I Used my 360 as a daily driver and blew it up!
Discussion
Hi All, I Just thought i'd share this with you all and see if any of you have ventured into the unknown quite like i am doing? if anyone has any advice / thoughts or comments i'd love ot hear from you!
My ferrari started life as a standard 360 spider, bought 3 years ago with a mere 9000 miles on the clock. Marannello history etc etc. I enjoyed driving it so much that i couldn't get in anything else on the morning commute. I made the decision to "use" the car everyday, sun, shine, snow, whatever. I drove it through europe, in ireland in snow,it was fantastic.
I always serviced it fastidiously and it typically costed me between 6k - £15k per annum to maintain (failures taken into consideration) clutch and hydrolic problems mainly. The amount of problems i have chased around this car dn't bear mentioning. But when it worked i loved it. I did the belts et all but unfortunatly the car suffered the worst of all fates a belt falure on the left bank and it suffered.
The car sat in a well known dealership for some time whilst i mulled over what i was going to do with the car. Fix / part ex as is or keep and make something special, after being offered a clio amount of money for the car by said dealer i made the decision to make the car my own, never to be sold.... This is where the story begins.
I put out to "tender" so to speak the opportunity to fix the car / get ideas of what could be possible with the car and one company stole my imagination.
I have been selling some of the parts off the car off and have had it stripped to bare bones to be re powder coated and rewired as now, i am in the process of re-building as a full on race car.
The whole car has been stripped back down to bare chassis the "hood" is off and on a pallet and we are designing a roll cage across all suspension pick up points across the car this will then form the basis of the chassis this is then going off to be powder coated. ready for all the bits.
(I) well my contracted company found a 458 engine and we are going to strip and rebuild with very special internals am probably going to marry it up to a 430 manual box ( i can't afford a sequential just now) the gear box is then being strenghtened with new flywheels and the clutch "carbonised" if that's the right word to cope with a modified 458 engine.
I'm looking for some gt race suspension off a doner car and going to modify it, fuel tanks off and new front mounted fuel tanks going in with quick fill throug the bonnet (in case we do endurance racing) fuel swirl pots all the cooling is being replaced as with the ecu, brakes and body.
The Body is the other biggest change, it will no longer be a cabriolet, i have found a company that ofer a full carbon fibre 458 race body which will go over the frame / roll cage and act as the "skin" over the car and the roll cage.
BBs 19" race wheels which are about as wide as i have ever seen and changing the interior to be bare with some race seats and carbon dor sills / full digital dash i thnk you get the idea.
I do not ever plan to sell this car, ever, but have any of you got race car build experience? anything i should look ut for.. i know costs can be monstrous but this is what i'm doing i am committed and i believe i have an experienced team behind me to build.
So really all that will be left from the original car will be the chassis (tub). but i will end up wth just shy of 650 bhp and a stripped out car which i'm hoping to enter into one series or another, probaly to start with ferrari open then see how competitive it will be then maybe on to british GT
As i progress thorugh this project, which is probably going to take over a year (because i have to pay for it and i'm not a squillionaire) are any of you interested in seeing how i get on? how the vehicle progreses? we are planning to do a full build diary / document the overall build and of course take millions of pics as we progress.
I have a distinct feeling i'm going down a rabbit hole but i do so knowingly and i hope the end result will be something unique, special and mine.
If any of you have done soemthing similiar in the past i'd love to hear your experiences. Or if you are interested in seeing more as i progress. i will be happy to share.
I have to say i am very nervous. I am continusly questioning myself have i done the right thing, is this too much, will i regret it and so it continues... but the car is in bits, i have the new engine and i'm commited so no turning back now.
I am also very interested in race parts... Any racers of you that have interesting bits then please also send me a message.
Cheers,
JPF
My ferrari started life as a standard 360 spider, bought 3 years ago with a mere 9000 miles on the clock. Marannello history etc etc. I enjoyed driving it so much that i couldn't get in anything else on the morning commute. I made the decision to "use" the car everyday, sun, shine, snow, whatever. I drove it through europe, in ireland in snow,it was fantastic.
I always serviced it fastidiously and it typically costed me between 6k - £15k per annum to maintain (failures taken into consideration) clutch and hydrolic problems mainly. The amount of problems i have chased around this car dn't bear mentioning. But when it worked i loved it. I did the belts et all but unfortunatly the car suffered the worst of all fates a belt falure on the left bank and it suffered.
The car sat in a well known dealership for some time whilst i mulled over what i was going to do with the car. Fix / part ex as is or keep and make something special, after being offered a clio amount of money for the car by said dealer i made the decision to make the car my own, never to be sold.... This is where the story begins.
I put out to "tender" so to speak the opportunity to fix the car / get ideas of what could be possible with the car and one company stole my imagination.
I have been selling some of the parts off the car off and have had it stripped to bare bones to be re powder coated and rewired as now, i am in the process of re-building as a full on race car.
The whole car has been stripped back down to bare chassis the "hood" is off and on a pallet and we are designing a roll cage across all suspension pick up points across the car this will then form the basis of the chassis this is then going off to be powder coated. ready for all the bits.
(I) well my contracted company found a 458 engine and we are going to strip and rebuild with very special internals am probably going to marry it up to a 430 manual box ( i can't afford a sequential just now) the gear box is then being strenghtened with new flywheels and the clutch "carbonised" if that's the right word to cope with a modified 458 engine.
I'm looking for some gt race suspension off a doner car and going to modify it, fuel tanks off and new front mounted fuel tanks going in with quick fill throug the bonnet (in case we do endurance racing) fuel swirl pots all the cooling is being replaced as with the ecu, brakes and body.
The Body is the other biggest change, it will no longer be a cabriolet, i have found a company that ofer a full carbon fibre 458 race body which will go over the frame / roll cage and act as the "skin" over the car and the roll cage.
BBs 19" race wheels which are about as wide as i have ever seen and changing the interior to be bare with some race seats and carbon dor sills / full digital dash i thnk you get the idea.
I do not ever plan to sell this car, ever, but have any of you got race car build experience? anything i should look ut for.. i know costs can be monstrous but this is what i'm doing i am committed and i believe i have an experienced team behind me to build.
So really all that will be left from the original car will be the chassis (tub). but i will end up wth just shy of 650 bhp and a stripped out car which i'm hoping to enter into one series or another, probaly to start with ferrari open then see how competitive it will be then maybe on to british GT
As i progress thorugh this project, which is probably going to take over a year (because i have to pay for it and i'm not a squillionaire) are any of you interested in seeing how i get on? how the vehicle progreses? we are planning to do a full build diary / document the overall build and of course take millions of pics as we progress.
I have a distinct feeling i'm going down a rabbit hole but i do so knowingly and i hope the end result will be something unique, special and mine.
If any of you have done soemthing similiar in the past i'd love to hear your experiences. Or if you are interested in seeing more as i progress. i will be happy to share.
I have to say i am very nervous. I am continusly questioning myself have i done the right thing, is this too much, will i regret it and so it continues... but the car is in bits, i have the new engine and i'm commited so no turning back now.
I am also very interested in race parts... Any racers of you that have interesting bits then please also send me a message.
Cheers,
JPF
Surely a carbon fibre bodied car will be £££ to race, even a pit lane prang could mean new half shells! It would be a ring monster for sure, but a stripped car, with a CF body and a forged 458 engine will surely be OTT for pretty much any race series. It will be a ring-monster (lol) but will you ever get to use it competitively?
I hear what you are saying. I have read the regs for Pirelli ferrari open and there is a "clas1" which allows significant modification over standard i have written to them but no reply as yet. I've also written to british GT and Brit car.. no reply again... so i have printed off the various regs and tryin to not (hinder) my plans to much but try and squeeze and element of compliance into the build.
I will post pics as they come... So far i have a pic of a wheel!....
I will post pics as they come... So far i have a pic of a wheel!....
How about do some sprints with it or even drifting
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