Supercharged 308GTB almost ready to go

Just a couple of pictures of what I've been slaving over in my spare time with a bit of very valuable help from some of you F-chat people.

I started with a 1977 Euro (dry sump) 308GTB, drove it about 20 miles and ripped it apart.

Disassembled and checked over the whole engine, cleaned everything, and reassembled it with new bearings, seals, gaskets, belts, etc. Replaced one cracked cylinder head, did a valve job, powder coated the cam covers, belt covers and oil tank.

Sold the carburetors, coils, distributor, air filter, etc.

Machined new billet aluminum intake manifold/plenum that houses 4 Laminova air to water intercooler cartriges inside and an Opcon supercharger on top which will be making about 10 PSI.

Distributorless ignition and EFI are controlled by an Electromotive tec3 ECU.

Twin throttle bodies are 5.0 Mustang, as are the twin air filter elements which are housed in insulated, aluminum boxes, one on each side of the engine. Each air filter is fed from it's own special fiberglass duct connected to the OEM air intakes in the side of the body. The left air intake, which formerly fed the oil cooler, now feeds the rear throttle body.

The old (oil-to-air) oil cooler was replaced by a Setrab (oil-to-water) oil cooler which is mounted on the lower fire wall. The supercharger left no room for the old, inefficient, water pump so the car now has a Meziere electric water pump in the front, near the radiator, along with a smaller Meziere pump for the twin intercooler heat exchangers in the nose (formerly Ford AC evaporators).

The single serpentine belt that drives the supercharger also drives the GM radial AC compressor and a Ford high out-put alternator.

The aluminum radiator is a modified Griffon, Ford type, NASCAR unit

The exhaust headers are stock but JetHot coated. The rest of the exhaust system is custom fabricated stainless steel with a pair of magnaflow mufflers.

To make sure it still stops the car has Porsche-996/Brembo calipers and 12" rotors on custom machined hats. Tandem Tilton brake master cylinders with cockpit adjustable cable control take care of bias (Thank you Paul).

Wheels are custom made 17" Kinesis modular (thank you Steve) with 5 spoke centers. Tires are Good Year Eagle F1s.

For suspension we have lightened and strengthened OEM control arms, ES urethane bushings, VariShock adjustable coil-overs and heavy duty sway bars.

As you can see its pretty crowded in the engine compartment. That's why some components like the fuel filter, intercooling expansion tank and coolant over-flow tank are mounted in the trunk. To reduce heat in the trunk the body is vented with a long row of holes hidden by the bumper and a fresh air duct runs into the trunk from a scoop under the car.

The car was also repainted (black) and the dash pad, which was split, was recovered. The rest of the interior is pretty decent but I do have a Momo racing seat, left over from another project, which I may install later.

I have other ideas but for now I just want to get this car on the road. I'm sure there will be some teething problems but I'm looking forward to driving it this spring and summer.

Thanks again for some very important help I received from F-chat people both actively and passively. I don't post here very often, busy working on the car, but there is a lot of valuable and inspiring reading on this board.

Wil
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Wil,looking better every time I see it...now get back to my car. J/K LOL

 

Wow!
Very well thought out and executed!
Are there any more details available on the manifold? Any construction photos?
Very impressive and beautiful installation!

 

very impressive. Any plans on bringing the car to any of the pocono events?

 

Awesome!
What kind of power do you think you'll be making? How soon will you have it on the road?

 

Hey Andy!

Small world! Shouldn't you be on Lambo Power? Thanks for the compliment!

Wil

 

That was my first question also. And I second your AWESOME. (pretty handy fellow, nice....... no, stunning!)

 

Russ,

Thank you. I like your set-up too.

Actually reading your post about separate plenums for flat crank V8s is what pushed me to post the pictures. Even if you don't supercharge, it should still be possible to feed your double plenums the way I did my air filters. It was a real struggle coming up with the air filter set-up. I tried several different types of K&N cone type filters and just couldn't find the room to get anything decent sized to fit and still get cold air to it. The cruelest part was that once I decided that my only option was a panel type filter, I drove to the NAPA store on a Sunday morning, asked for a 5.0 Mustang filter ($8.00!!), only because I was familiar with it's size, went back to the shop and started fabbing a pair of housings. When I later ordered a pair of K&N elements I found, to my disappointment when I got them, that they were just a tad bigger in the actual filter area and wouldn't fit in my boxes without distorting!
I'm just running paper elements at this point, Not making new boxes. Anyway two 5.0 liter filters should breathe pretty well.

I have full scale drawings of the plenums and I might have some photos. Not sure, I will dig.

Wil

 

WOOOW!!!!

That is an awesome setup. It really looks like you did a ton of homework on that project. Any plans on strapping it to a dyno after it's been properly broken in?

 

Thanks,

I hope to have the car ready well before the first pocono event. I almost never miss the Pocono shin digs so I should be there anyway but I'll be real POd if it's without the car!

Wil

 

I'm hoping for about 400 HP. We'll see. I'll certainly have it on the dyno. I hope to be on the road in May. There is still quite a bit of work to do.

Wil

 

If this set-up works well are you willing to make the set-up available to the public? (me)

 

Ed,

I've had pictures of this set-up on my web-site (in various stages of completion) and have had a bunch of people ask the same question. So far I've disappointed (or POd) every one of them because this set-up would cost a fortune. More than any 308 is worth. I don't have to pay myself and I'm basically showing off but otherwise it's just an insane amount of special machining annd fabricating. I tried to make it as efficient as I could, paying special attention to keeping the intake charge as cool as possible without using ice or something similar but it is certainly not efficient from the standpoint of how much work is required to gain that little bit of extra efficiency. There are simpler ways to supercharge and intercool but even then it's still never going to be cheap. Just the equipment is well over $10,000. We do better selling mods to guys with Diablos because the base value of the cars is higher.

Please don't be insulted by my answer. Reality s*cks.

Wil

 

Oh my gosh, that's one awesome 308 motor!!!


Greg

 

Very very nice..........beautiful!

You'll have to custom fab a 1977 muffler screen, around those tips! LOL!
I have the pattern.

Lots of food for thought, even for those of us with stock setups...I'm sure the
water pump/ radiator mods alone would be cost effective to long time owners...I've bought a few.......

Whose spark plug well seals are those? The boots on the plug extenders, I mean....those are always cracking on mine.....

 

Amazing work Will, very impressive indeed.

 

That's a really professional looking job, and the custom work is beautiful! I'll be very interested to hear what kind of numbers it puts out...

 

Wil,

Hold mother of... WOW!


WOW!

Did i meantion WOW! My jaw is on the floor, that is most impressive. if i may beg of you, can you give me pics/details of the Tandem Tilton brake master cylinders with cockpit adjustable cable control take care of bias.


WOW!
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Yeah, I guess that big Magnaflow sign on the back doesn't look so good. It was difficult finding the right size stainless mufflers. I have thought about hanging a piece of expanded or perforated sheet-metal in front of it but spring has sprung and I want to get it on the road for now.

The sparkplug-well boots are stock 308. The plug wires are MSD and I actally had to trim about 3/4" off the top end of each plug boot to get the well boots to fit. Not real kosher I guess but I'm running out of patience with the nicer weather.

Wil

 

It's all great... except the writing on the calipers..... "Porsche" has gotta go!!

 

Yes - the same for me to get something elegantly simple, lightweight yet effective. I never could find a source on oval flexible hose I could use as a duct. If I had a source on that I would duct and mount the air filters inside the side scoop duct - it's really big.

best
russ

 

Thanks Steve,

The tandem master cylinders with adjustable bias set-up is made by Tilton. I have a similar Tilton set-up in another car but this one is remote and is perfect for adapting to the 308. It's not in any of the Tilton suppliers' catalogs so I wasn't aware of it untill Paul Delatush turned me on to it. He has it on his car and sent me pictures of it. I'm right in the middle of machining pieces to make a similar set-up on my car.

The beauty of it is that you retain the stock 308 brake pedal, the price is VERY reasonable, and it's very easy to switch to larger or smaller master cylinders for rough tuning of bias and pedal effort. Its a really well engineered piece. I special ordered mine from Pegasus. I don't think you'll find it in anyone's catalog.

I'll take some pictures of what I have right now and send them later.

Wil

 

Fantastic looking, I'm surprised people haven't started chiming in with "ooh, it's got Ford and Chevy parts on it? What a POS!" LOL So it starts me to wondering; among those that say things like a Jag is horrible because it has a GM trans (never mind being owned by Ford now!), or a Pantera is just a Ford... do they seem something like this as (1) bad because it's changing Enzo's blessed configuration or (2) bad because it has domestic auto parts on it or (3) just plain cool ?
Really cool and I like the descriptions of where you took parts from, especially the Ford A/C condensers!

 

Thumbs up here dude. Very nice indeed.

 

Thanks Don,

So what's wrong with Chevy and Ford parts right? How about the "Porsche" calipers? I'm actually repainting the Brembo calipers before hitting the road.

308s are kind of gutless, not because Enzo wanted it that way, but because of emissions and safety legislation, at the time, that no car manufacturer was able to deal with effectively untill technology caught up. Well now this 308 is finally catching up and if a higher tech part from a Ford works, why not?.
If you know your Ferrari parts you'll find Saginaw, Borg-Warner, Bendix, etc. Did you know that the "Bosch" based EFI on all the new Ferraris and practically every other car was developed not by Bosch but by Bendix in the 1950s right here in the USA?

BTW I used AC evaprators, the part that hides under the dash, not condensors.

Wil