US 308 engine evolution

The early carb cars had hotter cams and no cats, hence the better power. In 1978, the ever-more performance-strangling U.S. emission laws led Ferrari to "mellow" the cams and stick more smog crap, such as cats and a smog pump, on the cars. So...from late 1975 to all of 1977, the U.S. trim cars "reputedly" made 240 HP; Euro cars were rated at 255. The HP figures for both GTB and GTS varieties circa 1978-1979 and in U.S. trim = 205 HP.

There are a number of threads in this forum pursuant to "getting the most" out of one's 78-79 308s, and a few have supposedly gotten close to the earlier cars by dilligent tweaking


Hope this helps,

Scott

 

No info about carbs car here, I don't know how accurate this but here's a chart showing the diff between all the US/Euro 308 injected models.
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Does anybody have the spec for the carb car (75 to 79)?

 

There were basiclly two versions of the early 2V carbed engines for North America (more for the world market included the highly regarded dry sump...)

1975 -1977 were NOT CAT, dual distributer, R1 R2 points, and referred to as "early cams"..

1978 -1979 became the CAT equipped carbed version, retaining dual distributors and losing the "early cams" for ones that were of a milder grind..

1980 saw the introduction of the first injected engines in North America, while in Europe the NON CAT carbed cars (single distributor versions) were sold thru the end of the year.

HTH.

 

My belief is the cams were all the same "by year"....but there was a special cam for racing applications, the "P6" that found it's way onto the street in some cases....

To really split hairs you go by the Part Numbers...

A Parts supplier like Ricambi might be the definative answer....

 

This is pretty simple:
Early 2v - Pretty darn fast
Late 2v - Pretty darn slow
QV - Pretty fast again

 

I disagree, I think more accurate is:
Early 2v- Pretty fast, sexy as hell
Late 2v- not quite as fast, still sexy as hell
QV- Faster than a 2v and sexy as hell.

 

+1 sexy as hell.