We are not into racing Ferraris so we do not hook a freshly overhauled engine up to a Dynomometer but we do like to see them make some heat prior to installing into the chassis. There is so much that can go wrong on a Ferrari engine because they have a lot of castings that can cause leaks, and there are many moving parts that can give you problems.

What we do is after assembly we set the engine up and make it run for 5 minutes to make sure everything is firing properly, oil pressure is correct and there are no major leaks. At this time I like to do a compression test just to make sure every cylinder has a reading close to all of the other cylinders.

Next I will run it for a longer time so I can dial in the ignition and spend some time tuning the airflow to the carburetors and test the heat at the header pipes. This run is usually around 10 -15 minutes, enough to get the engine up to operating temperature.
Now I will check all fluids to make sure they are not mixing, address any oil leaks if any, and do a leak down test on all cylinders.

Now I will fire the beast back up, observe the temperatures and hold the engine speed to 2000 RPM’s and spend some more time adjusting the air flow to the carburetors and really check the timing at higher speed. This is generally the run that you will find oil leaks and much more likely to find coolant leaks because the cooling system is under pressure. Basically, after this run I am spending the next week trying to repair water pump leaks. The engine will go through a few higher RPM cycles to make sure no smoke “puffs” at deceleration and to add a little more heat to the cylinders to help the rings seat in.

I like to run the engine for a total of one hour at varying RPM’s without any problems before I feel confident to throw it into the car. Before it goes into the car I do a valve adjustment and re-torque the heads an run it again to check for leaks. At this time I feel very confident in the engine overhaul.

Now I will put the car on a chassis dynomameter to make sure we are pulling torque numbers similar to what the factory and our own data says is correct.

Some entertainment from Steve’s wife (blogging surrepticiously while he is taking a walk with our toddler). I know sometimes he feels like doing this to the cars at the shop. But don’t worry – he won’t!

We are in the process of painting the black 1979 Ferrari 512 BB (Berlinetta Boxer) that is on our website. This car was for sale as-is but throughout marketing the car we have been going through it, setting the fiberglass front and rear bumpers to euro-spec, without the rubber bumpers and side markers and locating a NOS grille. We also repainted the wheels and re-upholstered the dash. This car will be extra cool when finished in Ferrari Blue Sera Metallic paint.

Get it while you can because when it is finished and ready to go I have a feeling that it will bring big money.

One of the benefits of working on a number of cars from different countries is that we can see how things are designed and assembled as well as see what component on which car holds up the best. On of the most unnecessarily weak elements of a early Ferrari is the rear axle. This axle had a very short pinion gear and the Ferrari “engineers” used ball bearings to carry it.

They also used plain old ball bearings to support the differential/ring gear carrier. As anyone who has been around this style of gear knows, when the pinion twists and meshes into the ring gear it wants to either push out or suck into the ring gear. The same goes for the ring gear itself, when the pinion gear spins the ring gear wants to deflect to one side or the other. As any engineer knows, ball bearings are designed only to spin and not take up thrust so these axles are short lived and we have repaired of these more of these fragile units that we like to admit.

The Jaguar XK-120 from the same era had a very robust Salsbury axle with tapered roller bearings for both the pinion and the differential carrier. This design holds up so well that the only failure I have seen is an axle that had an oil leak and started to sing, it didn’t break but needed bearings due to overheating. Ferrari axles on the other hand fail just because the bearings cannot locate the gears properly and once there is excess play all hell breaks loose.

In these photos we are digging into yet another early Ferrari short pinion axle that needs a new ring gear, pinion gear and side/spider gears. We also need to make 2 very complicated half round bronze spacers and 2 flat spacers for the side/spider gears as well as all of the necessary machining to adapt the axle to tapered roller bearings. At this time we are not only repairing the axle in the photos but two others, all in with the same needs as describes above. With so many expensive-to-attend driving events both overseas and in the states we want these cars as reliable as possible.

Running this shop such a pain. There is so much time spent per repair order that I need to tack on another 2 hours for just invoicing. After compiling all of the the parts, sublet work, labor and other incidentals I have a great feeling on how much a job should cost. OK, now that I have “paid my dues”, “cut my teeth”, “earned my keep” I wish I could bill my customers like this, “well, I would call this brake overhaul with a radiator re-core a on your 308 a $1400 job”.
Bring me a Ferrari 275 GTS transmission that needs new bearings and synchronizers, that’ll be $4500. You want me to re-upholster the dash on your 246, that feels like a $2000 dollar job, no you will not get an invoice, just give me a check.
Unfortunately it is not that simple, IRS is keeping an eye on things, customers want records as to what was done to there car, and I want to make sure the customer knows exactly what was done so if there are any questions……
I have alot of billing this weekend, the Jag project, 275 project, Dino job. I need money to pay for the Boxer paint job, the C/4 wheels. Who is going to buy the Yellow Dino, does it make sense to send the 330 and 365 BB to the auction, why do we need a CDL for a truck that is under the 26,000 weight limit?