Hi Ended up recently with -93 Ferrari 348TS. Car is from Japan and it's history is pretty much unknown and hard to research because of the language barrier. Well, I started to examine the car more closely and lifted it up to check the bottom. I made some very interesting findings.. There is two long steel slabs that goes from nose to rear welded to the bottom. Between them there is welded steelplate. Someone have any good suggestions about meaning of this?!? Best part is, that you can't remove the engine because structure is welded solid to the frame and the subframe.. And I think it's not possible to remove the engine by lifting it from the car. Maybe some trackcar or stuntcar bracing? Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Jesus......time to grind off all those welds.....see what your left with after all that metal is removed
That's weird! Extra steel as pictured would not improve chassis flex much IMO especially if not part of a cage design and then required for minimum race weight or something strange like that. You could do something weird like mount a hitch to take race tires to the track but why steel from nose to tail? You might be able to use the eye holes to tie a car down that is transported a lot like a racecar but then again same question why all the steel. Maybe the car was sold because it is time for the engine out and since it can't be done.... Do you still have access to get the fuel tank out? You could do the belts then if you modify a cross member. It is also possible to cut the spider looking cross braces over the motor by the upper gearbox support and sleeve and bolt the spider so it is removeable. You would use welded rollcage components as pictured. You can contact Scuderia Rampante in Colorado and maybe dave might have a picture of the IMSA Flag car that has such an arrangement so the engine can be removed out the top. OTOH you might be able to cut out the extra steel to get back to stock or at least access for conventional engine removal. A plasma cutter is a fine instrument that can make fine cuts with little fan fare using common sense and standard precautions. It would be especially easy to cut the extra steel out if MIG welded bird poop stitch welds are present. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Plates like that work pretty well as stiffeners especially if it is attached to the cross braces. It triangulates and boxes both. Reduces torsion quite a bit. Ferrari does much the same on the 360 and 430 Spiders and others have done it to lesser degrees on other cars. The fore and aft pieces will reduce flexion but that wasn't much of a problem.
What if this car had a 355 gearbox at some point and those were somehow used for the gearbox mounts ?
Movie stunt car , for jumps , dukes of hazzard style . 1994 ferrari 348 spider , third owner purchased may 2013 w/ 27804 miles
The car drivers seat was removed (no seat at all atm!) and ABS is not functional or switched off. Car is also lowered quite a bit and springs doesn't seem to be original. It's clearly wrecked before but damage is mostly in sheet metal, it still runs and drives without any bigger problems. Odo reads 24K (=38tkm) miles, documents somewhat tell the same story. Strange bird this one.. I have to make some decicions what to do with it! Considering the rough external condition and all, maybe a track car? Extra metal give some extra kg, but the weight is down at the bottom and mostly between the axels, not to mention the extra safety and stiffening. I could live with that. Combined to rollgage, the car could probably take pretty much anything But what to do with the engine? There was some good suggestions about modifying the cross braces so the engine could be removed out the top. Have to do some research for that option. Or then you could just cut all the welds and remove the extra steel.. PIA job, but doable of course. Pheew.. Have to think this trough a bit. Good counsel appreciated, thanks.
Don't know about a track car.....car is heavy and unbalanced due to all that extra steel......would be a pig on the track....both in terms of handling and performance. Either restore it to original or break it up for parts.
But if you decide to keep it as it is you need to find a way to service the t belt. I take it you have no idea when the last major service was done and there is no way to service anything now. If you drive the car ....this is a grenade waiting to happen. Can you get an ownership history on the car?.....try to contact the prior owners to find out why this was done.
I can't imagine welding all that steel just for display purposes unless it was hung on a wall! LOL. but maybe it was used as a stunt car or movie car.
It looks like that not only can you not drop the motor for an engine out major, but you cannot remove the fuel tank as the alternative major service path. How the heck do you change the belt, replace the tensioners and shim the lifters? Drag or drift car?
Timing belt reinforcement. My real vote is also stunt vehicle or camera mounts. Maybe it's one of these: IMCDb.org: Ferrari 348 in movies and TV series
