Do Old Carburated Ferraris Have Exhaust Heat Crossover?

Vintage Ferrari V-12s had the carburetors in the middle of the V attached to short intake runners. There was no heating for the intake runners. Once the engine reached normal operating temperature, there was plenty of heat to prevent the fuel mixture from puddling in the runners. There was an exception: the Ferrari 365 GTC/4 which had 3 Weber DCOE carburetors on the outside of each side of the engine.

 

The carbureted Ferraris have no provision for heating the intake manifolds. I have never had any driving issues with Ferraris that could be addressed with a heated intake. I also have had many small block chevy engines personally and have built many other American V8 engines. I have always blocked the intake heat crossover or used an intake that didn't have a crossover. Also, I have used special filler to fill the back side exhaust port to the intake to allow better port flow on a couple engines. After market heads available don't have heat crossovers. I have never had any drivability issues. I never really understood the technology behind heating of the intake. When building performance engines, we try to keep the carb and intake cooler. There are manifolds for SBC that have gaps under the runners for better cooling of the intake charge and they are considered the best on the market in there application range and dyno testing and driving proves this to be correct.

Anyway, no Ferrari does not warm the intake on there carb cars.

 

may be a stupid observation but the gas used in older carb cars, could have been more susceptible to freezing vs. today's gas with more ethanol. Lead vs. alcohol...

 

The engine bonnet of any ferrari is close to hell on earth in terms of temperature... many cylinders, multiple exhausts, lots of friction, shoe-horned engine, tons of heat.

Most of the vintage v12 I've seen had the choke system removed. Same story for the winter toggle on the air-filtre-box.

Last but not least, who would be brave enough to have a ride on a freezing/sleepery road with a vintage v12?

 

The exhaust crossover isn't for "driveability" -- it's for improving "cold-running driveability". That's why there is usually some sort of thermo-mechanical gizmo to (mostly) block it off for normal warm-running. Keeping the car outside overnight in freezing winter conditions and expecting to jump in it, fire it up, and drive away in 30 second to get to work is why they were almost forced to include it on V8s with a centrally-mounted single carburettor (with a large horizontal area directly below it, perpendicular to the airflow direction, where the intake charge impinges upon it and liquid fuel would condense out and pool).

 

If you had 4 single-barrel carbs each with a very short intake runner with no intake manifold surfaces perpendicular to the intake charge flow direction = then you'd be like a carbed F and not need any intake manifold heating to improve cold-running driveability. "Short intake runners with no intake manifold surface(s) perpendicular to the intake charge flow direction" (that the intake charge would impinge upon and condense liquid fuel out of the intake charge if the intake manifold is really cold) is the secret sauce of carbed F that eliminates the need for any intake manifold heating.