Supercharged 308GTB almost ready to go

Ed,

Joe is a friend and was an enormous help putting on our first Frenchtown Exoticarshow.

This year's show is on September 24 (Sunday). It's in Frenchtown, NJ along the Delaware river. We're about 1-1/2 hours from NYC, about 1 hour from Philadelphia and about 1 hour from the first Pocono mountains in PA. We had a pretty nice turn-out last year and hope to increase that this year. We had cars from as far away as Connecticut (2 hours from Greenwich).

Please reserve the date. We'd love to see you at the show!

Wil

 

Your best bet is to remove the water pump and make an accurate cardboard template for the block-off plate. I custom made mine the same way and didn't save any dimensions. There are 2 8MM bolt holes to the immediate left of the water outlet port where the OEM pump mounts and there is one more 8MM hole you can use off to the right a few inches away. If you connect the dots, so to speak, you wind up with a triangle that has a bulge in one side. Make a hole in your template to mate with the water outlet hole in the engine. I made my block-off plate out of 1/2" thick 6061 aluminum. Then you need to machine a fitting for a 1-1/2" coolant hose and weld it in place in the general direction of the AC compressor area (I changed the angle twice). Once the welding is done you need to machine the backside of the plate flat (weld distortion) and machine an O-ring groove around the water hole identical to the O-ring groove on the OEM water pump. If you supply an accurate template, any competent machinist in your area should be able to make the part for you.

I'm using a Meziere remote 55 GPM electric pump, #WP336, but if you poke around you can find lots of options. Stewart has a remote pump #E558A and SPA-technique sells a remote water pump kit too. The Electromotive ECU in my car runs the Meziere pump but the other two I mentioned are available with dedicated control modules that monitor temperature and control the pump accordingly so no thermostat is needed.

Good luck,

Wil

 

Thanks for the compliment.

As far as bumping goes: If I hit anything hard enough it's going to be a project anyway, bumper or no bumper. What ever happens, if I don't total the car it'll be fixable.

Have you ever considered the expense of bumping anything with a 360 or a 550 or one of the newer cars? A couple of weeks ago I priced parts for a 550 that got hit in the right front. It was no "bump" - it hit pretty good - but just the parts came to over $21,000.00! Then there's still labor, paint and materials.....Not nice to think about.

Please don't stick any pins in any black model 308s and hopefully I'll be OK.

Wil

 

That's 55 gallons per MINUTE (if you believe the advertising). On the other hand the OEM pump is pretty whimpy and might be lucky to put out 55 gallons per hour. I've never tested either pump but I'm comfortable with my choice.

I got rid of the OEM alternator and installed a high out-put Ford single wire alternator. The electric water pump is not the only load. There is also an intercooler pump and an EFI fuel pump which draws more than the carb pump.

My main reasons for replacing the water pump are: greater heat (from more power) requires more flow and also, the supercharger installation did not leave room for a belt driven water pump.

The radiator is not only larger capacity but it's aluminum (lighter) and NEW. I didn't want some dirty, old, calcified radiator struggling with the additional heat.

Wil

 

We had the car pretty much together and had the engine running but the supercharger seemed hotter and noisier than it should have been so I removed the supercharger and intercooler for inspection which is more complicated than it sounds. It looks like the SC may have sucked up a piece of debris from somewhere a made a few scratches in the housing inner wall near the intake side but otherwise everything looks fine and there doesn't appear to be any interferance anywhere. I e-mailed and phoned an engineer at Lysholm and described everything in detail and he doesn't seem too concerned so I'm reassembling everything. I had hoped to make today's Pocono event but the tear-down and inspection and time lost waiting for answers pretty much erased my chances of making it. I actually haven't done much to it at all in the last week, needing a break.

I did go to the show but I took my F250 pick-up truck not my F-car.

When I get a chance I'll take some more photos. Any one familiar with the 308 front trunk won't recognize it. I removed the entire spare tire housing to allow installation of the new, thicker than stock, aluminum radiator. This was a good thing because it made access to the entire area under the spare tire very simple and it now contains the electric water pump, the electric intercooler pump, a big pull-through shrouded electric fan, the fan control box and the horn compressor and the heater fans (relocated to make room for intercooler heat exchangers). The tandem Tilton brake master cylinder set-up sits above all that so it's pretty busy in the front "trunk".

Up front next to the radiator I have the intercooler heat exchangers each with it's own electric fan. Fitting the heat exchangers was complicated by the retractible headlights. The fiberglass headlight fairings have sort of a duck bill protruding from the lower front of each headlight to fill the opening created when the headlight door is raised. Unfortunately this was getting in the way of the heat exchanger under each headlight when the headlight was down so I removed the fairings and had to make aluminum brackets to hold the headlight doors in place. I still have retractable headlights that look normal when down. When up they look bad anyway and I needed intercoolers and I don't plan on doing much night driving - too many deer around here.

The stock clock didn't work anyway so it was replaced by an Auto Meter boost gauge. The stock temp gauge was alo replaced by an Auto Meter unit which monitors both cooling circuits.

Thanks for your interest

Wil

 

Bill,

Funny, Last night I told myself I should contact you to see how you're making out with the inspection. Hopefully OK.

Yeah, I went to the Pocono show this afternoon. Sadly the turnout was not as good as it might have been with better weather but the funny thing is that, with all the storming going on all around the area, the show apparently stayed dry! I think close to half the cars at the show were those supplied by dealers and there were about 5 dealers. It rained so hard on I-380 on the way up I could hardly see and a guy ahead of me spun into the guard rail! Nice driving pal!

I met 8 or 10 people I'm friendly with but missed seeing many more. Too bad.

Wil

 

I'm not really the "go to guy" for the Pocono events but I've been going since it all started in the 80s and when it rains everyone just stands around bench racing hoping for a break in the weather. As far as I know the organizers pay a lot of money up front and basically own the track for Sunday and Monday whether it rains or shines. If you can find the zip code for Long Pond or Blakeslee, PA you should be able to get the weather of the net.

Wil

 

Sorry, I threw the boxes out a long time ago. I'm pretty sure you can find the mufflers on the Magnaflow website by dimensions. I won't be able to get to the car for a few days but If I remember I'll take some measurements. They're oval. I'm pretty sure they have 2-1/4" inlet and outlet fittings and they're made of 304 stainless. If you haven't heard from me in a few days and you still need the information you're welcome to rattle my cage.

Wil

 

Russ,

I've been working on 308s for years but never did any port work other than cleaning them up a bit. You need to talk to a porting specialist who has done a 308 and has flow bench and dyno specs to back up his results. Be careful. It's very easy to make the ports flow worse than stock.

Bill is right about raising the compression ratio but 8/1 IS low. I would prefer to raise the compression ratio with different pistons though. If it's an early car it gives you the oportunity to uprade from cast to forged pistons.

Wil

 

I knew I'd forget! Sorry.

They're made by Magnaflow. Length is 14-1/8", width is 8-5/8" (at the end plates), thickness is 5-1/4" (at the end plates), inlet and outlet fittings are 2-1/4" or 2-3/8" (outside measurement is almost 2-1/2" but I cut and welded there so I can't get a direct ID measurement). Sorry I don't have the part number anymore but you should be able to trace it back by dimensions in the Magnaflow web-site. That is how I chose my mufflers. Good Luck.

Wil

 

I've only heard it at idle. Unfortunately 308 engines sound like VW beatles at idle no matter what exhaust system you use. Stock, Larini, Tubi, etc - they all sound like **** at idle. I had to take things appart for inspection and to make some revisions. Hopefully next week I'll be able to start it again and rev it up a little.

Wil