F50 with a blown engine or the failed turbo project ?

Just wondering is this the car that the video game guy had? I think he was the creator of Doom. Rumor had it that he had a TT f50 in Nor Cal. Im assuming this is the same car. Either way, it's a sad story.

 

I'm not familiar with the story, but i don't think its referring to the creator of Dooms F50. I'm pretty sure his was done by a quality company. The name slips my mind currently.

 

The OP is NOT referring to John Carmack's F50.

Carmack's F50 was done by Bob Norwood and featured in the May 1999 issue of Car & Driver (I have it somewhere). Turbocharging cost $52,000 and the engine was left with stock compression so power was only slightly in excess of 600 bhp for the road. The car was in Texas, not Nor Cal.

According to Carmack: "I drive my twin-turbo F50 almost all of the time. It took a while to get all the bugs sorted out, but it is almost a perfect combination right now. It is light, nimble, and responsive, and 600 hp at the rear wheels is just about perfect for a street car of that configuration. The guy who built it is named Norwood. The reason its only making 600rwhp is because they wanted to keep things as stock as possible, so they hardly changed anything in the engine. they even kept the same compression ratio. Thus, the turbos make a maximum of only 6psi."

 

Here we go: Carmack's turbocharged F50.
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Joe, would you agree that rather than going through the efforts of turbocharging It would have been much easier to get it to 600hp naturally aspirated? I mean, the F50 GT had around 750hp and there wasn't a turbo in sight of that thing.

That's what I would have done anyways!

 

I would never touch an F50 in ANY way other than a Tubi headers & exhaust system.

 

I agree. I wasn't implying that an F50 needs 750hp because that's just silly. If I had an F50 I'd try to get an F50 GT exhaust system and install manually operated butterfly valves in it. That would be it, not a single change needed.

 

+1. Stock Ferraris ftw!

-G.B.

 

For the purists' happiness, John Carmack's F-50 (if my information is correct) was reconverted back to stock with an extensive going over to make sure it worked well once brought back to stock. This happened about 5 years ago. Unfortunately, as hard as the bug bit him, John's love for Ferraris had waned over the years and just got rid of his stuff.

 

Yeah if I am not mistaken he got out of cars and into space.

I never met John but he always seemed like a cool guy.

 

John is a really cool guy and extremely smart too. He did convert the F-50 back to stock. I believe the Lyons and the Sports Car Company ended up selling it.

Tidbit: For the FCA meet in Dallas 2001, I picked up Roland Linder at the airport and brought him back to the shop. We then went for a ride (he drove) in the F-50. Roland loved it immediately (He's a really nice guy too)...


Anyway here is John's aerospace company.

http://armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home



Also, Thanks Joe for posting that article. It's been awhile (and a few more pounds on me) since I've seen that. Hennessey and his Viper were there that day too... It was effing cold that morning.
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The reason John got out of cars was because of his wife. He also left the space industry for the same reason

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I can't imagine touching my F50. I still have the original exhaust system on my F40 too. Perhaps I'm too deferential to the creators but I prefer to enjoy the cars as ''God'' intended.

But I do have a sneaking admiration for people who Steve Jobs called the Crazy Ones (well his commercial did and since Steve approved every ad the claim works for me). The fact this man decided to try and turbocharge an F50 is a terrific story. I never knew it.

It makes me smile that human creativity forces us to challenge convention. Turbos on an F50? Brilliantly nuts. And thanks Joe for adding invaluable colour as always.

 

And you resurrected a thread from 2010 to tell us that?

 

So I resurrected a thread. I'm an employee of one of the greatest Ferrari modifiers there are. And I don't want his reputation destroyed

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Do you remember this car? I had a magazine with a 10 pages description about that F50...but after all these years i've lost it.

Here is a thread that i've found: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/288gto-f40-f50-enzo-laferrari/380336-koenig-special-f50.html

 

I dropped my Logic class in college, so help me out here:

How does a discussion about Carmack getting out of cars and into space (and subsequently out of both for his wife?), have ANY impact on the reputation of the guy that modified his cars?

 

Because the guy that built his cars is my boss and I've been seeing alot of posts bashing him when people don't know how things are

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Nobody is bashing him in any way whatsoever.

There are people (myself included) who have expressed a preference to not modify an F50, and that preference is our indisputable choice, our prerogative. Expressing said choice does not detract from your boss’ reputation one iota, and likewise, expressing a choice does not amount to “bashing”.

The only thing I see that might take away from your boss’ standing is the May 1999 issue of Car & Driver which reports that with the aforementioned modifications in place, they “seek to shatter the performance envelope. They don’t". In short, the modifications were unsuccessful in resulting in better performance, at least at that point. That’s based on an electronically-timed test by world-renowned professional car-testers. If you have an issue with their published conclusion, I suggest you take it up with C&D magazine.

Also, I might point out that someone who was there at the test that day 17 years ago, has posted above in this thread 6 years ago, and had no problem with the C&D article, in fact they thank me for posting it.

I know where this F50 is today, its owned by my client, and its back to standard specification. I saw it in his collection in February of this year, my client loves it in its standard spec, and it performs as expected without any disappointments.

Still wondering why we need to know 6 years after this thread had died, that his wife got him out of cars and his business. Sometimes its good to just let sleeping dogs lie.

 

Koenig Specials turbocharged another F50 for a UK-owner.
So there's been a couple of them done now.

Camlet, I very much understand your need to keep your F50 Classiche-friendly and standard, but I cannot begin to tell you how much you're missing out by way of not having the full sports exhaust. It totally changes the car **for the better.**

 

In the spirit of full disclosure my F50 came with Tubis fitted, the car sounds like a bloody WW2 fighter But I've left the F40 as per.

 

How dare you sully Norwood's good name with having a car fitted with Tubis by the previous owner.


Yes, my statement makes about as much sense as the rest of where this thread turned.

I am so confused.