The last couple of years were a little dull around here. I bought a broken Subaru last fall and put a new engine in it, and I've been working on a longer term E28 project that is finally up and running, but It had been too long since I bought something interesting. Then a guy called my place of work and asked if we knew anybody who might be interested in buying an old Ferrari. I told him to send me some info and a few photos so that I could pass it along, but once I saw it I knew I wanted to have it. I asked the boss if he was interested and he was not. Probably for good reason. But I got his blessing to go ahead and pursue a deal.
It's an '84 Euro spec 308 GTS. It's got the four cam engine and small bumpers which make it a fair amount lighter than a US spec car. It came with an extra set of 16" wheels and some super cool Marchal headlights. But the best part is that it had done less than 18,000 miles before it was put up in a shed for an undetermined amount of time.
The reason it was cheap enough for me to get my hands on it is that the original fuel injection system had been removed to make way for a more modern setup. I have no idea when this project was started, but there's a very old school looking Haltech ECU mounted near the left side tail lights and an un-terminated wiring harness draped over the engine. Some Denso coils from a Toyota were stuffed into the spark plug holes and some wiring was started to connect the coils to something. There's a trigger wheel mounted to the crank pulley and a neat little bracket with a sensor stuck in it. It's got all of the main pieces in place to make things work, but unfortunately the previous owner expired before he was able to make it happen. The family member who handled the sale described the car pretty honestly and sent me half a dozen postage stamp sized photos of it. Just enough information for me to make a bad decision.
So I wrangled a couple of friends and we hit the road. It was 15 hour drive to central Texas and then another 16+ hours back. We did it on a holiday weekend so that everybody would have a day to recover after spending two days in the truck. The shed where the car was stored was back in the woods, roughly a mile from anything resembling a road. The "driveway" was in actuality a 4x4 trail, complete with hairpin turns and plenty of steep ups and downs. We even had to drive over a crumbly little concrete bridge that was just barely wide enough for the trailer. The driveway got worse the further we drove, and at one point all three of us looked at each other wondering if there was actually a Ferrari out there, or if maybe we were going to be murdered when we reached the end of the road.
I don't know what you've heard about Texas, but they have bugs and snakes, and the car had become a popular spot for both things. We were able to get the car on the ground and turned around easily enough, and nobody was attacked by anything poisonous. Luckily we had a winch on the trailer since one of the tires split as soon as we put the weight of the car on it, and the grass outside of the shed had grown to about three feet tall.
We loaded the loose parts into the truck, strapped the car down and wrapped it up since we'd have to take the same trail to get back out to the main road. Thanks to Mike's fancy driving we made it back to the road without the car falling off. The engine cover had to be wrapped in place since the latches were frozen. It looked silly but it worked. We got back to the shop at around 2am to unload the car and then everyone went home to recover.
Then it was time to start cleaning. I can't properly express how many spiders and how much mouse poop was inside of this car. Luckily the interior had been sealed up, but nowhere else was immune. We pulled a lot of the car apart to remove as much as possible but there's still a lot that I couldn't get to. Once the engine is out and the suspension comes apart I'll be able to properly clean everything.
So what's the plan?
I want to continue with the previous owners plan to modernize the fuel injection. It might be relatively simple to go back to stock, but why bother when it'll run better on a modern setup, probably make a little more power, and be more reliable. I'm going to ditch the old Haltech and run it on Megasquirt since I have a little experience with that system and I've already got an ECU and harness. There's a company out there who makes ITB manifolds for the QV engine so maybe we'll go that route.
The suspension will need some love but one of the boxes of spares that came with the car included a bunch of bushings and balljoints, so that helps. I'd like to lower it though. The brakes will need to be rebuilt, engine will need to be re-sealed, and like I mentioned before, the whole car will need to be blown apart to clean it up.
There's some rodent damage to the wiring so that'll all be replaced. Somehow you can get all new harnesses for not all that much money. The interior needs some love too but I'm not going for perfection. Just cleaned up and presentable.
As it sits, it's a pretty pile of parts. It'll sit for a little while longer while I wrap up a couple of other things, but I'm excited to get started.
It's an '84 Euro spec 308 GTS. It's got the four cam engine and small bumpers which make it a fair amount lighter than a US spec car. It came with an extra set of 16" wheels and some super cool Marchal headlights. But the best part is that it had done less than 18,000 miles before it was put up in a shed for an undetermined amount of time.
The reason it was cheap enough for me to get my hands on it is that the original fuel injection system had been removed to make way for a more modern setup. I have no idea when this project was started, but there's a very old school looking Haltech ECU mounted near the left side tail lights and an un-terminated wiring harness draped over the engine. Some Denso coils from a Toyota were stuffed into the spark plug holes and some wiring was started to connect the coils to something. There's a trigger wheel mounted to the crank pulley and a neat little bracket with a sensor stuck in it. It's got all of the main pieces in place to make things work, but unfortunately the previous owner expired before he was able to make it happen. The family member who handled the sale described the car pretty honestly and sent me half a dozen postage stamp sized photos of it. Just enough information for me to make a bad decision.
So I wrangled a couple of friends and we hit the road. It was 15 hour drive to central Texas and then another 16+ hours back. We did it on a holiday weekend so that everybody would have a day to recover after spending two days in the truck. The shed where the car was stored was back in the woods, roughly a mile from anything resembling a road. The "driveway" was in actuality a 4x4 trail, complete with hairpin turns and plenty of steep ups and downs. We even had to drive over a crumbly little concrete bridge that was just barely wide enough for the trailer. The driveway got worse the further we drove, and at one point all three of us looked at each other wondering if there was actually a Ferrari out there, or if maybe we were going to be murdered when we reached the end of the road.
I don't know what you've heard about Texas, but they have bugs and snakes, and the car had become a popular spot for both things. We were able to get the car on the ground and turned around easily enough, and nobody was attacked by anything poisonous. Luckily we had a winch on the trailer since one of the tires split as soon as we put the weight of the car on it, and the grass outside of the shed had grown to about three feet tall.
We loaded the loose parts into the truck, strapped the car down and wrapped it up since we'd have to take the same trail to get back out to the main road. Thanks to Mike's fancy driving we made it back to the road without the car falling off. The engine cover had to be wrapped in place since the latches were frozen. It looked silly but it worked. We got back to the shop at around 2am to unload the car and then everyone went home to recover.
Then it was time to start cleaning. I can't properly express how many spiders and how much mouse poop was inside of this car. Luckily the interior had been sealed up, but nowhere else was immune. We pulled a lot of the car apart to remove as much as possible but there's still a lot that I couldn't get to. Once the engine is out and the suspension comes apart I'll be able to properly clean everything.
So what's the plan?
I want to continue with the previous owners plan to modernize the fuel injection. It might be relatively simple to go back to stock, but why bother when it'll run better on a modern setup, probably make a little more power, and be more reliable. I'm going to ditch the old Haltech and run it on Megasquirt since I have a little experience with that system and I've already got an ECU and harness. There's a company out there who makes ITB manifolds for the QV engine so maybe we'll go that route.
The suspension will need some love but one of the boxes of spares that came with the car included a bunch of bushings and balljoints, so that helps. I'd like to lower it though. The brakes will need to be rebuilt, engine will need to be re-sealed, and like I mentioned before, the whole car will need to be blown apart to clean it up.
There's some rodent damage to the wiring so that'll all be replaced. Somehow you can get all new harnesses for not all that much money. The interior needs some love too but I'm not going for perfection. Just cleaned up and presentable.
As it sits, it's a pretty pile of parts. It'll sit for a little while longer while I wrap up a couple of other things, but I'm excited to get started.
