scratch built Mazzer roadster

Thanks.

 

Thanks Hans.

 

I hate to admit it but my youngest son is 12 now and I started this project around the same time he was born. It's been a spare time project and I'm self employed (Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini service and restoration) which takes up way more than 40 hours per week so progress has been slow. In between I also restored/hot rodded my 308 and did innumerable honey-do projects around the house. The last one was a chicken run for my youngest daughter that took 3 weeks of spare time to get done. I'm really determined to get the Mazzer done now and I've had a couple of my employees working on it here and there just to get it on the road before I'm dead.

Good luck on your Zonda roadster. You'll have to show us pictures!

 

Thanks but I AM cheating a bit.

 

Thanks. Yes, it will get Lexan headlight covers. One of the photos above, the one showing the right front wheel, also shows the beginnings of a headlight cover mold attached to the car to check the profile.

 

Thanks

 

Thanks

 

Thanks. I'll dig through the old film photos and see how they scan.

 

I dug through a box of photo prints and came up with some more older pictures. Hope you all enjoy looking at them.

1-3) Other views of the original 1/4 scale half-model against a mirror. The surface of the model was made with a thin layer of modeling clay, from an art supply, covering a skeleton which was made by gluing Styrofoam blocks together and shaping them with a "cheese grater". The outlines for the body came from 1/4 scale drawings of the chassis and body. The wooden wheels/tires were made on the lathe. The windshield, roll bars and exhaust pipe were fabricated from bits of sheet-metal, rod and tubing, just to get an idea of how the whole package might look. The full scale tube-chassis can be seen in the back-ground.

4) The plaster mold, which was cast in sections, inside of a plywood box, so it could come apart without serious damage to the clay model.
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5) Three urethane foam plugs, which were cast in the plaster mold, sitting next to the ERCO sheet metal-shrinker (one of the machines used to form the aluminum body panels).

6) Two of the 1/4 scale urethane plugs were precision sawed into one inch slices, like loaves of bread. The front plug in the photo was cut laterally and the back plug was sawed in a longitudinal direction. Each urethane foam section was numbered and traced on paper and then each paper profile was increased 4X to make full scale profiles on 3/4" (19mm) plywood. The plywood profiles were sawed out and fit together "egg crate" style, like a Ferrari grille, to make the station buck. This is an old fashioned way of doing it but still quite effective. Sheet aluminum panels were shaped, away from the buck, with hammers and machines, until they fit the buck and were then welded together to form the body. Many people think the aluminum is hammered over the buck but the buck is only used for fitting and stitching pieces together, just like a tailor.
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7 - 9) Chassis construction nearing completion. I guess I never took any pictures of the early stages of the chassis growing on the assembly jig because I don't seem to have any.

10) Completed chassis, with drive-train, suspension and wheels installed, parked in front of the plywood station buck. At this point I was ready to start Forming the aluminum body (the two guys in the photo are my first and second sons).
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11) An earlier version of the incomplete nose section. This might be the second version. I cut it up and changed the design at least 3 times. After looking at it for a few days I would cut it up and start over, much to my wife's chagrin. That's why it looks a little lumpy here and there. Initially the panels would come out of the English-wheel, the green machine in the back-ground, all smooth but when I started changing things I would get impatient and start beating panels into submission. The metal is all nice and smooth now after a lot of slapper & dolly and file work. The tape lines show where I was about to cut the middle out and change the design again.

12) Front view of the same experimental nose design. Apparently, and unfortunately, I didn't take many photos while building the body because I don't seem to have too many.

13) Rear sub-frame from the Quattroporte, which carries the differential, rear brakes and rear suspension in one package . Jaguar enthusiasts will see a resemblance to the E-Type IRS sub-frame, which I assume it was copied from. The chalk lines indicate where I was about to cut off the ends of the sub-frame. I rigidly mounted the sub-frame to the back of the new chassis, so I didn't need the ends of the sub-frame with the flexible mounts (mostly hidden from view here) and decided to eliminate them and save a little weight.

14) The posi-lock Salisbury differential with inboard brakes as removed from the Quattroporte rear sub-frame. It's basically the same diff used in several Jaguar models for many years and loved by many hot rod builders. The brakes are larger than what came on the jags and the ring & pinion gears are Gleason type. It's got a 3.54 ratio. I haven't sat down to figure out my theoretic top speed with the Tremec over-drive transmission coupled to it. We'll see what happens and if it needs to be changed I'll address that later. Making a rough guess though, It should go at least 150 MPH for now (about 250 KPH). That's good enough for a street hot rod.
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15) Front view of the Quattroporte engine after revising the accessory mounts to narrow everything before drawing the chassis on paper (no CAD here but the old way works too). This engine should make over 300 HP for now with some cam timing changes and a much more efficient exhaust system. Plans for a significant power increase are in place. Right now I just want to get this thing running. I'm retaining the power steering pump (tired of "arm-strong steering") and left the air pump optional. For now I'm using the awful OEM style poly-belts which make snapping noises when cold, due to the "memory" of the material. The noise goes away as the belts warm up but it's annoying. When I finally supercharge this thing, all these pulleys and V-belts will have to be replaced with a multi-ribbed serpentine belt and pulleys and that should kill two birds with one stone.

16) Top view of Quattroporte engine with the Tremec 5 speed hanging off the back. The stainless braided hoses poking out of the bell-housing are for the hydraulic clutch release bearing. One reason for picking the Tremec TR - 3550 was the two extra optional shifter locations. It came stock with a rear mounted shifter but either of the two gold colored covers can be taken off to relocate the shifter forward. This was very desirable since I wanted to move the engine far back in the chassis. It's basically a front-mid-engine design and at the moment I have almost perfect 50/50 weight distribution front to rear.

17) Side view of the engine. That is the original (but modified) right exhaust header mounted on the left side. That allowed the engine to slide back further in the chassis and still leave room for a driver and passenger. The rest of the primary pipes were cut off and a flange welded in place. The parts that were cut off were replaced by a "nest of snakes" style bundle of primary pipes, on each side of the car, which wrap around the foot-wells. By varying the lower primary pipe lengths to compensate for the un-even length original primaries, the end result was, true equal length headers with 31" primaries. A lot of manufacturers claim they make "equal length" headers but if you actually measure them you'll often find significant differences in primary pipe length. The Tremec 5 speed is hanging off of the customized bell housing. More on that below.
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18) This is the bell housing that was sawed off (with a Saws-all) of the Chrysler 727 Torqueflite transmission that came with the Quattroporte. The hacked up back end is being squared off in the milling machine here.

19 Bell housing fitted to back of engine after machining and media blasting. The new flywheel is for a Chrysler Hemi to keep the ring gear the same for the starter motor.. The bolt circle was changed to fit the Maserati crankshaft and an adapter was machined and installed to locate the clutch pilot bearing. A heavy duty 10" Mcleod/Borg&Beck clutch, for a Chrysler Hemi, bolts to the fly-wheel. The big Chrysler starter motor that came with the Quattroporte can be seen mounted down on the lower right. That has been replaced by a later Dodge light-weight, gear-reduction starter as used on newer Dodge Ram pick-up trucks.

20) Adapter plate, to fit the Tremec to the bell housing, machined from 6061aluminum plate, ready to be TIG welded in place.

21) Final boring the locating hole for the transmission after checking it for concentric mounting with a dial indicator mounted to the crankshaft. The plate, which became the rear face of the bell-housing, was milled square with the front face, that mates with the engine, after the boring operation.

My plan is to post occasional updates with fresh photos as the Mazzer hot rod project moves to completion. Wish me luck.
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