The RPM Blog

Ferrari 250 GT Lusso bumper

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:28:00 +0000

The small bumpers on the front of a Lusso are pure decoration, no real function. The Lusso that came in was missing these so we located one and have to make the match. Here are some photos of the fabrication process.

A 250 Axle conversion all over again

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 17:41:00 +0000

I do not think that Ferrari ever really understood the forces involved in the rear axle of their cars. I am not claiming to be an engineering expert, but we have to repair major damage to about 2 to 3 Ferrari axles per year. Not only do they need new bearings and seals, but they also commonly suffer from broken bearings or damaged ring and pinions.

Other make's axles seem to go bad because of high mileage or being run without grease. Ferrari axles self destruct because as you can see from the photos, the bearings used are to allow the pinion only to spin and do not account for the incredible axial thrust put upon it when power is applied or the car is coasting against the engine.

If the ring and pinion were straight-cut gears this would not be a problem. Yet with spiral cut gears, the fore/aft load is huge and Ferrari only used roller bearings on the pinion.

On the differential carrier, they used large single row ball bearings, which again, offer little in handling the side loads.

I never replace the bearings with the original type and set these axles up with tapered roller bearings on the pinion and diff carrier. I have done this to many cars over the years and have had none of them fail. This Lusso axle is next in line, followed buy a 212 axle, and then a 166 axle.

Ferrari 330 GT 2+2

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:24:00 +0000

About a year ago we caught wind of a totally original low miles Ferrari 330 GT out in the western plains of the US. Many people in the Ferrari community knew about the car but they did not want to pay to high price the seller wanted. I think that these 2+2 Ferraris have a very loyal following and thought that it was worth the premium.

The seller was a man in his mid 70's and back in the mid 60's he ordered a Ferrari 400 Super America from a dealer, I think it was Ron Tonkin. The SA never came in so they gave the man this copper, possibly called Nocchiola (?) and the man only drove the car 3000 miles. Since he was a Army mechanic, he knew how best to take care of the car buy keeping the engine coated in a mist of light oil so the plated parts did not rust and added Marvel Mystery oil in the gas and crankcase so when he started it 2 times a year everything stayed lubricated internally. Adding to these preventive measures, the car was in the bone dry part of the country so there is not a spot of decay on the car. Even the interior smells brand new!

When we got it to our shop we drained the gas and changed the spark plugs. It had the original Marchall spark plugs in the engine! Other than one carburetor being slightly off tune as far as air flow, the car ran perfect and does not smoke. It is one of the smoothest 330 engines I have witnessed.

Since it has the original 40 year old Pirelli tires we have not driven it on the road but it moves itself with ease around the door yard. This is an outstanding car!

It has some unique features. It has an amazing book and tool set, and perfect interior and all of the correct and matching lights and details. What is very interesting is that it has Weber DFI carburetors similar to the much later 330 GTC's. These carburetors are slightly different because they have the mixture control screws coming straight out of the bases and not on an angle facing backward as the later carburetors have. It also has two fuel pressure regulators with the glass filter cannisters. One is for the mechanical pump located on the side of the engine bay as all of these cars have, but the other is on the firewall.

It is so neat to see this car and we are going to bring it to the Cavallino Classic to try to win the preservation class.

1972 Ferrari 365

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:30:00 +0000

We sold this Ferrari 365 GTC/4 last year and the owner wants us to put it on the market again so he can focus on his Lusso Project that we are overseeing.

This car runs and drives extremely well and has a documented thorough engine overhaul by a well known shop in the Boston MA. area.

We overhauled the brakes, tuned the carburetors and replaced the Michelin XWX tires last year so the car is ready to roll for next spring.

Except for the engine overhaul, the car is very nice and original and has great detailing. While the paint is old and not all glossed over, it is testament to the original finish and workmanship that these cars had from new.

Shot at the shop

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:04:00 +0000

Here is a recent shot that I took at the shop.

The Blue Boxer is finished right now after a full re-paint, new adjustable ride height shocks and a major service.

The 166 is getting ready for assembly to make sure all of the trim fits and panel fit.

The 365 GTC/4 on the lift it getting closer to finalize the restoration. We are making sure all of the electrical things work and just sent the ignition key steering lock off to have a new key made after breaking the old one in the switch.

The Daytona was painted and assembled by another shop but came to us to diagnose a poor running condition.

Ferrari Daytona Valve

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:18:00 +0000

We recently overhauled a Ferrari 308 engine and knew of the likelihood that the original "hollow" sodium filled exhaust valves have a tendency to break. We replaced them all with solid stainless steel valves.

Apparently whoever rebuilt this Daytona engine did not get the memo, an engine that had a few minutes of running after a complete overhaul had to come apart because of a broken exhaust valve.

The shop that overhauled this engine also used the factory Elring head gaskets which allowed lots of water to leak into the crank case and making a milk-shake looking mess inside all of the castings.

We just got the new valves and will have the car in the road again in no time.

Another A/C system ready to be delivered

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 15:57:00 +0000

I have never advertised anywhere that I make Air Conditioning systems for Ferraris but somehow people continue to contact me to build a system for them.

A man in CA. heard that I have the jigs and know how to get all of the parts to equip his car with a very original style system with the original type hose ends and cotton braided hose. We also built brackets for the original style York compressor. Through various contacts, I located all of these parts, sent many things off for cadmium plating and sent off a diagram on how to wire everything and route the hoses and wires.

One thing that is missing to complete a system are the dashboard vents that double as temperature switch and fan speed switch. I am in the process of tooling up to re-make these vents and knobs that will work with modern replacement switches.

If you know anyone who needs these vents let me know. It will cost a small fortune to make the molds for these and I will also have to make the chrome trim pieces so I would like to have some interest to help out with the cost.

1968 Porsche 911

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:47:00 +0000

With so many early Porsche 911's "used up and put away wet", this 1968 911 is a rare car in its original configuration. It does not have a G50 gearbox and a 3.6 liter engine, it is not a RS clone or replica, and it has not been converted into a heap of rust.

This car drives so nice and easy, it is a car that can be driven every day without issue and has great performance with a recent engine overhaul to "S" specifications.
The transmission was overhauled some 15 years ago along with a very high quality paint job and suspension, brake, shocks, overhaul.

Testament to how well the car has been taken care of, the interior is original and not deteriorated beyond comprehension. The door jambs were not painted when the car was re-finished and they look brand new. This car is truly an Irish green gem!

The Back Story

noreply@blogger.com (Gillian) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 14:50:00 +0000

It's been a while since Steve has found time to post on this blog, so I'll take the liberty of posting some back stories.

I took some photos of the shop that highlight recent capital improvements. Peter added a concrete skirt to the building this summer as well as an office (the little "milking parlor" on the north/left side of the barn). Peter had envisioned this when he built the shop almost 20 years ago, so he is very proud to see this dream realized. The old office was upstairs in a tiny cupola - a cramped, fume-y place that only the officially insane could work in for extended periods of time. The growth of the shop over the past several years necessitated a new place for the many files and papers that go along with it. We are so happy to be able to stretch our wings in there.

The office has a glass wall and door that looks into the shop. In the next photo, you can see Steve talking to Casey, one of the four mechanics at the shop.

The shop was also painted this summer. It's looking quite impressive these days!

This is the second building (of 3 total).

And now, because I'm Steve's wife, I will take a bigger liberty in showing off the other area of growth in the Markowski world in the past several years. Here are some photos of the youngest Markowskis (Peter's grandchildren, Ruby and Roman) at Halloween. Steve was a sad scoundrel, the CEO of Lehman Brothers, although we realized after making the costume that the CEO is probably not as sad as many of the employees who left without golden parachutes. Hey, Mr. CEO, want to ride off into the sunset in a Ferrari?

Happy Halloween!

Ferrari 365 GTC/4 engine installed

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:31:00 +0000

I wonder how long it has been since this C/4 has been together? We bought it with the engine out of the chassis and do not know how long it was apart before we bought the car.

Anyhow, after painting the car, re-upholstering some of the interior and replacing all of the shocks, now the engine is back in and getting close to propelling the car again.
I am excited to drive this car because we have done so much to make it a great car.

Ferrari 250 GT Lusso engine

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:56:00 +0000

I think I know why this high miles Lusso was garaged for so many years. I would guess that it was driven the 95,000 miles when new, then the clutch gave up, a valve lash screw came undone and numerous other things seemed to have given up that sidelined the car.

We are overhauling and detailing this engine as well as the engine bay so when we decide to re-paint the car this area will be gorgeous! We are installing higher lift camshafts and slightly higher compression pistons to make this car perform a little more like a competition SWB.

1972 Porsche 911 engine

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:41:00 +0000

A 70,000 mile 1972 Porsche 911T came into our shop after sitting for man yyears in a barn. The brakes were sticking, shocks were bound up and the engine had numerous oil leaks and was pushing smoke out of the tail pipe.

We decided to repair all of the items to make the car safe to drive. We replaced all of the shocks, re-built the brakes, re-finished the wheels and addressed a number of other items. The car went down the road like a champ, but the smoke and oil leaks hindered going further. Also, the knocking noise in the timing chest were too bad to ignore.

We decided to break down the engine, perform a valve job and install new piston rings. We are not going to split the case but we will replace all of the seals and gaskets. One thing that was a issue was the original chain tensioning units collapsed which would be catastrophic had we driven the car more.

Needless to say, we are going to replace the tensioners with the updated oil pressure charged units. Have a look at the slack in the timing chain on the LH bank!

Dyno Results for the three cars

noreply@blogger.com (Gillian) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:47:00 +0000

OK, the wait is over, the HP and torque results for the 3 Ferraris was as follows.

330 GTC. 287 HP and 284 Torque

Daytona Coupe 337 HP 315 Torque

365 Berlinetta Boxer 328 HP and 288 torque

I will work to put the graphs on the blog later this week so you can see the HP and torque curves. It was interesting to see the peak torque curve on the BB to be at under 4000RPM!

Ferrari 308 engine is finished

noreply@blogger.com (Gillian) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:40:00 +0000

The 308 engine is finished and has been test run with great success. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to video the engine running because Casey broke down the set up before I got there with the camera. Anyhow, no leaks or problems. It tuned in well and works well with the Crane Cams ignition that was installed on the car prior to us starting this project.

Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona on the Dyno

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:45:00 +0000

Here is the third and final car on the chassis dyno. A early production Daytona.

Power specs on the next blog entry!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LKtDQIOUWo

Ferrari 330 GTS

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:36:00 +0000

We sold this 1967 Ferrari 330 GTS a year ago and much to our embarrassment, the car never ran properly for the new owner. It would run out of power at low speed and run poorly at idle. It seemed to behave at speed but who cares when every other area it seemed to misfire. Even though we overhauled the engine less than 500 miles ago, it never performed well for the new owner.

What we found was that one of the Weber DFI carburetors had a casting flaw that allowed fuel to leak from the float chamber to the intake stream UNDER the throttle plate. You would look into the venturi as the engine ran and witness no fuel dripping as we often do when an accelerator pump diaphragm leaks or a float level is set too high but we couldn't see any dripping.

It was not until seeing some excessive steam/smoke coming from the carburetor choke fueling cylinders 9-10 that I pulled the carburetor.

Fuel was indeed leaking under the throttle plate through the idle air bleed screw.
Now the engine runs perfectly and the car is off again to the new owner!

Ferrari 330 GTC dyno run

noreply@blogger.com (Gillian) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:38:00 +0000

Here is the run for the 330 GTC, we overhauled this engine about 2000 miles ago so it has "limbered up" but we found it to be running slightly lean on the test. Here is the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMbeUa8o5Ig

Ferrari 365 Boxer on the chassis Dynomometer

noreply@blogger.com (Gillian) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 18:35:00 +0000

As I mentioned earlier, I brought 3 Ferraris to do some test runs on the Chassis Dynomometer in Burlington. I was very impressed with the results. Ferrari has been known to embellish the horsepower figures of there engines but we found the actual readings closer (not as high) to the factory figures.

Here is a youtube clip of the 365 BB run

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia1kRbWunDo

Ferrari 512 Berlinetta Boxer and 365 BB

noreply@blogger.com (Gillian) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:31:00 +0000

Here are two cars, a 512BB and a 365BB, We are getting close on the 512BB. Love that Blue Sera Metallic paint!

Ferrari 308 GTS engine

noreply@blogger.com (Gillian) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:30:00 +0000

The Ferrari 308 GTS engine is coming together nicely and Casey will have the heads on by the end of the week. We Opened up the transmission to see how the synchros, bearings and gears looked and found everything looking perfect. The input bearings were pitted so those are replaced and for some reason the pilot shaft bearing in the bell housing was terrible so at near $500 we replaced this as well.

Stay tuned as we are going to test run this engine on the stand to make sure all is well with oil leaks and performance

Ferrari Footwear in Florham Park

noreply@blogger.com (Gillian) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:40:00 +0000

Hi Friends of RPM. Gillian Markowski here, Steve's wife and partner. I'm doing a little guerilla blogging. Steve and I went down to Florham Park, NJ this weekend for the Garden State Ferrari Fall Festival. The event is organized by our good friend and sometimes customer David North.

It's always great to get out of Vermont and see that yes, people actually do live in other places. People in these other places also seem to have more exciting taste in foot apparel. We observed many Ferrari-red socks and shoes at the show. It seems like the one event where the men dressed more colorfully than the women, especially where feet are concerned. A rarity, must be.

We brought down two cars for one of our customers and he walked away with an armful of awards. Steve could tell you more about the cars in a later post. They were a 1961 and a 1964 Ferrari. One of the cars is all original and had only 3,000 miles on it from new. Our customer was beaming like a kid in a candy shop when award after award kept coming his way. He won two Platinums for Best in Class, one award for Oldest Serial Number, and also Best in Show! I had a great time getting to know him and his family better. He has always loved cars but not specifically Ferraris. I think his affection for the make might have warmed with this wonderful show and he is considering showing these at Cavalino this year.

Dave did a great job organizing and "hosting" the show, which was held at the Park Avenue Club. This amazing building is a renovated old barn. I kept looking for a spider in a corner or some dust webs, but everything was impeccable. It's always great to see Dave and his wife Debbie. They are longtime friends, going back to before we were married 6 years ago. I'm going to post some more photos I took at the show.

365 Ferraris, GTB/4 and GT/4BB

noreply@blogger.com (Gillian) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:15:00 +0000

Here is a neat evolution, an early Daytona coupe next to a 365 BB, the next Ferrari in the series. This particular Ferrari Boxer is the third one produced and is rumored to be the earliest one in existence.

We are going to do a chassis dynomometer run on Friday and I will post the results as to which 4.4 liter Ferrari 12 engine has more power. Based on driving the cars back-to-back, I bet that the BB has more horsepower.

Ferrari 212 engine for Vignale

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:14:00 +0000

After much work and fussing, we got the 212 engine running.

Here is a video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNlv7UTq3MI

Ferrari Aluminum work

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:29:00 +0000

We are getting the body nearly finished for the 212 and need to put some weight in it to make sure the wheel openings look good. We removed the body to get the car to the alignment shop to make sure all of the wheels are pointing in the same direction to be hyper-vigilant about this wheel opening detail.

1971 Jaguar XKE Coupe

noreply@blogger.com (RPMVT) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:51:00 +0000

Evidentially this is a rare car, they only made a handful of 6 cylinder coupes in this year. It is a great looking car as far as I am concerned and would be even better looking if I could sell it and get it out of my shop!

It was a great running and driving car that we overhauled the engine on 5-6 years and few miles ago. After driving the car about 1000 miles the customer decided he did not want his feet to go through the floor Flintstones style so we started to work to replace the floors and rocker panels.

Now, it is sell time. Anyone want her.

Once the floors and rockers are done it should have the rear sub-frame mounts replaced and calipers overhauled. Overall, a great car that offers lots of potential!