I would like to apologize early for my dyslexia, I spell incorrectly and read through it, its one of my downfalls. I thought it time to show and tell about my 1982 208GTB turbo that I have owned for almost 20 years. I bought the 208 turbo from a broker who worked for an insurance company, the car was stolen in Italy and brought to the US where it was sold illegally, the Interpol's found out it and recovered it so I bought it from the Italian insurance company through an American broker I think, I have all the documents but they are in Italian. Having owned many 308s a TR and a 512BBi I was familiar with Ferrari performance but my first drive in the 208 turbo was far from exciting, to be honest my sons Honda could beat it till boost came on at 5000 rpm. If you have ever owned a turbo car boost is like a drug and turbo lag is like when waiting to get your next fix, I know its a stupid example but pretty true I would think. The first thing I did was install electromotive EFI DIS which helped a great deal but still I needed more, so after that I cranked up the boost and made an intercooling system for the car. Like I said, once you have boost you seem to think you need more sooner so I twin turboed the car with some custom made turbos but it still had lag till 3000 rpm, but when it hit it was crazy all the way up to 26 psi. When you do things like this you find the next weakest link which was my clutch, it smoked the first trip out so I ordered a clutch and pressure plate from centerforce that was good to 350 HP, it smoked too so I took the dip and purchased a twin disk with a lighten flywheel from Mueller Fabricators, I posted on another tread it was Mcleod but after going through my records is Mueller. This fixed the clutch problems but I still wanted boost sooner so I bought some IHI 555 turbos and changed them out as an experiment, all I can say is was a good choice, boost now came on at 1700 rpm when the turbos where hot and hammered all the way to 26 psi. I had the power solved but found out that I need to stop so I put 15 inch brembos all the way around with a Stewart LBS valve in line to prevent the back brakes from locking up. In doing all this I had to make some special 17 inch wheels from Kinesis to clear the floating disks. Then the next step was to replace all the shocks with Alden dual adjustable aluminum shocks all around and all the suspension bushings where replace with neoprene. The car was perfect for tract and street, my wife and I took a many a 2000 mile trip with the car without any problems (other than one alternator failure) and enjoyed it till one cold morning with 0 degrees outside temp, I was getting a little crazy with the power curve and cranked up the boost to 28 psi to see if I could get more wheel spin in 3rd and it happened, I melted a couple exhaust valves. So I pulled the motor with the intent to bore to 2.8 liter, change the heads to 3 liter heads and up the compression ratio to 8.5 to 1 and go to individual throttle bodies. That was 10 years ago and many projects have gone through my garage since then but I had rebuilt a 308 GT4 motor for forced induction and put a GM blower on it, it ran very well with 5 psi boost but the car body needed help so I decided to pull the motor on the GT4 and take off the blower and put in the 208 with all the goodies I just mentioned plus use the 308 transaxle because it has a taller 1st and 2sd gear ratio than the turbo transaxle. So here I am writing this book. I will post all the old pictures I can find and some of the new as I progress. I do all my own work. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Cast iron exhaust manifolds will be in today! I bought them from another F-chat member along with another set of IHI turbos. Anyone need a set of turbos? I will post pictures soon as I get them and bolt on the motor, after that the plumbing begins. I hope to clean up the plumbing of oil and water lines to the turbos, in my last install there was an enormous amount of lines. If you look at this picture you will see where I plan on feeding the water cooled center section of the turbos off the inlet side of the remote mount electric water pump, I will plumb the outlet back to the reservoir tank. Also I will drill and tap the main oil gallery plug to feed the turbos with oil. Also is a picture of the car. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Very cool did you ever measure mpg with the 2.0l? A 208 stateside is a real score, I always wondered if any made it here.... And also if any were converted to the 3.0l V8! Thx for sharing
The cast iron headers showed up today with the other set of turbos. The headers are for a 4 valve car, I have a 2 valve car. So they are up for sale for what I paid for them. The bad part is I just sold the spare set of 2 valve SS factory headers to pay in part for these.
Wow, talk about an awesome start to a thread. I've seen you post here and there in other spots and always wondered what the story was... Very cool to on your part to take the time to share it.
Phil they are not listed, but I would consider them RARE, I will PM you. Here are pictures, from the angle of the picture they look to be 2 valve. Bret, thank you, I have several other cars have been a gear head since I was a kid. I love making things better. Here are a few pictures of my work. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Man, you aren't kidding, Jack. Impressive, to say the least! I think all of us would be happy to hear any more stories you have to share, and certainly enjoy the pics as well.
The Lamborghini 1980 LP400s is part of the family, I've owned the car for 20 years and put almost 20,000 miles on it since I rebuilt the motor in 92. After rebuilding the motor a good friend of mine talked me into putting Electromotive TEC1 EFI with TWM throttle bodies on the car. Its bolt on and I still have the original carbs and distributor if I ever decide to change back for originality, but I have never had the plugs out since the conversion and it still starts and runs every time, so why mess with a good thing. Check out this video from a few years back. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o_rUfhfqz4[/ame] I also had a Renault R5 Turbo II but sold it off to a good guy in southern California, the car was really modified from original but ran very well, it was my pocket rocket. I sold my BBi 512 to purchase the GT40 along with a 400a in 2007. The GT40 is a fantastic car and has been in 3 open road races and 1 track event but I drive it all the time. Its pretty high tech for engine management and is the ground work for what I am going to do with the 208 turbo. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Very cool on all accounts. There was an R5 Turbo II for sale a few months back not too far away from me. It was in way too rough a shape to be worth buying except as a project, but it still made me think a bit... It's right up there with a Delta Integrale on my list of "must owns."
That is just cool Jack. Very nice. I would love to see more picture of the TWM setup if you have any.
Hey Jack, what an awesome post! I've always wanted a 208 Turbo and a Countach! You are livin' the dream sir! Thanks for sharing!
You know 20 years ago they were not that popular, I'm glad I hung on to them, they are part of the family I guess. Thanks! Chis I will post better pictures tomorrow. I just spent a weekend with Ron Covell, he is a master of metal working, I really learned a great deal in two days. He had a seminar just 25 miles from my house.
Made a little progress on the 208 today, I will post some pictures soon. Chris here are some pictures I just took of the Countach throttle bodies, is there any particular part you want to see? Sorry its not cleaned up, I drive it and its hard to keep everything spotless. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
