Thanks to Brett of Gran Turismo

Greetings Tifosi.

I just got my '82 308GTSi back from Brett at Gran Turismo in Alliston, Ontario (Brettski here on Fchat) and must say that he did a great job. He is a very fair guy to deal with and even helped cut down on the towing bill by meeting the hired flatbed carrying my car part way down the highway to save some travel time.

To turn back the video a few weeks back, I let my son take the car to his high school prom to impress the chickypoos and his buddies. When he came home the car was running fine. I know every single audible sound from this car having put over 12,000 miles on it over the past few years and when he pulled into the driveway all seemed good. A couple of days later when I went out to take the old girl for a spin, she was stumbling and only running on one bank. I notices a little larger than normal puddle of oil in my garage as well.

I put the car up on jackstands, took off the rear wheel, cleaned up the engine to follow the leak, changed the oil, filter, plugs, checked all of the fuses and even picked up Birdman's fuseblocks (thanks Jonathan-the installation was very easy) thinking that maybe there was an electrical gremlin from the 30 year old original blocks with their plastic fuses. Still no fire on one bank. That is when I noticed the source of the oil leak from the cylinder head right where the distributor shaft is.

Had a couple of mechanics friends look at the car but they were gun shy to get into the suspected ignition problems due to a lack of experience with these cars. I ended up pulling the pin and calling Brett who is the closest shop to my hometown that knows older Ferraris. Brett had done some work on the car a few years back and I was comfortable in dealing with him knowing his growing reputation for good work.

Brett had the car for a few weeks (busy time of year) and discovered that the intake cam seal leak had worked its way onto the distributor shaft and blew out the rotor, distributor and spread electrical gremlins to the digiplex causing it to short out. It took a little time to track down a used and working condition digiplex but Brett found one at a reasonable price. The cams had to come out the opposite side of the engine due to space restrictions and of course that involved pulling the belts.

While Brett's mechanic was in there, I ended up getting the injectors cleaned out, a little leak on one of the cooling pipe connections and a couple of other minor issues cleared from the 2 do list. Brett even saved me some time on a Friday afternoon by meeting me an hour from his shop where we moved the car from his trailer to mine.

I have since put a couple hundred miles on the old girl and it is running like new. I have noticed that with the TLC given to the injectors, the car pulls even stronger than before, and there are no leaks, no worries and no issues.

Just wanted to give a public thanks to Brett for the great job he did. His motto is "Committed to preserving the marque" and that is exactly what he did for me.

Cheers-Colin Firth
Ontario Canada
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