Rawlings rescued. I was hoping they would run it again but those guys have too much to risk with those old gumball/cannonball shenanigans nowadays. https://collinsbrosjeep.com/1978-jaguar-xjs-5-3-v12-cannonball-run-winning-car/
I can’t imagine those guys would ever sell it but for a cannonball junkie it would be pretty cool…. i feel bad for getting this thread off in the weeds. Excited over time to see/read more about modified “hot rodded” Maranellos and if 575 F1 prices stay low then they would be a great candidate.
Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Taz yes I have the correct upper arm and hoses to go with the HGTC underpan. Pics. There are more HGTC pics in my album. Eric, the top picture on the wall in the post above came from the Ferrari dealer in Phoenix. They sold their wall pictures online when they remodeled years back. I happened to catch it. The below poster should be able to be found on the internet. Bill
Your car looks amazing! Brakes definitely look great - nice additional benefit to the performance. Wow, 50-60 hp from just an exhaust is more than I expect, but looking at the differences in headers and the period of construction, it seems believable. I have a baseline dyno that I shared in the first post - will dyno again (with the same dyno/operator) once everything is done. The mezger comment primarily came from the difference between that motor and the one that came in the 991 GT3 - the latter being more peaky with more revs, but the earlier mezger having more midrange and a bit more of a "gruff" feeling and character to it. Both incredible pieces of engineering. I have a seat option that I'm going to try, will share in another post. Let us know what you think. Perhaps we can convince @Cribbj to program a couple with that map for us to try. Ok let me know! What pads did you use? Actually I'm not planning to track the car, but still want to build it to the level that it could be used for a few hot lap sessions without being concerned about the components, so thats good input. Thats good info. Can hoses be retrofitted to the standard upper A arms and standard underbody? I cannot confirm the top speed that I have achieved in this car to date, but I can confirm that you can appreciate that it is indeed slippery, almost more so than any other car I've driven. You can really feel the difference vs. a car with lots of aero once you get in to 4th gear. Love to see the car being used as intended! These kinds of feats are what developing road cars are all about in my eyes. Even cooler that there was no factory support, just a couple of guys wanting to go fast.
Rbp, here is the way Ferrari did the underpan for the HGTC. They inserted molded pieces that the hoses would clamp onto similar to the way the alternator hose fastens. The A-arms seen above have two extra brackets on the opposite side of the standard arms to attach these additional hoses. The two custom hoses were still available last time I checked. Each end of the hose is a different size. There are also two additional plastic ducts (one each side) seen in the pic above that fasten to the A-arm. No idea on availability. The hose clamp on the bottom pan and are tie wrapped to the plastic duct on the top (A-arm side). I suppose one could retrofit if they wanted to put enough time in. Bill FL Image Unavailable, Please Login
Easily. The factory exhaust is very restrictive 2.25" crushed to 2" and poorly flowing manifolds. I was either running HPS or HPS 5.0 pads and Motul 5.1 fluid. Pads are cheap and easy to replace, could throw in some more track oriented pads (DTC-30 or HP+) for track use to have better braking at higher temps, then swap back to a more street friendly pad when done.
A few project updates: Parts on the way: - coilovers / air filters - thanks @white out - full exhaust from italy - wheels / tires (MPS4S) - seats (more later) A stop at the shop: Had a coolant leak so had the car towed to GTO - they found that one of the non-silicone hoses under the intake plenum cracked. Replaced all coolant hoses that were not silicone from the factory with silicone. Understandable - very few miles added to the car over the last few years, so the rubber hose dried out a bit and cracked after I put 1500 miles on the car since buying it. Happy I discovered it in my driveway and not somewhere in central CA. Had a service done while I was there, and had new ECUs installed that I got from Sam and @360trev. ECU tune: First I have to say that Sam and Trev have been amazing to work with. Never have I had this much help and back and forth with an engine tuner. I installed the new ECUs which I had asked to have set up for the full exhaust, but since I didnt have the new exhaust installed yet, low rev driveability wasn't perfect. Definitely pulls harder from above 4500 rpm. Sam and Trev weren't surprised and said they were happy to re-flash my stock ECUs with a new tune thats optimized for my current exhaust set up (stock all the way back to Fuchs non-valved mufflers). When I get the re-flashed stock ECUs back I will report back. Seats: I've also been trying to track down some seats that will get me lower in the car. Looks like the best option is the Recaro Sportster CS to retain the ability to recline, although I may have to go with a Pole Position because I'm not sure how much lower the CS will ultimately be when including a mount (https://www.plantedtechnology.com/products/seat-brackets/ferrari/planted-seat-bracket-ferrari-360-1999-2005-driver-left.html) I spoke to the tech at Planted and concluded the following: - the mount itself adds about 1.5 inches from the floor vertically - the sliders are another 1 inch - the CS is another 2 inches of height (although the sliders are slightly recessed) - so all together, the height off the floor looks like it will be about 4 inches (when accounting for 0.5 inch of recessed space under the seat for the sliders) It seems to me that where your butt hits the seat on my existing Daytona seats, and accounting for some material compression, is about 5 inches from the floor. A lot of effort for 1 inch lower. Have the Recaro Sportster CS on order along with the mounting bracket. We'll see what we find when we get the stock seat out and start playing around with the mounting. Fallback option is a side mounted Pole Position with rails to get as low as possible. Bluetooth Stereo: The car came with a "period correct" alpine headunit from the mid 2000s which of course did not look factory and did not have bluetooth, two things I really want in a car stereo. Luckily I found this Blaupunkt unit that I thought would work out nicely and had bluetooth (as well as adjustable backlighting colors, another must for OEM look): https://blaupunkt.com/product/skagen-400-dab/ Had it installed and looks nearly perfect (see attachments) Of course I discovered that the hands-free bluetooth calling resulted in the person I called hearing feedback of every word they said, making it unusable. Fortunately the german company that sold it to me (seems nobody in the US distributes them) was able to instruct me about a software update required on the radio, which I was able to execute using a USB flashdrive plugged directly in to the headunit (odd but seemed to do the job)! Will keep you all posted on progress - look forward to parts showing up. And speaking of track driving - an open lap at Buttonwillow in the cup car:
Some updates: ECUs: Swapped the ECUs tuned for the full exhaust back to the ECU tuned for standard exhaust (although not stock tune) from @360trev and Sam. Massive difference all around - much better low end throttle response, more mid range, and a vanos-like power jump at 4500rpm. Considering how different the car feels between the two tunes makes me wonder just how different the car will feel with a full exhaust. Apparently less then a month away. Seats: Have been searching far and wide for the factory Ferrari carbon buckets but they seem to be unobtanium - one of the seat suppliers I visited actually had a pair in the their showroom but were not inclined to part with them, sadly. Research suggests that pretty much any reclining seat on the market won't get the seating position any lower than the factory standard seats, after accounting for the base mount, sliders, and the seat cushion. So, I'm going the shell route and will try both a Recaro Pole Position and the Sparco QRT, which apparently is very similar to a PP but apparently made for a larger driver. Will report back. Coilovers and wheels should be arriving soon . . . Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
@rbp re seats: 1) FYI BaT has a couple of carbon 360 seats on auction right now, and I have been told that the 360 seats fit well in the 550/575. 2) have you explored the sparco spx seats? I want to lower the seat height From stock in my 550, and the sparco spx looks comparable to the factory 550/360 carbon seat, but maybe I’m missing something.
Sorry for asking on here but how much work is needed to make standard Recaro Pole Positions fit in a 550/575? Is the width between the rails on our cars the same as on Porsches 964/993?
Yes, seems my post summoned them from the ether. @Qksilver mentioned them to me as well, thanks for the heads up! I'm watching the auction . . . On sparco SPX, they appear to have the same issue as the Recaro Sportster CS - once you add the mounting bracket, the sliders (because they mount from the bottom) and the seat itself (metal frame + plastic/CF shell + foam + leather), by my calculations you wind up at the same height as the standard 550/575 seats. I agree they do resemble the factory carbon buckets, but I was able to inspect a pair of those seats and observed two things: 1. the sliders are completely recessed in to the bottom of the seat, so that they add zero height themselves 2. where your butt hits the seat is very nearly flush with the height of the top of the sliders So, the factory buckets are absolutely the lowest you can go with a seat with sliders. You might be able get lower by to adding sliders to the side mounts of a shell seat and building a custom bracket to space the sliders out wide enough so that the seat itself sits between the sliders and essentially slides along the floor. Will find out soon and report back (see above).
Congrats on securing some period correct seats. My 575 just showed up with factory seats and harnesses with roll bar. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Some updates: Paint: I noticed that the clearcoat swirled easily so decided to have the whole car PPF'ed and ceramic coated, especially since I plan to drive it a lot. Makes the car much easier to maintain and smoothes out some of the factory orange peel in the paint. Looks excellent. Did a couple of other little touches that I'll point out when I have completed pictures . . . see if anyone spots them Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Seats: I was able to find a set of original 360 carbon buckets in black leather with suede insert. Given the difficulty in finding seats that work for the car I decided to go for these and decide if I wanted to recover them later. Turned out they look pretty cool with the tan interior: Image Unavailable, Please Login Also turns out that there are factory holes in the floor (in addition to the standard seat holes) hidden underneath the carpet that accept the seats perfectly. As expected the driving position is night and day better with these seats for a tall person with long legs. Can actually drive the car well without having the seat all the way back. I'm 6'2" and probably have 4-5 inches of headroom now. Next issue is the steering wheel not extending far out enough for my taste . . . Was surprised that the weight savings wasn't that significant. The stock seats felt like they weighed a ton, but only weighed in at 59 pounds. The carbon buckets are 29 each. So only 60 pounds weight savings total. Suspension: Image Unavailable, Please Login Coilovers from @white out arrived. Looked like high quality pieces. We installed and played around with ride height but wont do a full alignment and setup until we have the wheels sorted. Handling clearly much flatter and no porpoising, but a bit bouncy at low speeds that we will sort with setup. You can see the lower ride height in the photo - we have raised it about a half inch in the front and lowered half inch in the rear to remove some of the rake. Does anyone know if there is meaningful rake intentionally dialed in from the factory or was that just the way my car had been set up before I owned it? Image Unavailable, Please Login Wheels: Wheels arrived but sadly were built with the wrong bolt pattern! Going to be a few weeks until we get them rebuilt sadly. Exhaust: Arrived from Italy. Being installed over the next few days. Amazing to see the difference in the stock headers vs these. Will report exact weight savings over stock. @sammyf also flashed a new set of ECUs for me specific for this exhaust that I will swap in once I get the car back. Will eventually re-dyno the car on the same dyno as my baseline to get comparable numbers. Brakes: Thinking about upgrading stock with bigger rotors, uprated pads and stainless lines. Has anyone done this? Alternatively considering ordering Brembo GT or GTS kit for the car. Would prefer CCBs but at 2x the price to avoid brake dust, seems like a lot.
my 550 has upgraded brakes and rotors. the brakes are made by rotora, I have nothing to compare against sorry.
@Qksilver you're right! Life has been busy lately but I have had this on my to do list. Lots of progress on the build: Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Wheels: - Delivered by Vossen, were built wrong the first time - Delivered by Vossen a second time, are a bit too aggressive on offset so will be rebuilt a third time - Planning to paint the centers silver when they are re barreled. Tires: - PS4S in 255/35/19 and 295/35/19 - Went with a slightly taller rear tire than stock, which I think looks much better as it fills out the rear arch without having to lower the car too much. Brakes: - Ended up replacing a good portion of the braking system (pads, lines, master cylinder, booster, fluid). Braking performance much improved with new carbon kevlar pads Exhaust: - Full Fabio system installed (minus the axle sections which are coming) - Going to experiment with different mid sections to get more mid-range growl. Let me know if you all have any advice. A short video: Tune: - Working on iterations with @sammyf and @360trev Suspension: - Installed aftermarket coilovers, IMO they were too stiff so switched back to stock. Working on having a new set built with HGTC+ spring rates and stock travel Other maintenance: - Replaced both water pumps - Belts - Replaced passenger front wheel bearing - Swapped the hood scoop grill for a silver SuperAmerica grill Other items planned: - Remove tint - Potentially recover seats in tan with daytona centers I'm sure I'm forgetting some stuff. About 95% done, now in the slower part of development getting the details and suspension tuning right.
