March is almost over

Yes folks, March is almost over and guess what? I haven't been able to drive my car since the middle of February! We've had wet weekends for the last 6 weeks! No longer though. The forecast for tomorrow is partly sunny and 57 degrees. E@RTC was supposed to start a month ago but has been rained out this whole time. People have been chomping at the bit to drive so we should have a great turnout tomorrow for the E@RTC season opener.

Ok, so some of you may be asking, "what about the replacement for the diaper?" We, I'm ashamed to say...not much. Because my fiberglass mold was not that good (not to mention my fiberglassing skills), I ended up with a pretty rough part that needed lots of finish work. I'd say it's about 60% done. Since my last post, I've been on holiday for two weeks and I've been working on trying to get my Chevy 307 V8 back together and in my pickup truck.



All things in due time I guess. I do need to get this engine done so the diaper will have to wait. Even though I don't want to, I will most likely put the original diaper back on for the drive tomorrow.

Getting rid of that darned diaper

A few days ago, I found out that the 2012 season of E@RTC begins this Saturday. Great, but as of today, there's 70% chance of rain. Somehow I doubt that it will happen.

As I was thinking about detailing my car, my thoughts turned to the ugly, rusted, dented piece of metal surrounding the exhaust under the rear bumper -- the thing affectionately known on US 308s as "the diaper." People call it that because that's exactly what it looks like -- a saggy, low hanging diaper. On US cars, there's a lot to hide back there. There are 2 catalytic converters and the massive OEM thermo-reactive exhaust. The diaper is an equally massive piece of vented sheet metal to cover up everything. Euro-spec cars didn't need the cats and thermo exhaust and therefore had less bulk to cover. They had a svelt rear valance under the bumper and gave the rear of the car a nice clean look. On the other hand, the rear of the US cars all look like a baby that had just taken a big dump.

The Stebro exhaust was a lot smaller and lighter than OEM, plus it was stainless steel and could be polished. I decided to try and replace the diaper with something smaller and more euro looking



Here's my starting point with the diaper removed. The Stebro doesn't hang that low and i'm going to a panel to cover just the top half of the exhaust and fill in the space under the rear bumper.



I mocked up my panel using cardboard. It's secured to the car using the same mounting holes as the diaper. The new panel will come down from the rear bumper to about the centerline of the exhaust tips and wrap around on the sides to blend in to the underside louvered panels behind the rear wheels. This leaves the bottom of the exhaust exposed and will look really nice when I polish the stainless. A little bling in the back, but not too much. I also added a "mail slot" to break up the solid part of the panel. I think this looks pretty good for a mock-up.



A metal panel would have been good, but I'm not exactly experienced nor set up with the right tooling to do this in metal so I decided to do it in fiberglass. I transferred my cardboard template to a piece of wood, then used a router to cut down the openings for the slot and the tailpipe openings. I didn't have any mold release compound, so I used candle wax and smeared it all over the wood. This is a shot after three layers of fiberglass. When it hardened, I was able to pop it off the wood without damage. After some filler to smooth off the surface, I'll trim this piece to fit then start working on the side pieces.

58 degree weekend in February!

January was rough. In the middle of the month, old man winter hit us hard. We had a storm that basically shut down the region. Power outages, trees down huge piles of snow. Fortunately, snow like that usually doesn't stick around very long and I was glad to see it go.



Back to my carb adjustments (still). I tried different screwdrivers to get to the idle adjustment screw for the right front carb, but I couldn't find something to work. My buddy SL had a great idea -- take something like a welding rod and just flatten the end into blade. I didn't have any welding rod, but I did have some 1/4" all-thread rod. A few minutes with a ball peen hammer and file and voila! A long thin screwdriver.



It works amazingly well. As you can see, that screw is waaaaay in there and is barely visible. I had to wait, but this was finally the day to take to the road and dial in the idle mixture.



The 308's been sitting a while and I foolishly disconnected my batter tender. The battery didn't quite have enough juice so I needed to use the booster to start the engine. As it turns out, I made the idle mixture a little too lean and it was really hard to start. After making the mixture a little richer, the engine fired right up.

What a great day for a drive. I didn't really have a destination in mind, so I just drove North with the snow covered North Cascades in the distance. After the engine oil was up to temperature, I was able to put my foot to the firewall and let the engine wail. It did stumble just a bit so I made a stop in a parking lot to richen the mixture a little more. The engine runs great now, although I don't know if all my tinkering actually had any affect. The exhaust is still a bit smelly, but it does seem a little better than before. Winter's almost over so I guess I'll need to put off the other projects like suspension bushings until next Winter. Let the driving season begin!

Re-jetting is finally done (well, mostly done)

Yes, it has taken a while but I'm mostly done with the carb re-jetting. First I had to loosen the bonnet and remove the air cleaner to access the idle jets. Each carb has 2 idle jets and they are screwed into the side of the carb body. I pulled the 0.57 idle jets and returned to the original 0.55 size. Then I started the car and leaned out the idle mixture as much as I could before the engine started to stumble. I figure this is a good starting point. Once the idle jets were replaced, I could then put the air cleaner back on.



This is a shot of the tube where the main jet is held. Each carb has 2 main jets. Fortunately, the main jets are accessible without removing the air cleaner. I replaced the original 125 main jets with slightly larger 130 jets. The tube seen in the photo is actually three pieces. There is the air corrector (AC) at the top (where the threads are), then the emulsion tube (ET) and the main jet at the bottom. I only changed out the main and opted for now to leave the 200 AC jet and the F36 ET.

As soon as I got finished, it started to rain. The next dry spot of daylight I get, I'll take the car out and do some fine tuning. Basically, this means driving until it's up to operating temperature, then mashing on the throttle. The engine should rev smoothly with no hesitation. If there is, I'll richen the mixture slightly and repeat until any hesitation goes away. That's the plan anyhow for the next dry day.

Pretty quiet on the home front

Things have been pretty quiet lately on the home front. Why? Partly due to the weather -- it's been cold and my shop is not heated. Earlier this month, I had started to rejet my carburetors. To try and lean things out a little, I'm going to drop back from the 0.57 idle jets to 0.55. To maintain a richer mixture at open throttle, I have some 130 main jets to replace the existing 125. It's all a bit of voodoo really to get the jetting just right. We'll see how it works out. I've replaced the idle jets and leaned out the mixture. Now I just need a window of clear weather to drive the car and fine tune it.

The other reason for the quiet on the 308 side is my other current project. Earlier this year, a friend of mine was selling his old truck -- a 3/4 ton 1969 GMC stepside. Because TK's truck has a camper on it all summer, I've been wanting another truck to haul stuff around without needing to go through the hassle of pulling off the camper. So I bought the truck and I've been planning what to do with it. It runs, but not very well.



Last week, I found another truck on Craigslist. It's a 1967 Chevy pickup that I could use as a donor. It has ok doors (to replace mine which had rust holes in them), a running motor (better than in the '69), power steering and few other odds and ends I can use. I pulled the motor a few days ago and as luck (or lack thereof) would have it, the block is cracked (doh!) and unusable. Oh well, I'll use what I can and hopefully I can recoup some of my loss by parting out the rest of the truck.

Oil change

I finally changed my oil. Those observant readers will note that I have not blogged about changing the oil since 2009. Yes, I admit it -- this is my first oil change since the car's been back on the road. Overdue yes but better late than never.

Rather than using a synthetic, I'm running good old fashioned Castrol GTX 5W-30 dinosaur oil. Word is that these older engines will leak oil with modern synthetics and it's not like I need even more leaks. What do you call a Ferrari that doesn't leak? Out of oil!



Just for kicks, I decided to cut open the old UFI filter. Not much to the inside of a filter. Just the paper element, a spring and a seal. The one thing unique about 308 filters is the stand tube (the silver metal tube in the photo). Since the filter is installed upside down on the top of the engine, the stand tube keeps oil from draining out of the filter.



I cut out a section of filter paper and used a vise to squeeze out the excess oil. In the paper, I can see a few small specks of metal -- probably one speck every three or four folds. I think this is ok and nothing to worry about. If there was more metal specks, then that would be something to worry about.

Good things come in pairs

I suppose it's only fitting that since TK has two horses in the barn that I have two Ferraris in the shop. She has her horse and a friend's horse and now I have my Ferrari and a friend's Ferrari.

My buddy SL had been actively looking for an F360 for months. After seeing lots of duds, he finally found the perfect car in Tour De France Blue. This beauty came from Texas and it's absolutely stunning. He doesn't have a place to keep it so I offered up the extra stall in my stable.



In addition to his car being amazing to look at, it's amazing on the road. It has over twice the power as the 308 and it really plants you in seat when you get on the gas. I can't imagine what a new 458 is like with less weight and more power.

Let's not forget SL's co-pilot -- Ferrari Barbie. In her Ferrari racing suit and matching helmet, she's a total hottie!

Brrrr...it's getting COLD around here!

A few weeks ago was the official end of the 2011 E@RTC season. As luck would have it, we had a sunny and dry morning but it was darned cold. Many people braved the cold and made it out.



A little later in the morning, this beautiful 1984 512BBi showed up. When I was growing up, the 512BB was another one of my dream cars next to the 308. However, the BB is so far out reach of a poor working stiff like me that I'll never own one.



Another cool car is this Aston Martin in a color I'd never seen before. It seems like all the Astons I've seen are some shade of silver and this one in Maroon was gorgeous. Another car I'll never own...



Lastly, a new car that few will see and fewer will own -- a new BMW 1M. Not to be confused with the BMW M1 of the 70s, I guess BMW needed to keep with their M designation and ran into a problem with the One Series. Very few of these cars will make it into the States. The owner of this one had to go to Oregon to get it. According to him, it's a blast to drive and a really fun, high powered good handling car.



Two weekends ago, the local Ferrari club chapter had a tour of a local fabrication and restoration shop. I wasn't sure what to expect since I'd not heard of this shop before. As I neared the shop, I saw a red 308 roar by and followed it in. It turned out to be friend and fellow 308 owner TV. The shop was near his house and despite threatening rain for the day, he risked bringing out his F-car to the tour.

Walking in to the main part of the shop, it was apparent what these guys did. There were metal working machines all over. Everything from welding gear to an english wheel to lathes and mills. Their clientele were mostly sport and club racers and this shop did everything from ground-up fabrication to race preparation.

This is an example of the work these guys do. This old racer was pretty sad under the paint and basically needed a new body. Just like the artisans of a time gone by, this body was fabricated by hand from sheets of aluminum. Wow, what workmanship. Next to the raw aluminum body was a frame jig where a tube frame was being fabricated.



This shop was huge and had lots and lots of cars in it. I found out that these guys also do most of the restoration work for Richard Griot (of Griot's Garage). I believe that this white Porsche is one of Richard's newest cars, sent to the shop to be checked over.



Here's a cool little racing detail I didn't know. These brake rotors are painted with three temperature sensitive paint stripes. Each color would burn off at different temperature so the crew could tell at glance how hot the rotor got. Red paint gone? Driver needs to be easier on the brakes!

Just about ready to park the car for the season

It's Friday and the "official" end of the 2011 season of E@RTC is tomorrow. It doesn't look too good though with a forecasted 20% chance of rain. In fact, the past 2 have been called due to rain. I think we may be done for the season.

Here are a few cool things from the last event. A Noble M12 GTO-R3. It's powered by a twin-turbo Ford Duratec V6. It reportedly puts out 415 bhp and can propel this 2380 lb car 0-60 mph in 3.7 seconds. From what I've heard, Noble's can be a handful because they have a tremendous power to weight ratio, but don't have any of the really advanced electronics to keep the car from killing you. I briefly talked to the owner and he said, "it's faster than a Lotus Elise. What more do I want?"



Have a look at this really cool Morgan Aero three-wheeler. I think it's from around 1925 and it's powered by a V-twin in the front. The coolest thing about it is that the engine valvetrain is almost completely open. You can actually watch the rocker arms and valve springs move. Very cool.



Of course there's the obligatory Ferrari shot:)



I've been on vacation for the last two weeks. TK and I jumped in the camper and drove down South then East in a big loop. It was a fun trip and there was one thing that really stood out. In Lincoln City, OR we met up with TK's parent for dinner. We stopped off at a restaurant called the Pier 101 Bar and Grill. As I was thumbing through the menu, I realized it was Friday and that they served prime rib on Friday and Saturday. Since we had a fridge, I decided to get the "Big Cut" and we could eat the leftovers later. When the waiter came by, the conversation was like this:

Waiter: What can I get you sir?
Me: I'd like the Big Cut of prime rib.
W: Have you been here before sir?
M: No, I haven't.
W: Well, our regular cut of prime rib is two pounds.

(silence)

M: Hmmm...ok then. Thanks for letting me know. I think I'll have the Regular cut then.

Two pounds? Was he kidding? When it showed up, it was apparent that he was NOT kidding. This thing was massive. It was cooked and seasoned perfectly, but I could only eat about 1/4 of it. We took the rest with us and ended up eating on it for the next four meals. What a bargain? Locally, you'd pay the same amount and get 1/3 the portion. So, if you find yourself passing through Lincoln City, OR on a Friday or Saturday, I highly recommend the prime rib. Regular Cut or Big Cut -- your choice.

Alert! Winter approaching

Since my last post, not a huge amount has happened on the car front. The only thing I've worked on since fixing the power drain issue is tending to the door jamb light. This was something that worked at the beginning, then stopped for some strange reason. The bulb was ok but it jsut wasn't getting power. I traced all the wiring and it turned out to be a connector behind the clock. The wire pin for the door light was not secured completely in the connector. After straightening the pin and getting a good connection, the light works again.



Stuff that needs to be done around the farm has cut into my drive time. Still, I've managed to get out a few times in the last 2 months. Here's a recap:



One of the big events this year was a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport at E@RTC. We had the center court again and it was an absolutely great day. The Grand Sport is the convertible version of the speed record setting Veyron. It arrived with two vintage Bugattis and they made a big show of arriving. Add an Enzo and a couple of new and old Rolls Royces and there was a lot of money sitting in the center court.



Another cool car showcased was the new Lamborghini Aventador. I'm not a big Lambo fan, but this one has received a lot of press here locally. You see, Lamborghini and the UW set up a research lab to develop and test the new cars. They're doing everything from R&D to crash testing. Pretty cool stuff. The car though? Eh, the jury's still out on that one. You could tell they're going for the whole "steath fighter" thing. Matt black, odd angles, things sticking out that really shouldn't be...

There's no mistaking it's a Lamborghini though.



Amoung other cool things was this 60's Mercedes 300SL Gullwing. I think the plates were from Colorado and from the looks of it, the car just arrived -- road grime and all. This was a great car, not only because it was a Gullwing, but because the owner actually drove the thing. It was unrestored and original. The only other one I've seen was a museum piece.



On a whimsical side, the local Fiat dealer brought out a fleet of new Fiat 500s. I got to sit in one and play with the controls. For such a small car, there was plenty of room inside. Ever since seeing one on Top Gear, I'd always though these were neat cars. If I'm ever in the market for such a thing, the Fiat 500 will be on my short list.



And finally, my humble little 308 nestled between two of the newest Ferrari supercars. It still amazes me how much bigger the newer cars are.



It's raining now and has been for the past week. There won't be many more driving days this year but I'm hoping to use them as I can. Maybe over the Winter I'll finally have a chance to rejet my carbs, install my keyless entry system, adjust my steering wheel and replace my suspension bushings.

Drive time on a (partly) sunny day

With my power drain problem solved and the car back together, it was finally time to drive! I put the interior back together and hopefully I don't need to take it apart again for a while. I have a Viper 211HV keyless entry system on order, but I can install it from the fuse panel access. My ignition-off power usage is just above 19mA and even with the addition of the keyless entry, I should still be well below my target of less then 50mA.

We've had some nice weather lately (better than the heat wave in the rest of the country) and this time TK went with me to E@RTC. Attendance was a little low when we got there, but the parking lots filled in as the morning went on. My buddy SL showed up as well. He's on the hunt for a 360 Modena so he's been out to quite a few of these gatherings to check out the cars.



As I looked around the lot, I saw something I'd never seen before. Not one, but two Lamborghini LM002 off road vehicles. Lambo made these between 1986 and 1993. Originally developed to try and sell to the military, the LM002 had the same V-12 as the Lamborghini Countach. Neither TK or SL knew what I was talking about when I said I wanted to go check out the Lamborghinis in the corner. SL saw them but thought they were Hummers. I'd heard of and seen photos of the LM002 before, but had never seen one in person. Not that I'd ever own one or even want one, but it's still a pretty cool vehicle.



One thing that does need attention is I think I need to fiddle with my carburetors again. The mixture seems really rich so I think I'll lean out the idle a little to see how it goes. Later, that is, when I feel like struggling with removing the air cleaner.

It's been 2 years!

2 years ago today, my childhood dream of owning a Ferrari 308 came true. Ok, maybe my dream was not to have a 308 come home with me on the back of a wrecker, but hey, you take what you can get.



I would have taken the car out for an anniversary drive, but alas, the interior is still partially disassembled. My new Spal (made it Italy) power door lock kit arrived and I was able to get it installed this weekend. I've tested it and it works, so now I just need a little more time to put the door panels back on. The rest of the work I can do from the fuse panel access door in front of the passenger's seat. I was hoping to use my old keyless entry system, but I don't think it will work.

The lock/unlock feature of the keyless system works like this -- When the receiver gets an unlock signal from the transmitter fob, it sends a negative pulse down one of the wires. This wire is attached to the power door lock module on the unlock side. When the door lock receives the pulse, the lock actuators fire in the unlock direction. Locking sends a negative pulse down another wire which basically makes the actuators go the other way. I've probed the wires on the keyless module, and it looks like the wires have a resting 12V, with a negative pulse. I talked to a tech at Spal and their power door lock system is expecting a resting zero V with a negative pulse. Good thing I checked and asked the question. I probably would have fried my new door lock module. Bad thing is now I need to wait some more to get a new keyless entry system.

Meanwhile back inside the doors

While waiting for my new keyless entry and power lock kit, I decided to do some adjustment in the doors. Thanks to the relays, the power windows work great, but the windows needed to be adjusted. I didn't spend a lot of time on the upper and lower window stops the first time I was in the doors and now was a good time to get it right.



First off was replacing the lower stops. The factory stop was a rubber bumper on the bottom. Both sides were completely shot which allowed the window to crash down on the inner door frame -- not good. I found some rubber door stops at Home Depot and they work great. I also adjusted the upper stop too so no more needing to be super careful in raising and lowering the windows.

Found my power drain

After lots of head scratching and poking and prodding, I think I finally figured out the source of my electrical drain. The problem ended up being the "black box" shown below. This device is a timer is it controls a little fan in the engine compartment. It's supposed to work like this -- when the engine is shut off, this timer kicks on the fan which draws gas fumes from the air cleaner into the charcoal canister. Basically, it's part of the emissions control system. Well, all this stuff was removed from my car long ago. I have no fan or canister -- only the timer relay. When I disconnected it, my electrical draw dropped by over 100mA. Since it's not controlling anything anymore, it's safe to just leave it unplugged.



For those of you needing to find an electrical drain, the process goes like this. First, you need a digital multimeter capable of measuring current. Disconnect the negative side of the battery and use the leads of the meter to connect the negative cable to the battery. Set the meter to measure current and you should see your precious electronics flowing from the battery and disappearing in the ether. Then, go the fusebox and start pulling fuses. Hopefully, one of the fuses you pull will result in a drop on the meter. That(those) fused circuit(s) is(are) the source of the drain. Hopefully you have a readable wiring diagram and can track down the problem. For us 308 owners, Paul Bennett at http://www.ferrariwiring.com/ has GREAT color diagrams. I highly recommend them. Best part is they're extremely affordable.



At the end of the day, here is where I'm at -- about 17.5mA. 16mA is the analog clock and 1.5mA is the memory on the stereo. I also had about 10mA on my keyless entry system, but it basically died so I'm replacing it. Hopefully the new one will have a low current draw. If it's under 8mA I will be close to my 25mA target.



To get to to wiring, I ended up removing a lot of the dash. In fact, the entire dash (again). This meant the steering wheel, hub, switch stalk and instrument cluster. Before reassembly, I did one quick thing to the cluster which was to jumper the instrument light rheostat. This is an old-school dimmer for the gauge lights. I doesn't work well and bypassing it is an easy way to increase the brightness of the lights.

I didn't put everything back together yet. A new keyless entry system is on the way so the door panels are still off. As soon as it arrives, I can put the car back together and drive!

Help, my electrons are leaking out

Up until this week, we've had quite a run of good weather. I've had the 308 out a few times in the last month and it's been a blast. A couple weeks ago, it was Ferrari day at E@RTC. This was a big event, especially since it was at the RTC center court. The weather was beautiful and we had a tremendous turnout. I heard there were 70 Ferraris there, including an Enzo, a 599 GTO and a 250 GTO racer.



I went to start the car last week and the battery was dead -- again. The battery is less than 2 years old and this was not the first time it's been dead after sitting. I finally pulled it out and had Napa run a load test on it. Prognosis? Deader than a doornail and in need of a replacement. Fortunately, it was still under warranty and it cost me about $20 for a new battery.



When I got home, I decided to run a few tests before hooking everything back up. I hooked up my multimeter inline on the negative terminal of the battery and pulled out all the fuses in the fusepanels. Sure enough, there was a 140ma drain in the system when it should have been near zero. Even with all the fuses hooked up, the only things drawing power with the ignition off should be the clock and the stereo memory. It should be 10-15ma at most. The combination of a dying alternator and a parasitic electrical drain was enough to kill the battery. Since I'm working on sorting out electrical stuff, now's a good time to figure out why my keyless entry stopped working as well. However, before I could do more tests, my multimeter died(!). I guess I'll have to wait to do more troubleshooting.

Two Ferrari packed weekends in a row

I've been a blogging slacker lately. Lots to report so here's another mega post. Two weekends ago, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. As usual, I dropped by E@RTC on Saturday morning. Because the weather was so nice, there was a huge turnout -- something like 135 cars.



Here's something that I found interesting. I mean, everything that shows up to E@RTC is interesting, but this one caught my eye. I'm not really into trikes, but this one was a bit of a machining masterpiece.



It seemed like almost every part of the frame was custom built. It's as if the entire drivetrain was machined out of a single block of aluminum. I wasn't able to track down the owner to verify any of this so I can make assumptions about different parts of the bike. You can't really see all the details, but from what I can see, there were things like internal front brake, hidden accelerator, clutch and brake controls. I think that the rod on the side with the aluminum hand grenade on top was the gear shifter and the lever on the grenade was the clutch. Too bad it left before I could talk to the owner as I had lots of questions.



On Sunday, I left the house early to go with some guys on a drive up to Washington Pass. The winding road is normally under many feet of snow during the winter and it usually opens early summer. We all took advantage of the great weather and made the blast to the pass. I was in the 308 and joined by a Testarossa, a BMW M5, a BMW 135i and a Mustang. Here we are stopped for a bio-break. Check out the Nash Metropolitan for sale in the background.



At the turn-around point at the top of the pass, there was still plenty of snow. The DOT had graciously plowed a tunnel through the parking area so we could get turned around. As you can see, the snow was deep enough to hide an Italian sports car.



This was also my first attempt at in-car video. I borrowed one of those Contour HD cams and mounted it to my side window. The video didn't turn out very well, but I did get this one interesting shot of the wide rear end of the Testarossa as we squeezed through some tight spots at the turn-around area.

This was a fun trip and my first "spirited drive" so far in the 308. 274 miles total with less than stellar gas mileage. Since I'm typically not a fast driver, let's just say I was pushing the edge of my comfort zone. Those "suggested" speed limit signs at the curves are just suggestions, right?

Right. Onward to today.



The forecast this morning was a little dicey. There were a few dark clouds in the sky and there was a chance of showers. I think this kept a lot of people away from E@RTC. Still, there were a lot of cool cars there, including an Enzo. We're seeing a quite a large group now of Cobra replicas. Surprisingly, there was only ONE Lambo there. Strange.



My buddy SL decided to come up today and check out the cars. After the event, we were going to get on a ferry and check out a Ferrari 360. As we left, a crowd had gathered around the Enzo to listen to it start. As luck would have it, it was headed in the same direction as we were and it ended up right behind SL. I could see it in my rearview as we went around corners. It was really cool watching that Enzo as it lazily floated on the pavement. At a light, I was able to grab this quick photo. What an amazing car.

Back to my house, we both piled into his car and drove off to catch a ferry. SL's been toying with the idea of getting a Ferrari 360 Modena. There was one on the peninsula so we decided to go check it out. It was at a dealership and the price was recently reduced. It was worth checking out as we both wanted to know why it was on the low end of the 360 price range.



At the end of the day, SL decided to pass on this one. 32K miles, undocumented service history and a few unknowns about different areas on the car.