I don't know if there's a consensus as to how to fix all the issues. If you're going to put an air-to-oil radiator in it where are you going to put the radiator? Without a verifyied cool air stream on it I don't think one mounted in the engine compartment is going to be all that effective. Water-to-oil will work if your radiator is effective enough. But that brings up that whole topic as well. The air flow design for the radiator isn't very good either. I've seen cars identical cooling systems (modified radiator and, plumbing mods and water pumps modes) one without the hood vents and one with the hood vents perform no differently. Blocking off the hood vents seemed to have no effect. If you look at how a GT40 or any of those modified Panteras handle the radiator and air flow you KNOW what has to be done but that means chopping the car up. I think you could have the top glass replacement use louvers to exit the air and utilize very subtle looking air scoup replacements at the rear corners as a cold air supply for the engine intake. I did some mock-up ones in paper once that looked very nice. No testing of those though. They had about a 1-1.5" opening from the plane of the glass & bodywork in front of them. Maybe a less radical look is to cut the back out of the rear hatch and replace it with round hole mesh in body color or black. I "think" that would let the air out. I have to wonder if getting proper air flow though the engine compartment might allow you to stick with the stock radiator configuration but using a more efficient core and modern fans? What we need is an owner with access to a wind tunnel! It would be great if we could discover underbody modifications that could fix this. Most people don't want to modify these cars. They are getting too valuable to become hot rod candidates. How much HP are you generating? It's a very challenged setup even with a stock motor if you drive it reasonably hard or for long drives in hot weather. Bob S.
I agree with Bob as to improving the situation of engine heat. On my Bora we had to fabricate a special aluminum scoop that lead from the bottom of the engine compartment up to the cross bar so that cool air would be directed to an oil cooler hung off of the cross bar and we added a fan to the back of the oil cooler to draw the cool air up the ducting and through the oil cooler. The hot air is dumped back towards the spare tire to exit out the rear of the car. As I have explained in other postings we changed the muffler system to get rid of the cross muffler and thus opened up the back of the car some more for ventilation. Hopefully, this we be enough to negate the necessity of providing any more ventilation in the back of the engine compartment deck lid as I don't want to do anything that can't be easily reversed to my Bora. Elliot Siegel
Bob, I am running a Mac computer. I believe I am a member as I have registered and I have to use a password in order to make new postings. Is there some other registration I need to fill out in order to post pictures? I'll give things a try with some help and see we can put something worthwhile on the site for all to look at. Elliot Siegel
You should be able to post pictures using the proceedure I outlined. Because you are just a non subscribed member, as am I, there is a limit on how many pictures you can post. Go ahead and post them. I don't think you'll run into the limit for a while. Bob S.
I would face the louvers rearwards. A natural low pressure area is created at the back of the car when moving down the road, which should help to extract air from the louvers. Facing the louvers forwards would probably just create aerodynamic drag.
Re posting pictures from iPhoto on a Mac, you are likely to have difficulty getting into the iPhoto library from the "Manage Attachments" pop-up. The technique I use is to simply drag photos from iPhoto onto the desktop, where they can then be easily found through "choose file" in the "Manage Attachments" pop-up. With current cameras the files will likely be too large to upload. If so, simply open the photo file on the desktop in Preview, then use the "quality" slider in the "save as" command to reduce the size. 250 KB is usually about right. After posting you can trash the files on your desktop; the original remains in the iPhoto library. Finally, it's only $15/year for a silver subscription to FerrariChat to remove the limit on posting photos. This site has been tremendously valuable to me and I'm very happy to support it. Don
Yes, thanks, that was my intuition but I wanted to hear another opinion. Even though the louvers height would only be 1.5" tops, not sure how much real drag this creates as the windbreak of the roofline is much higher anyway. I also want to discuss water pumps: My car seems to reach a heat soak point wherein the whole contents of the cooling system seem to reach a critical temp and cannot come back down. However, it takes a little longer than what you might think to reach that temperature. My feeling is that there is improper flow back from the radiator to the engine, and that the coolant is left to muddle back slowly through, not push through efficiently. Wondering if anyone has experimented with an auxiliary downstream electric waterpump to aid the return of coolant to the block. I think scavenging on the downside of the radiator with another pump would improve the flow from the feed side. Opinions?
Yes there are few people that can describe their experiences with the electric water pumps on the Maserati V8. Maybe Jay Witham? One thing to keep in mind is that the stock pump has straight vanes on the impeller which is the most efficient design but is also very prone to cavitating, There are some plumbing mods you can do to reduce the cavitation but my friend who's in the pump business had no qualms about the pumps efficiency. Together we tried out impellers from a Mercedes 6.9 pump which has curved vanes. I feel that with that impeller it's not efficient enough at low rpms. It produces less cavitation though. I agree about the long tubes to the radiator. Apparently the Miura is an even worse design. You do know about how you have to fill the cooling system with the rear of the car in the air and repeatedly burp it? I have a bleed hose and brass fish tank vale on that fitting on the upper right corner of the radiator that goes to the tube which goes over the roof pillar and back to the reservoir tank. That makes it a lot easier to burp. I also have experienced the same phenomena as you with the eventual heat soak and it's very hard to bring the temp back down unless you stop for a long time with the hatch open. I think Elliot is going to use a very big and efficient aluminum radiator & new fans along with the electric pump and hopes this will overcome this issue. It will be interesting to see how that works. He's going to have a whole lot more HP to deal with as well. I think that air flow out of that engine compartment is more important. I've wrapped everything back there in an attempt to deal with the heat but even a complete wrap of the headers in a very substantial heat shield cloth plus a lot of double walled SS heat shields hasn't done the trick. It's still an engine under glass with no air flow. I think also modifying the exhaust to allow for better air flow as Elliot has done may help some but I suspect that the air under the hatch is still stalling. It needs vents somewhere. Bob S.
Thanks for your input. I think the improvements will have to be a cumulative effort...no magic bullet here. Everything from Watter Wetter and bleeding to better fans to better radiators and electric pumps, vented plexi, wrapped or ceramic coated exhaust, oil cooler, etc. Even thought about putting cooling fins on the long pipes underneath. Fortunately all of other these things are now readily available. If every little improvement knocks it down a 5-6 degrees I should be in business.
Maybe this would help? ;>)) http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Pantera-or-Maserati-Bora-Delta-Wing_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem20afebc2a8QQitemZ140390417064QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories Bob S.
That's not the effect I've observed on my car. Hopefully yours will be different. I haven't tried the bigger fans though. But if it's still having trouble at 100mph I'm not sure the fans are a big factor at that speed. One Idea we did toss around but never tried out was to put extraction fans on those horizontal vents (inside of course) on top of the hatch at the very back. Something like 3 or 4 3-4" box fans of some type on each vent. I don't know what they would do at speed though. Bob S.
I finally got the new crankshaft from Crower. It looks beautiful and it came in at just under 50 pounds which is a 16 pound reduction from the factory crank. I was hoping for more but I was informed by Crower that the very tight bore spacing didn't permit under cutting the crank throws or further lightening of the crankshaft. Nonetheless I will take the reduction in weight with no loss of strength. For everyone's information, the original rod, piston, wrist pin, rings and wrist pin retainers weighed in at 1388 grams (48.96 ounces) while the new replacement parts weigh in at 969 grams (34.08 ounces). We achieved our goal of a 30% reduction in weight. We have to add back the weight of the harmonic damper but ATI, the damper manufacturer, says that using an aluminum outer housing is acceptable in our situation and that means the damper will come in at 6 1/2 pounds. If that is the case, perhaps we can lose more than 25 pounds of reciprocating weight when all is said and done when factoring in the lighter flywheel and main pulley which we plan to remake in aluminum. Things are looking good and now we are trying to figure out how to dry sump engine number two and still retain all of the auxiliaries, alternator, hydraulic pump, water pump and compressor, in their original locations. Finding a place for the reservoir is proving hard but we think we can mount it behind one of the wheels next to the spare tire. In order to do a dry sump system we plan to mount the pump inside of the sump and drive the pump with a chain drive using a chain sprocket in place of the current oil pump driving a sprocket on the dry sump oil pump. The engineering of this system is really challenging and I can't guarantee we will be able to solve it but we will try. We are working with a company located in Indianapolis, Frank Weiss Race Engineering, which supplies many Nascar and IRL teams. Trips to Indianapolis seem to occur once a month for discussions which means a one day round trip of 480 miles.
Dear Elliot I have two Qp III and I want to upgrade the motor a bit. Can you let me know how this went for you?
The dry sump project is still going forward but at pace that is much slower than ever anticipated. However, I am informed that the reservoir will be ready sometime the week after Thanksgiving. The dry sump pump is built and the next stage is to modify an existing oil pan for the new dry sump system. Ground clearance will remain the same but the pan capacity will be greatly reduced as the oil will be stored in the reservoir. I am still waiting for engineering draws for the sump but will get back to the thread when I have something in had. Currently, we are machining the heads for the new bucket tappets. The seven mm valve stem valves are fitted to the head as are the new springs. The new camshafts from Jones Cam arrived about two weeks ago and are truly beautiful and the spec give us 0.47 inches of lift for both the intake and exhaust valves. The specification for opening and closing are difficult to match with the factory cams as the new cams are dialed in based on 0.05" of lift but the specs at that lift are as follows, intake opens at 20.5 degrees BTDC and closes at 48.5 degrees ABC while the exhaust opens at 54.5 degrees BBC and closes at 14.5 degrees ATDC. The duration @ seat for intake and exhaust is 300 degrees and duration @ 0.050" is 254 degrees for both intake and exhaust. Gross cam lift is 0.480" with a cold valve clearance for both intake and exhaust is 0.007". Net lift is 0.470" for both intake and exhaust. The base circle is 1.084". the lobe center for the intake is 104 degrees and the lobe center for the exhaust is 110 degrees with a combined lobe center of 107 degrees. I had some cams done by MegaCycle cams a few years ago with slightly less lift, 0.466" intake and 0.446" exhaust using the factory valve face diameters that are very close to new Jones cams are which are based on revised combustion chambers and porting and a bigger intake valve face of 1.85". We are able to use the original sprockets from the factory cams but adjusting the new cams will be quite a bit easier as we can do it without much effort. Loosen a single bolt and relieve the chain tension and pull out the dowel and rotate the camshaft and replace the dowel and tighten the bolt and tensioner. Currently we are working out a list of what needs to be done to each of the reciprocating parts, cryogenic treatment, DLC coatings, REM treatment, ceramic coatings, etc. so we can send out all the parts where they need to go. As we make further progress, I will return to the thread. I hope this is of some interest to a few of you. Elliot Siegel
That sort of duration and lift should yield some nice power with high revs and given the heads flow well. What sort of numbers are to be expected?
I have my fingers crossed that we can get over 400 horsepower at 6500 rpm plus. Dr. Doll in Germany thinks that 85 horsepower per liter is possible and maybe more. But to be honest with you, your guess is as good as mine and ultimately the dyno will tell. The engine should be on the dyno by the summer of 2011 and maybe earlier. I will reveal all and make any information available to all who might wish it. I don't plan any secrets. Elliot Siegel
I would think that you should be able to do at least that good with the extensive work you've done. Even though a fair amount of what you've done is more about being able to sustain that power level with no failures. There is at least one Bora that's had a re-work of the heads, intake manifold, carbs and compression ratio that's putting out power close to that. I was told it eats a LOT more gas though. Bob S.
It appears that the Bora is still as miss-understood now as it was when it was released. Why is everybody trying to make the Bora into something it never was intended to be?, ie. a sportscar in the mold of a say Ferrari Boxer. The Bora is a GT, that just happens to be mid-engined. Maserati make GT tourers not sportscars by the time of the Bora and the Bora is no different. I really feel for Giulio Alfieri as he engineered probably the best mid-engined car of the highest refinement but nobody gets it. You guys hotting up the engines are completely missing the point and really have the wrong car. Go and buy a Ferrari Boxer or something. The Maserati Bora is all about refinement, just like the front engined Maseratis. You will never succeed in making a Boxer beater, etc. Might as well start with another car ... Pete ps: I'm not saying you should not fix the crankshaft harmonic issues, but this chasing enormous hp contradicts what the point of the car is.
Every model of car gets hot rodded eventually and the purists always whine about it. It is the law of the jungle.
I think most people who like and keep the car a while get that very well Pete. Your comment about it being probably the best mid-engined car of the highest refinement is what I hear from others a lot. Some would just like either a bit or a lot more power. The guys who want a lot more power and are shooting for a Group4 Thepenier Bora ARE pretty extreme so I agree with you on that point. There are also several well known weak points that would be nice to have resolved. I think the stock engine has a nice level of power when properly tuned. Mine hits 60MPH in 6 seconds without a brutal dump of the clutch and sounds just great doing it. I wouldn't embark upon even a mild power bump until I'd fixed the cooling issues of the car. It's a very solidly constructed car when compared to the Miura, Countach, Boxer and Testarossa. I just wish it was as coveted as at least one of those models. Glad you're such a fan of them! Bob S.
my bora was the one car i wish i still had. it was stunning to look at. so perfect to drive...every drive was memorable! the execution of the bora made the boxer look like a kit car (trust me as i know first hand). i would love to find an over restored bora again!!!!! i would covet it!!!!!!!! pcb
Just so everyone is clear, on my Bora, I have two engines, the original factory engine which is basically stock, only new rods to standard factory specifications and new pistons, also retaining a 9:1 compression ratio and a set of Megacycle camshafts as previously listed in a separate report and a second engine from a Indy. I switched over to fuel injection to be able to drive my Bora 10,000 miles a year without the worry about keeping the Weber carburetors in tune. No permanent modifications have been made that cannot be returned to factory original conditions at any time. Engine number two is strictly a fun retirement project just for the hell of it and my own enjoyment. Of course the Bora is a mid engined GT car and should always be one. I never anticipated nor do I anticipate that anything I am doing to my Bora will change it into a sports car. My aim is to make my Bora as comfortable and as carefree as I can so I can take cross country trips with it on a regular basis and not worry about where I may be going for fear of the need of specialized service facilities if something should go wrong. I hope to take the Bora to Europe in the next two years and spend a month driving around and maybe do a Maserati Club International Meet. My Bora will end up, when it is finished, as my everyday car during the non winter months. That is probably going to result in more use on my Bora than 99 percent of the rest of the ones out there. How many can say they are willing to use the Bora in that manner even though we all know the Bora is an extremely easy car to drive and use on an everyday basis, much more so than any of it contemporaries. This is my third Bora, I had two that I bought brand new back in the 70's. I used those in the ice and snow of Chicago when I had them. They are cars, not cast in bronze to be put in the back yard as a piece of sculpture. Use them, maintain them, even upgrade them if you like, but if you are like me, make sure that any changes can be unscrewed, unbolted and the like, so you can put the original pieces back on in the same places if or when the time comes. Someday, someone else will have the car and for a minimal amount of effort, they can put all the pieces taken off back on the Bora and no one will ever know that anything had been changed. I get to do what I want and in the future someone else can decide if they want to retain my changes or go back to what existed from the factory. I can't see how what I am doing has any effect on the Bora, given the way I have gone about it, in the long run. Elliot Siegel
Elliot, I am enjoying reading your updates. The naysayers need to get a life. You are just fixing and updating things the factory should have done while the engine was still in production.
