Any Engine experts / Ferrari mechanic want to fly to Portland and...

Sorry to hear of your misfortune there. Engine rebuilding is something a lot of people seem to think they know how to do, but in my experience very few have the skills, knowledge and attention to detail to actually do it well (outside of the factory). I'm sitting here at my desk right now measuring connecting rod bearings and tearing down a Toyota motor which was previously rebuilt by someone else (prior to me buying my truck). I would give you the laundry list of crazy things I've found while owning this truck (which were done incorrectly).. but here are just a couple I ran across tonight:

1. For whatever reason, the piston ring gap was around .060" - why I don't know. My best guess is someone used STD rings on .020" over pistons. Oops.

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2. Improper connecting rod to journal bearing clearances, which tore up the bearings. They are supposed to have around .0020 to .0025" clearance and as near as I can tell, this motor was practically an interference fit. I'm sitting here measuring bearings right now:

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3. Wrong oil pan installed with motor.. fun. The result was the steering linkage was slowly sawing a hole into the front of the oil pan. Luckily I caught that before it cut the pan in half and let all the oil run out on the highway

I could go on, but I'll spare you. My point is that blue printing and rebuilding a motor is a very technical job and requires a lot of high end tools and skills. I think even with your kind offer of accommodations, it's still going to require someone bringing a fair amount of tools along with them. To correctly rebuild a motor, you need gauge blocks, micrometers, dial indicators, bore gauges, etc, etc, etc. Torque wrench, engine stand, hoist, work bench and a long list of other tools and supplies. Rebuilding engines can really take a while. I built a race engine back in 1989 and I think I spent the better part of 3 years designing and building it. Big job, rebuilding engines correctly.

Just curious, do you have a fully equipped garage with a lift or space to work? I'm not offering to venture up to OR, but just wondering more than anything else.

As far as "blowing a rod"... you mentioned the car still drives. Have you (or anyone) run a compression check on it? If it's something like a spun bearing or some issue with valves, a compression check and/or leak down test should quickly show it up. Generally speaking, if you throw a rod or anything having to do with the connecting rod, you'll know it. There's really no such thing as a "blown rod".. the rod just sits there in the engine and goes up and down. It could be a piston pin or a bearing has spun, but again normally rods don't make metal noises, unless something associated with them and the crankshaft or piston has really gone off track.

A loud metallic scrapping noise could be half a dozen things, many of which could be fairly minor and not even associated with the internals of the motor.

Check oil, check compression. Look around and see if you see anything rubbing the timing belts, etc.

Ray

 

So just curious, if the worlds best mechanic shows up what do you expect him to do? No tools, no workshop, nothing.

I have a shop and a considerable investment in tools that if not needed to do work of that type I would not pay so dearly for them. Would you ask a surgeon over to do heart surgery in your house? Its a pretty comparable request.

Sorry for your trouble but your current plan is just dumb.

 

Just to put the above into some context for our poor "blown rod" friend the OP, let me mention that Rifledriver also thought me hand scraping my engine block was dumb too.. which clearly it wasn't.

IT WAS AWESOME

 

I have to agree with Ray. At the busiest time of my club racing around the country I was too lazy to rebuild my own stock class common chevy motor. It took me 4 motors and 2 builders to get a decent one. I should have made the time but geeze how can you not find a guy to build a chevy motor? There is a great video still around where my motor grenades at Indianapolis and smokes out the viewing tower in a massive slow moving cloud.

 

Yeah, when it comes to motor building, the old adage about, "if you want it done right, do it yourself" - that holds 10000% true. Honestly, I think all the good engine builders have probably died by now.

Speaking of which, the OP is gonna need a clean room that is temperature controlled to 20c before either Brian or I show up to build his motor for free

Ray

 

Finding guys who build great motors is easy. The world is full of them. You just did it wrong. The good ones don't do it on the cheap.

 

What a load.

 

I see your normal sense of humor is in full effect this morning

Ray

 

Lol! If the op can put me on to those prime Oregon steelhead I might fight you guys for his extra bedroom.

Where are all the guys who could just pay attention? Maybe it's cell phones. Workers can't seem to put them down.

 

I'm just waiting for Brian to PM me, so I can figure out what time we are leaving to go to OR.

haha

Ray

 

Bring the car to a reliable mechanic. A good mechanic is worth spending a few hundred miles of transport.

 

No, its true. A few, a very few are very capable but to make a blanket statement like that is just stupid.

 

You may not know the US very well but in the Pacific Northwest where he is, is a long way from much in the way of quality Ferrari mechanics, especially for 30+ year old cars. There was a great one but he got sick of the Ferrari business and became a fleet mechanic for the county. His tow will likely be 1000 miles+.

 

Sorry to hear about your troubles. While I can’t offer anything on the technical side (folks way more qualified than I have already posted), I wonder if the following could be a viable option: maybe look for a second hand, good running engine to drop in, as opposed to dealing with a rebuild?

 

Besides those not qualified to say, who said it needs a rebuild? The original mechanic is obviously not qualified to say and zero diagnosis has happened yet we are already planning a trip to the machine shop. Not your fault but I strongly suggest a competent mechanic be allowed to perform said diagnosis prior to any more wild ass guessing and misdirected advice.

Sound good?

 

I have recently been through similar experience, the issues is that what metric do you "guage" how good the builder is???

Price?
Reviews?
How the shop looks?

None of those actually tell you, and if you have the knowledge to truly identify who is you probably have the knowledge to do this job yourself.

Personally moving forward, just as Ray advised, i would head hunt the most skilled person i could find!
He said and i agree, the ones that are skilled enough are probably working in race teams.

Personally i think anyone working on an engine should have machine/engineering background, not just a mechanic, but even that is no guarantee of a good job, ignorance is bliss

 

Okay fair enough; you are right. But let me just point out here that I had been up all night until 7:00 AM searching for a rod bolt stretch gauge and I also have a new espresso machine in the house.

But yeah, I was generalizing too much. I'm sure there are still plenty of good engine builders around. It's just finding them that's gonna be the trick. Especially people with experience on Ferrari motors specifically. Even though I have experience building motors, I would be a novice when it comes to doing any sort of motor from Ferrari.

Ray

 

He might want to call John at Forza motors here in Monterey. I haven't been by his shop lately, but he does rebuild motors and has an engine room, etc. I don't know what his current work load is, but he's here in Northern CA and knows the older classic Ferraris, etc.

Ray

 

Exactly. He needs to have someone at least qualified enough to run simple diagnostics on it or listen to it. If the motor still fires up and runs, I doubt it's the rod or valves having some catastrophic failure. Could just be something loose and hitting something.

Ray

 

That's no easy trick to find. It's like wanting the dude who does wiring in in your kitchen to understand classical physics and quantum mechanics Sure, it definitely helps to think in terms of the electron when wiring up can lights, but finding that guy is gonna be hard. He's probably working at LLNL, not the Home Depot parking lot.

As Brian correctly points out.. everyone backup and someone find out what's actually wrong with the motor first.

Ray

 

I am going to make a wild guess that the fix might be something fairly simple. Can you start it up, and post a video of the noise it is making?

 

If you were going to ship..why not Brian or paul (Canada) what am I missing

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