360 Converting a 360 Challenge to Street Spec

Hear me out...

I could try to go down the Trev route and mod/hot rod my 360 Modena but in 2025 nearly every part is NLA and almost impossible to find. It would also cost an arm and a leg.

OR...

I can purchase a very sweet Challenge car that recently popped up that has everything I want and is owned by a collector that restored it.

So, what challenges (pun intended) will I have going into this?

Open questions I have are:

1. Can the suspension accommodate being raised to CS height without messing up the geometry and risking bump steer?
2. I read somewhere the uprights are the same and I can swap for Modena uprights to get the parking brake working, does that sound right?
3. Can I get this to work with 91 pump gas?
4. What does one need to do to allow the pump nozzle to work with the dry breaks?
5. Can I fully remove the cage or just leave the rear hoop? Obviously there would be a gap in the dash but not horribly keen on running a cage on the street. Door impact is a concern but I'll figure out something for that.
6. How difficult would it be to add a heat exchanger to speed up warming engine/gearbox?
7. To take this to an absurd level, if I have stock cats and a title from another state, could I go through the G&K process and get this registered in CA? No SAI or EGR would be the only thing that I could think of that would be a problem.
8. What do I do about lack of keys/locking the car?

Other thoughts:

• To my understanding, there's ways to get this titled in certain states (e.g. Dirt Legal). Let me know if that is going to be more difficult than they make it sound.
• The car has motons so I'd want to get those revalved and replace the springs
• I have two 360s to borrow parts from to make the above happen so I can swap as many parts as needed to get it through compliance processes
• I expect this won't be cheap and there's more sensible things to do with my money BUT...I like having unique things even if they make zero sense. This will likely be a lot cheaper than the air cooled, hot rodded minimalist Porsche I tried to buy today on BAT.

 

Hmm, that's a good point. In researching a little further, it looks like it wouldn't be compliant with EPA and DOT requirements. So, if one were to do this, you'd be better off importing under the 25 year exemption rule?

 

Maybe plan B makes more sense and buying this abomination to get the Michelotto parts and transfer them onto mine:

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2003-ferrari-360-gt-michelotto/

 

Came across this today which was a good explanation of why one shouldn't do this even if you can find a way:

 

I've been mathing out going the buy both and convert it over. I think it can be done in a reversible way, just a lot of time. The NGT parts look best on a red car, so that makes it a little more costly since I'd need to sell my yellow Modena and then procure a red 360 too. There's one available with NGT parts, multiple sets of challenge wheels and a spare, rebuilt challenge motor. From my research, the challenge motors were blueprinted and should put out more horsepower than a stock Modena, is that correct?

My plan would be:

• Exterior
  • Swap bumpers, front and rear lids and wing
  • Swap doors including fixed window
  • Retrofit new dry break fuel fillers to Modena (one would have a standard filler cap for pump gas).
    • This will require body work and a shop that can create the necessary die to form this correctly. Will need to fill in the standard fuel area.
    • Do I need to bring over the fuel tanks too or can I leave them stock? Would prefer to leave it stock
• Suspension & Brakes
  • Bring over hubs, brakes, rotors
    • I have a few ideas around the parking brake, one of which is an inline line break that a Rothsport 911 is using that's on BAT now.
  • Leave dampers on the Challenge and get custom valved MCS
  • Install spare set of 18" Challenge wheels
• Drivetrain
  • Assuming that the race engine is blueprinted and is putting out more horsepower, install the spare rebuilt engine. Leave Modena clutch and transmission as is.
  • TBD on exhaust, I really like the Capristo setup so may just do supersprint headers, sport cats and Capristo with valves
  • What's the difference on the TCU and ECU?
• Interior
  • Refinish dash on Modena to be similar to the challenge, possibly filling in the glovebox but without the cage cutouts.
  • TBD on the carbon control panel and the gauge cluster.
  • Bring over seats
  • Strip out interior on Modena and paint with rubberized black texture (there's a Challenge restoration thread where he did the same)
  • Figure out how to keep AC but make it hidden

Obviously, the above is a lot of work but that's part of the fun of the project. With that being said, some of what I need to figure out is how much this will cost and residuals on the cars. Ideally, I'd sell the real Challenge car once I swap everything I want from it, which means it's a bit of a Frankenstein so has less value. Looking at the cost of the two cars, I think I'll initially be into it for $200k and could probably sell Frankenstein for $50k? That means I'd have a street legal Challenge replica for $150k?

Alternative option would be to do the above to a regular Modena and try to procure the NGT parts (~20k?, waiting on a quote from Saxon parts but they said door cards are NLA), the engine (~15k), the challenge wheels (~5k) and the brakes/rotors ($6k). Theoretically cheaper and I'm not harming a Challenge car but some parts are questionable if I can even get them.

 

If you look at the above plan, I'm not bringing the suspension over or the steering rack for that reason.