Sneak preview of PLX Devices R-800

As you may have read, I'm not particularly impressed with the PLX Devices R-500 unit that I'm currently fitting to my car. The screen is awful and it's not particularly user friendly, plus it's a pain to mount in the dash since it's a bit on the large side and the thick cable that extrudes out the side of the device is not very malleable and is therefore hard to route.

However, searching around on the internet, I've seen references to a replacement that PLX Devices are about to bring out, which annoys me even more since I only bought the R-500 this year and it's already being replaced. However, reading on the PLX Forums, it seems that they may offer some rebate to customers of the R-500, so I might try and upgrade it.

It's Christmas

I've not been very active recently on this blog. That's mainly due to it now being winter and the car being officially kept off the road since they've started salting the roads.

I was actually surprised how long the good weather held out for though, since I kept driving the car into late November. Durig this time, I almost got the installation of the PLX Devices data logger installed. The only things still to be hooked up are the speedometer and knock sensor, which will then enable me to get some on road dyno testing done, since I installed the optional G-meter.

I have got some results from the data logger already though. There's definitely something odd going on with the inlet pressure. At first I thought the pressure sensor in the engine bay was not calibrated correctly, since according to this the inlet pressure was going off the scale. However, I'm now starting to think that the boost controller may not be reading the correct pressure and that there's a leak in the vacuum hose to the controller.

I've been slowly reducing the inlet pressure using the boost controller and indeed, if I keep it low then I seem to be able to work out the hesitation that I'm getting around 4000 rpm. So I definitely think the stuttering problems are inlet pressure related.

I've been logging the inlet temperature also. This has been quite insightful, since it is typically running at around 50 degrees C and only when hard pushed does it get up to 70 odd degrees. So it's much less than I anticipated, which means I can stop worrying about changing out the intercoolers and save some money there.

The strange and slightly worrying thing is the engine speed signal. It routinely drops and runs lower than the actual speed. This is worrying since I've tapped into the signal from the engine speed sensor, so if I'm getting an unreliable reading then it's likely that the ECU is also, which may mean that the ECU is not operating the engine as well as it should be.

I've also been monitoring exhaust gas temperature and been pretty surprised here also. The normal operating temperature is around 200-300 degrees C and you have to push very hard to get it up to around 700 degrees C. I've not had it anywhere near 900 degrees C, which is when I start to worry a bit.

I also hooked up the wideband lambda probe to the ECU via the data logger and have been keeping an eye on the mixture. I think that the wideband actually responds too quickly for the ECU since at idle the engine revs have been swinging up and down a bit. Also, the mixture may be a little too lean at idle, since the car seems to stall a bit easier. But that could be to do with the colder weather also?

I still need to tidy up in the cockpit, since there's wires running everywhere in the passenger foot well. I've left it messy until I complete the installation of the data logger. I also need to figure out where to mount the device. It's pretty ugly and the screen is pretty crap too since it's almost impossible to read it on strong daylight. I wouldn't recommend anyone buying this data logger... I'm not particularly impressed with it to be honest.

In the long term, I'm planning on changing out the ECU. Jarle in Norway is currently updating the one on his bi-turbo with a Haltech ECU and if it all goes to plan then I think I'm going to go the same way. May be a job for 2008.

Wheel Spacers Fitted

Apologies for not posting for a while... that doesn't mean that I've not been busy with the car though!

A couple of weeks back I had some wheel spacers fitted. This was primarily driven by the fact that my front tires were rubbing a little on the suspension and inside the wheel arch, so I decided to push the front wheels out by an additional 3 mm. It doesn't sound like much, but it turns out to be about right... the rubbing seems to have stopped and there's not much space to push the wheels out anymore.


As you can see in the picture above, these front spacers are very slim and as such there is not need to make them hub-centric. I also purchased some new wheel bolts all 'round to accommodate the extra width... now 45 mm in length.


The spacers are specifically made to fit the Ghibli and therefore align perfectly with the PCD and also the centre bore.


The wheel is then mounted to sandwich the spacer... you should be able to make out the shiny spacer in the picture above.

On the rear I decided to be a bit more brave and pushed the wheels out by 10 mm. This extra width necessitates a hub-centric spacer, which you can see in the picture below means that there's a hub machined to stick out of the spacer. Inside the hub fits the male hub from the car and the wheel then sits onto the spacer's hub.


It probably makes more sense in the picture below where you can see the new spacer mounted onto the car's hub.


I'm happy with the end result. The car looks more aggressive and much more sporty, especially viewing it from the front three quarter, where the width of the rear tires is now much more noticeable. The car seems to handle a bit better too... I'm sure I'm getting a bit more traction now at the rear when accelerating hard out of corners.


If I can just get some more power to the back wheels, then there's space now to fit some 265 mm tires on the back! I'd also love to drop the car down a couple of centimetres, but I'm concerned that the engine sump would then be a bit too exposed?

Missing exhaust bracket fitted

Last week the replacement bracket to fix the new exhaust to the gearbox arrived. I ordered the part from David Askew and as you can see it's brand new from the factory, still in the original packaging.

I got the part fitted yesterday. As you'd expect, it didn't line up perfectly with the attachment points on the exhaust, but it's good enough!


I had to order two parts, both of which are different to the original ones from the MY92 variant of the Ghibli. The triangular part that attaches to the gearbox is not offset like the old one was and the long part is about 3-4 cm longer than the original part.

So, that's the fitting of the new exhaust finished. After driving around with it for a bit now, it's not massively louder than the original system, but there's certainly a sweet spot... around 3000 rpm it sounds like a proper Italian engine!

Picture of Jonny's Ghibli found on the web

Seems some more pictures from the Maserati event at the TT Circuit Assen are making their way onto the web. Below is a picture someone took of me driving down the start/finish straight with the ANWB roadside assistance mechanic that changed my hose clamp in the passenger seat!


The car is squatting a far bit more at the rear than I thought it was... it didn't look like it was so much on the video. I noticed that the Shamals on the track were squatting a fair bit too, so I wonder if it's to do with the springs used on these cars or maybe the rear axle set up, which was changed on the post ABS variant Ghiblis?

Replacement front section exhaust

Ok, I'm finally writing up the fitting of the replacement front section exhaust.

To recap, I originally ordered a replacement from Larini, but unfortunately it didn't fit so I sent it back and Larini gave me a full refund... so hats off to them for customer service.

Instead, I ordered the Maserati OEM de-cat front section, made by the factory for cars sold to Saudi Arabia. I'd heard on the Maserati Bi-turbo forum (thoroughly recommended by the way... it's a very active forum) that this OEM part is made from stainless steel, although not particularly well finished. However, it's considerably cheaper than the 3rd party replacements available on the market, so I figured what the hell and ordered one.


As you can see, the design of the OEM replacement is very simple and what I'd expect for a straight through design... just straight piping in place of the cats. Not only is this cheaper to manufacture, but it also helps minimise exhaust back pressure, since every bend results in a pressure drop. Also, the OEM replacement is made from a larger diameter tubing... it appears to be 50 mm in diameter versus about 40 mm for the original tubing and the rear section that I have fitted. Again, this is good for minimising back pressure.

Finishing of the OEM replacement indeed isn't great. Where this is particularly noticeable is in the fitting of the small diameter cross flow pipes that joint the left and right side pipes to maintain equal (positive) pressure on both sides.


The picture above shows the inside of the piping and you can see on the left hand pipe there's a considerable sized "burr" sticking out into the inside of the pipe. Essentially, the factory never took the time to clean up after welding in the small pipe. It's not a major thing though.

So, everything was looking OK until the replacement section was positioned against a similar part to that which it was replacing... it was about 7 cm longer! It turns out that when the ABS variant of the Ghibli was introduced in 1994, Maserati decided to lengthen this front section exhaust. This is reflected in the part numbers, where the part numbers for this section subtly change. But the strange thing is, the rear sections didn't seem to change, so I can only assume that the rear section remains the same length for all variants of Ghibli. Therefore, the additional length of the front section must be taken up in the bends of the rear section on the post ABS variant cars.

This explains quite a few things, in particular why the Larini part didn't fit. It now seems obvious that there part had been modelled on a post ABS variant Ghibli and therefore should fit these cars no problem at all.

However, this realisation didn't help me!


Fortunately, Jorrit at Auto Forza who was fitting the exhaust for me discovered that there's a steel workshop not far from his workshop that specialises in forming stainless steel, particularly stainless steel tubing... a lucky break! What they did to shorten the exhaust was to cut it and then enlarge one end of the cut with a mandrel which fits inside the pipe and expands it from the inside. Sufficient length of pipe was expanded such that the other cut end could be inserted inside the expanded end, such that they overlapped by the required shortening length. You can make this out in the picture above.

The nice thing about this technique is that it keeps the inside of the pipe flush and smooth, since the weld of the pipes is made against the outside of internal pipe, which is good for gas flow.


The next problem was that this exhaust replacement was meant for a post ABS variant Ghibli and therefore came equipped with two lambda ports, one on each pipe. However, my car is equipped with a single lambda probe and on the original exhaust this is mounted on the front cross flow pipe in front of the cats, as you can see in the picture below.


I could just have installed the probe on one side with the assumption that both banks run about the the same, but I had another driver, since I'm looking to install a wideband lambda so I therefore want to measure average values from both banks.


The solution to this was to drill a hole in the cross flow pipe and weld in a nut with the appropriate thread for the new sensor. This turned out to be easier said than done, since we didn't have the right sized nut to had to make one, plus the diameter of the cross flow pipe is quite small, so the face that was being welded onto it had to be profiled.


However, the end result turned out fine. We made sure that there was sufficient space to install the probe (get at it with a spanner). It looks like it sticks up a lot in the picture above, but it fits under the car fine without touching the underside, as you can see in the picture below.


Next, I wanted to install an Exhaust Gas Temperature sensor onto the replacement exhaust. This needs to be placed as close as possible to the outlet of the turbo. Unfortunately, I only have one sensor, but it turns out that installing one on the drivers side pipe would be tricky since there's not much space. So we decided to install it on the passenger side.


As you can see from the picture above, we drilled another hole and welded on a nut with the appropriate thread pretty close to the flange connection that joins the exhaust to the turbo outlet manifold. The picture below shows that the location turned out to be spot on, with sufficient space for the sensor and to run the stiff cable into the cabin.


When it came to fitting the replacement section, we realised again that the mounting lugs didn't align with the mounting bracket that is attached to the gearbox housing. The picture below shows the OEM exhaust, but it seems when Maserati changed the design of the front section they also increased the distance between the two pipes around the gearbox. As a result, I've had to order a new mounting bracket to attach the replacement section to the gearbox housing. Fortunately, it's quite cheap!


Once the replacement front section was installed, the rear section needed readjusting to align the outlets in the rear bumper... we ended up having to get the gas out and heat up the rear section to try and get a bit more bend in it (but stainless steel is not as malleable as carbon steel). In the end, a tighter rubber hanger did the trick.

As you can hear on a previous posting, the new front section leads to a much more aggressive rumble from emanating out of the back of the car and slightly louder, although not half as loud as I expected it to be. Performance wise, it's hard to tell if there's any benefit since there's something not right with the engine set up at present... but I'm working on that. Once that's sorted, I may be able to better gauge the value of the replacement.

The new fixing bracket should arrive within the next, along with some wheel spacers that I ordered. I return to Jorrit to get these fitted and while I'm there I'm planning on doing a couple more tests... a cylinder leak test and a change of spark plugs and if we get time I'd like to test the mechanical timing.

Maserati Event at the TT Circuit Assen

On the 8th September there was a Maserati event held at the TT Circuit Assen (Netherlands) organised by the Maserati Club International.

I was fortunate enough to receive an invite in the post a couple of days before the event and prompty re-organised my schedule to attend. I'm glad I did, since there were plenty of classic Maserati cars there to admire and I even got the opportunity to race against a few on the track!

I've posted some pictures from the event which you can view by clicking on the picture below.


I also managed to capture some video footage of the cars out on the track which you can view below.


And my wife captured a bit of footage of my car driving down the start/finish straight which you can see below:


It was great to drive around the tight and twist TT circuit and gave me the opportunity to test out my car on the limit. My first lap was a warm up to get accustomed to the track and I was joined by my wife in the passenger seat. But unfortunately she only lasted one lap before politely asking to be excused since she was feeling a little motion sick... unfortunate because I'd liked her to have taken some in car video footage around the track!

With my wife out of the car, I really got to give it all around the track and found my car handled very neutrally around the bends. As I expected, the car has a high tendancy to understeer on tighter corners, but this is soon compensated with some extra throttle, upon which the car can be made to drift relatively easily and in a very predictable and controlled manner. About one third into the course is a very tight second gear corner where I nearly lost the rear end... but the skid pan training that I had a couple of years ago paid off and I was able to catch it by applying considerable opposite lock. I wish I'd caught some video footage of that!

Twice I blew off the inlet piping connection to the throttle manifold (the one on the left side) which resulted in me having to do a lap with no boost. This made me realise what a huge effect the turbo chargers have on the performance of this car... with no boost I struggled to keep up with an old Citreon that was on the track!

The second time the inlet blew off I asked an ANWB roadside assistance guy for help and he kindly replaced the clamp with a new one. He then timidly asked if he could sit in the passenger seat, so I ended up doing my final three laps with him smiling and giggling alongside me. I don't think he knew what he was getting himself into, but he certainly seemed to enjoy the experience!

I was very impressed with my Mov'it brakes. They performed extremely well with not a hint of fade. I even suspect that I was out breaking the Ghibli Open Cup and Barchetta that were also out on the track; although these cars were undoubtedly quicker on the straights and around the corners, I felt I caught them on braking, although admittedly I was getting a little too confident towards the end and found myself carrying more and more speed into the corners.

I need to do something about my front wheel arches, since around the right hand bends there was a fair amount of fouling occuring, particularly with the additional weight of a passenger. Maybe the wheel spacers I've order will sort this out?

Also, after completing my laps the engine oil pressure gauge dipped low and the warning lamp lit up. I immediately checked for leaks and measured the oil level, but both were fine. I therefore suspect that my oil got a bit too hot, which doesn't surprise me given that my car doesn't have an oil cooler like the later versions.

Driving the car on the track was a great experience and one that I'd love to repeat some time soon. However, it wrecks road tires... my fronts especially over heated and show signs of damage. If I'm to take my car on the track more often then there's a couple of ugrades that I'd invest in... an oil cooler and some stiffer suspension springs would be on the top of that list.

Back at the Dyno

I know I haven't posted anything new on the exhaust yet, or on the Maserati Club International event in Assen, but I'm getting 'round to them.

In the meantime, I've been back to the dyno and to prove it I made a very short video.


The dyno results are below, with the bold lines the new results overlaying the previous results.


As you can see, I've dropped the boost pressure a little which results in a lower peak torque and less agressive ramp up. However, as a result I now have a longer flat section from 4000 rpm to about 5,500 rpm.

Overall performance can be determined by calculating the area beneath the curves... in mathematical terms, if you integrate the curve you'll calculate the actual work done. So although the new curve is not as peaky, across the rev range it's more effective, which should translate as being quicker on the road.

I think there's still some scope to tweak the inlet pressure a little, but it won't yield any big improvements. There's something fundamental preventing me from getting more power out of this engine and I can't quite put my finger on it. Fuelling is not the issue... if anything it's running too rich at the top end, but the chip tuner prefers this since it's much less likely that the engine is going to fail. But it shows that the current injectors are more than up to the job.

So if there's enough fuel, is there enough air? Air supply to the compressors is not the issue, since last time I was at the tuners I did a run with no air filters and there was hardly any difference (so I think the air filters I have fitted are more than good enough). So, maybe I'm getting a significant amount of pressure leak between the compressors and the inlet manifold? To check this I'll need to place a pressure gauge near to the outlet of the compressor and compare this with the pressure at the plenum chamber. It could be that the turbos are having to work very hard to maintain 1.20 bar, which is effecting their efficiency.

Another simple thing to try is to connect the stock boost solenoid... although it won't be controlling the inlet pressure, it's absense may be alerting the ECU and knocking it into safe mode. I don't think the Ghibli ECU has an error check circuit for this like modern cars, but I don't know, so it's worth checking it.

If it's not air supply then it has to come down to timing. I certainly think this is what is preventing me going above 1.20 bar, but I think I should be getting better performance at 1.20 bar, so I'm not going to go down this route yet. I think I should be able to get 360 hp out of this engine at 1.20 bar, so I need to find out what's preventing this before looking at changing out the distribution system.

So... the sooner I install the PLX data logger the better I think.

New exhaust fitted

Well, I got the new mid section fitted on Tuesday. I'll write a longer post over the weekend, but in the meantime, here's a short "before and after" video.

Maserati in the Press

The Maserati brand appears to be drumming up some excitement among the press. I've just been on a business trip overseas and paid my usual visit to the newsagent at the airport to pick up some reading material for the long plane journey. It was a pleasant surprise to find not one, but two car magazines featuring Maserati, both of which mentioning the Maserati Ghibli!

The first I picked up was Classic Car magazine, which had a two page feature on the Ghibli (both the new and the old version!). The second was Car magazine, which had a page rating all the Maserati cars to date as "Good, Bad or Ugly". I'm happy to say that the Ghibli was assessed by both magazines as a great car! Although I'm happy to see that others are starting to appreciate this car, I'm also keen to keep it a secret! However, such good publicity can only be positive with respect to pricing.

Alternative exhaust sourced

Well, following the disappointing news from Larini (they're currently developing some products for the Maserati 4200 so don't have time or see the value in refining the Ghibli cat replacement products) I've ended up ordering an OEM Maserati exhaust.


Maserati made a de-cat version of the front exhaust exclusively for cars being shipped for the Saudi market and there's still some units remaining in stock at the factory. Seems there's not a high demand for these parts, since the price is very reasonable... I'm saving almost 50% over the Larini system. It won't look as nice as the Larini system, but it's still made of stainless steel and since it sits beneath the car you don't see it anyway. So hopefully it will arrive while I'm away on a business trip and be ready for me to have installed when I return in a week or so.

I've also had a quote for the wheel spacers from a German supplier. However, I've changed my mind on the front spacers, where I'm only going to install 3 mm spacers, since the wheels are already pretty flush with the arches. But at the rear, I'm going to install 10 mm spacers since there's plenty of spacer there. It should help the grip at the rear a little too.

Exhaust problems

Well, as you're aware I ordered a replacement cat section for my Ghibli from Larini, which arrived a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, it didn't fit, so Larini paid for the system to be returned to them, I thought for modification.

However, they now want to refund my money and pull their range of cat replacement systems for the Ghibli since they can't gaurantee that they can offer a direct replacement system. It seems that there's large tolerances in the Maserati design and so the chances of the replacement system fitting without needing significant modification is too low.

Therefore, I need to source an alternative supplier. This is a real shame since I'd prefer to have had a complete exhaust system from a single source, but seems that the only way of getting the replacement cat section from Larini to fit would be to take the car to their workshop.

I should stress that the Larini rear section system does fit however, since the design of this section enables sufficient flexibility to line it up properly beneath the car.

So I'm now waiting for a response from Tubi Style's European distributor Italparts to see if they can provide me with a system, as listed on Enrico's pages. The part number for the cat section is 03029311030. I sent them an email yesterday and gave them a call this morning and they should be getting back to me this afternoon. Fingers crossed!

Home at last

I finally got my Ghibli back this weekend after what seems an eternity. The last couple of weeks have certainly been eventful! As you can see from the picture above, I no longer have a large crack in the center of the front bumper, so now there's nothing to distract the eye from the fabulous shiny trident!


The replacement bumpers are of the new variety, made from a flexible plastic material versus the stiff fibre glass used for the old bumper that proved itself to be pretty brittle. As you can see in the picture above, the new bumpers are without the black rubber insert for protecting against scratches from minor nudges, but instead the new ones are a single tone. I think the new ones look nicer for it.


I also had the rear bumper replaced as the corners on the old ones had cracked as well as starting to flake a little around the exhaust outlets.

The new exhausts, given that they're much more flexible, require a steel plate to be installed across the width of the car onto which to bolt to provide some rigidity to the bumper. The factory was out of stock for the rear bar, with the part on back order and not available until September some time. I therefore purchased the part from David Askew instead, since he had it in stock. Despite being brand new and still in the original packaging, the part still required bending into shape before fitting. Maserati obviously did not have a tight tolerance on this part!

For the front stiffening bar, the factory did send a part, which was labelled as being for the front of a Ghibli. However, when Jorrit came to fit it, it turned out to have been mislabelled at the factory; it was in fact the rear bar from a Quatroporte. Although the factory said they had the proper part in stock and would send it immediately, after a couple of days it turned out that the part was also on back order at the factory and would not be available until September. I therefore ended up driving to visit David Askew, since I was over in the UK this weekend anyway visiting my parents. He had a used part in decent shape, which although required a bit of bending into shape, looked like new after Jorrit gave it a spray of paint.


The paint shop also removed the dent from the left front wing. They even touched up the paint, which is more than I asked for, but I'm not complaining since they did a good job! I'm sure I'll pay for it though.

Unfortunately, I'm still waiting to get the new front section exhaust to get fitted; the replacement needs a bit of refinement, but should be sorted soon.

It's great to have the car back since I've really missed driving it. I did have a bit of a scare today though... I was watching the voltmeter and noticed it slowly dropping from 12 volts, down to 11 volts and slowly less less. I was sure the alternator had packed in, so hurriedly drove back home before the car shut down. When I got back I got the multi-meter out and measured the voltage across the battery... 12.7 volts. Then with the engine running... 14.3 volts. Seems that the volt meter circuit has some problems... the voltmeter has been playing up for a while, intermittently on and off, but I've not seen it misreading before. Something new to look into!

Service delays...

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'll be driving to France in my Ghibli this weekend. I dropped the car off with Jorrit on Wednesday last week and seems that it's still at the body shop having the new bumpers installed and a couple of dents rolled out.

Since Jorrit has a reasonable amount of work to do on the car when he gets it (hopefully this afternoon), it doesn't seem likely that it will be ready for me to pick up on Friday afternoon. So that means I won't get to pick it up until a week on Monday, since I'll be away on holiday all next week.

That's a real shame since I was really looking forward to giving the car a long drive, hopefully with it back on top performance and kicking out 360 hp. So will have to wait until I drive back to the UK in a couple of weeks time... that's still a good drive though, so should get to test it out then.

Can't wait... I miss my car!

Lamborghini Diablo

You may recall that my wife booked me a drive in a Lamborghini (I posted it a few months back). Well, today was the day that I finally got to drive it!

From Lamborghini D...

As you can see, it wasn't the Gallardo as my wife thought she'd booked, but instead a Diablo. To be honest, I was far from disappointed at the news, since the Diablo was the last of the true Lamborghinis, with the evolution of the classic V12 engine and the rough and ready feel coupled with extravagant styling. There's more pictures if you click on the link below the picture above.

The first thing I thought when getting in the car was "Oh no... there's not enough space in here for me!". The car simply wasn't designed for people of my height, so I had to seriously bend my head down and squeeze my legs around the steering wheel to get to the pedals. Although the car is far larger than a Lotus Elise, the driving position and effective space is about the same. But the owner of the car who was to be my passenger for the hour drive convinced me that I'd be OK, so I started up the engine and was introduced to the V12 engine... what a beautiful sounding thing that is!


The first thing you notice when driving the car away is how heavy the clutch and steering are! This is not an easy car to drive at low speeds. Also, the gearbox has the dog leg 1st gear at the bottom left of the fabulous polished gear gate... what a fantastic sound that thing makes as you clunk through the gears! The gear shift is a little tricky, with a fair throw distance and 1st and 2nd gear being a bit tricky to engage, requiring a little blip on the throttle and some confident pressure to persuade these gears to engage.

To be honest, I drove the car very timidly for most of my journey. I am always weary of these cars at first until I get a feel for them, since they pack so much torque and power that it's easy to get them out of shape. But my biggest concern was having the owner sat next to me, who would only allow me 20km/h over the speed limits and to utilise only 5000 rpm of the available 8000 rpm range. So I really didn't want to upset him. But by the end of the journey, I was starting to feel more confident in the car and certainly would have liked to continue driving the car longer to really get to grips with it. But my hour was too soon over when I found myself back at the starting point.

It was a great experience to drive this car, which is pretty rare with only 2900 made, or which only about 30 are in the Netherlands. I'd love to try the car on the track, since the speed limits and excessive enforcement of these in the Netherlands mean that you can't really try out the car properly. So it really needs a trip to Zandvoort or across the border to Germany.

If anyone's interested in trying out this car for themselves, here's the website of the owner.

So... all that remains is to say a very big thank you to my wife for organising this for me!

Wheel spacers

Since fitting my Compomotive wheels, I've been very concious of the fact that, on full steering lock, the tires are interferring with the suspension geometry... the rubber of the tire is rubbing against one of the uprights.

It's not a major problem and only occurs at slow speeds when parking or turning round tight corners, although on one occassion I was making a reasonably hard turn at a decent speed and hit a bump in the road, which also cause the tire to knock against the upright, but this has only happened on one occassion.

I could just leave it, since it's not causing any damage. However, I know it's there so it's always a nagging concern when I'm driving, so I'd rather get it sorted. One solution would be to fit some narrower tires on the front. I'm currently running 225mm width tires on the front and I'm very happy with the way that these are performing. I certainly don't need bigger tires on the front, but the car is handling significantly better than it used to with 205mm tires on the front. So I don't really want to go down this route.

The alternative is therefore to decrease the offset of the front wheels a little, to make the wheels stick out a bit more. This can be achieved by installing wheel spacers. Since the front wheels are already pretty flush with the body, I don't have a lot of space to push them out further, so I'm limiting the decrease in offset to 5mm. This should be sufficient to prevent the tires touching the suspension geomety and as long as the wheels are protruding less than 20mm from the body, the car remains street legal.

It's important to maintain a hubcentric installation for the loading of the wheels onto the hub, which means that the wheels must be located onto the hub via the shaft that extrudes from the hub. This then transmits the load from the wheel to the hub and wheel bearing via the shaft rather than relying on the bolts to transfer the load, which means that the wheel bolts are only loaded axially to pinch the wheel onto the hub rather than taking any shear force; the weight of the car is supported is transferred to the wheels via the central shaft.

For a 10mm spacer, this would mean purchasing a hubcentric spacer, which is machined with a shaft that mates with the center bore of the wheel, which has a diameter of 58.6mm. However, for 5mm spacers, the existing shaft should be sufficiently long to still mate with the wheel center bore, without having to extend it with the spacer. So it's important that I check that this is the case when I install the spacer, otherwise I risk shearing the wheel bolts, which could be quite messy!

Since there's still plenty of space between the wheel arches and the tires at the back of the car, I'll also install some 5mm spacers on the back of the car to keep the track of the wheels in line. I could probably go with more than 5mm at the back, but I've two reasons not to do this. The first is the cost. First, a hubcentric 10mm spacer is about twice the cost of a 5mm spacer since it involves considerably more machining to manufacture. Second is that I'll probably install wider tires on the back of the car when the current ones have worn out, increasing them from the curren 255mm to 265mm. Therefore, if I install 5mm spacers on the back then, after fitting 265mm tires the net result will be a decrease in offset of 10mm at the back, which will fill the rear arches better. On the inside of the wheel, the net result will be the inside of the tire will be at the same location as the current setup, which I know will fit; if I fit 265mm tires on the current set up there's a risk that I'll get interference on the rear wheels.

After emailing with Compomotive wheels to try and source some spacers, they referred me to a very useful websit of a German spacer manufacturer called SCC Fahrzeugtechnik. They manufacture spacers specifically for Maserati cars, so it's a very useful link for anyone wishing to decrease the offset on their Maserati car. Unfortunately, they don't support consumer purchases, so buying the spacers has to be done through a local distributor. After emailing the Dutch importer (EFCA Import), I'm now waiting on Henze Autobanden in Den Haag to get back to me with availability. Hopefully don't have to wait too long, but seems the German manufacturer are about to close down the factory for their summer holidays, so might have to wait a couple of months?

Latest parts have arrived...

I dropped my car off this afternoon with Jorrit at Auto Forza for him to work on the list of jobs I listed a couple of posts ago. Hopefully it will be ready before the end of next week so that I can drive down to France in it with my wife for our holiday!

The new front section Larini de-cat sports exhaust was unpacked and waiting at Jorrit's workshop. As you can see below, it's seems overly complicated for a de-cat exhaust, with all the original bends in of the Maserati OEM exhaust and even the flange connection between where the two cats are located on the original exhaust. No wonder it wasn't cheap!


So both Jorrit and I are wondering why they've not just made a single, straight pipe section? I suspect it has something to do with them making it as a modular part, that can be used to build up any of the exhaust options... either sports cat, de-cat muffled or straight through pipes like I have. If they're really advanced, it might be to make the sections equal length or maybe to minimise resonance in the exhaust? I'll have to ask them...

Also arrived are my replacement bumpers. These are the new style ones fitted to the ABS Ghibli and later models, essentially made from a much more malleable material that is less prone to cracking as suffered by the bumpers currently fitted on my car.


Since they're much less stiff than my current bumpers, they require a steel plate to be installed behind them to keep them in shape and offer some resistance to impact. As you can see, they need spraying, which should get finished tomorrow.

There's always something interesting going on at Jorrit's when I visit... I arrived to find him playing with a Quatroporte V8 Evoluzione engine that he'd dismantled, which he seemed to take pleasure talking me though and explaining what he was doing with it... which of course I found extremely interesting!

I couldn't help but notice the black Shamal that he had in there too... I recognised it instantly as belonging to Mark... there's not many Shamal's around after all, so it was a fair bet. It was great having a look around the engine bay... there's so many parts common to my Ghibli. Jorrit treated me my starting up the engine so that I could listen to the warbling V8... hope you don't mind Mark... but it sounds great with a pretty smooth idle compared to my Ghibli.


Anyway, can't wait to pick up the car and try out the new exhaust... I really hope it will be ready next week!

On the road again...

After a couple of weeks of rain, there's been a break in the weather and a spot of sunshine today (my cat Boris can vouch for this... as you can see he loves to sunbathe), so I took advantage of this and took the car for a drive.

I primarily wanted to try the brakes out, since they've now covered well over the bedding in 1000km distance. I therefore got some speed up and gave them a good warming up by seeing how fast I could go from 200km/h down to about 80km/h. They seem to work well, with no sign of fading. I didn't push them so hard as to lock them up, but I certainly had the rear end of the car lightening up and giving a bit of a wiggle. I was also getting a bit confident around the corners and approaching opposite lock territory, but since changing the wheels and fitting much wider tires on the back, the car adheres to the road far more than it used to (going from 225 to 255 width on the rear) so I have to push it quite hard to get the rear out. Traction from stand still is also much better than it used to be, which I'm sure improves the 0-60km/h sprint times.


After picking up the wife, we decided to drive to the beach for a coffee and enjoy the warm weather for a while. On the way back, we stopped off at a travel agent to see if we could organise a holiday in a month or so's time... walking or cycling in France, driving down there in the Ghibli. This kind of puts the pressure on to get the car running good and reliable before then, which is going to be tighter than I thought since Jorrit is having trouble sourcing one of the parts for my new rear bumper.

Since I have a non-ABS Ghibli, it needs adapter brackets fitting in order to install the ABS and later car's bumpers, as you can see from the drawing below.


Part 11 on the drawing is the bit that is missing. Apparently they have it on back order at the factory, which means that it will likely take some time to get delivered. Since I don't mind getting a second hand part (you don't see this part), I wrote to David Askew. Turns out he has a new part in stock, so hopefully I can get this delivered and fitted within the next couple of weeks!

Talking of factory parts, Jorrit was telling me that Maserati have now honoured their 10 year commitment to maintain spare parts at the factory for the Ghibli, but since they have no obligation to keep these for more than 10 years (production stopped around 1997 to 1998), they're likely to let the parts run out now and not replace them. This means that parts for the Ghibli will start to become harder and harder (and likely more expensive) to source.

Garage appointment booked

Not much to report other than the new exhaust should be delivered by the end of this week (Larini seems to be a bit stretched at the moment, since they told me two to three weeks delivery but are taking more like four to five).

All the parts for changing out the bumpers have arrived at the garage except for some of the the adapter fittings (since the new bumpers are designed to fit on an ABS Ghibli, which has a slightly different fitting to the non-ABS cars), but hopefully these will arrive before the end of the week. I also noticed that the rubber elbow pipe leading to my driver's side intercooler was looking a bit cracked and have therefore ordered a new one... which is still yet to arrive, but Jorrit has a decent second hand one in his store which he'll fit if the new part hasn't arrived in time.

Here's a summary of the work that's hopefully getting done:

1. Replace bumpers front and back (including re-spray).
2. Roll out dent on front left wing.
3. Roll out dent in floor in driver’s side foot well.
4. Change out cracked rubber elbow into left intercooler.
5. Fasten boost solenoid valve (the original screw has fallen out).
6. Fabricate and fit new fixing brackets for air boxes.
7. Get the car APK tested (road worthiness test).
8. Fit new exhaust.
9. Fit wide-band lambda probe (including resistor) and wire in data-logger to ECU wiring harness (just the power and lambda probe for now). I need the pin diagram for non-ABS Ghibli (think it's the same as for a 224?). Once I have the pin diagram then I can wire in the other signals. Install the exhaust gas temperature probe on the exhaust and run the cables into the cockpit along with the lambda probe cables. I think there’s a spare port on the exhaust, otherwise will have to drill a hole and weld one on? It’s a 1/8” NPT fitting.
10. The voltmeter still stops working so will see if it can be fixed? Maybe a faulty earth connection?
11. Check engine timing; the car is loosing power above 4000 rpm, which may be an indication of problems with the distributor or valve timing. I’m convinced the car is loosing 10-20% power above 4000 rpm and since the fuelling looks fine from the last dyno (although the wideband lambda will be able to confirm this) the likely culprit is either air flow/temperature (changing the exhaust will help determine this) or timing (I’ve no reason to suspect that the ECU timing is incorrect since it’s not been re-programmed since the car was running well and producing 330 hp). So I think it’s a mechanical problem (unless one of the sensors to the ECU is malfunctioning, but if I get the data logger setup then I should be able to check this).
12. Determine amount of offset required to prevent front wheels from fouling suspension bars on full steering lock; I’ll have some wheel spacers made front and back (additional 10 mm would probably solve the problem?) once I know the required offset.
13. Fit new pin in passenger’s side door hinge. The old one has fallen out and now the door makes a loud cracking noise when opened due to the spring force in the hinge.
14. Check the clutch… the position that the clutch is engaging feels a bit high on the clutch pedal travel (i.e. the clutch pedal is almost fully out before the clutch feels to fully engage). This may be caused by the steep ramp I have to drive up in order to get the park out of the garage where I have the car parked?

If all this is sorted then the car should be running great, plus I can start getting some engine data to play with and use to focus my future upgrading efforts. Plus, once I install the accelerometers then I can get some road dyno results instead of having to go to the dyno all the time.

New exhaust is coming...

Apologies again for not writing for so long... been away on business and then took a short holiday. However, I did manage to order a new mid section exhaust from Larini before heading off on my travels, which should arrive at the garage in the next week or so.

Before playing with the cooling, I want to get the car running how I think it should be with the modification that I've carried out to date. I've also spent a bit of time reading back through this blog and seeing how the car used to perform and I've come to the conclusion that it should be performing better than it actually is at present. That's what prompted the decision to change out the mid section exhaust (coupled with me getting a bonus from work)... I've long suspected one of my cats to be plugged, so changing out the mid section will show whether I'm right or not. The reason I think this is that the car simply doesn't seem to be flowing air at high revs. I know that it's not on the inlet side since the car is running much less losses on the inlet side than a stock car and I know the turbos are in good shape. So the restrictions have to be either on the headers or in the exhaust.

Alternatively, there's something amiss with the timing of the car... and this is something that I'll also have checked out when I take the car to the garage to get the exhaust fitted and to have a few cosmetic maintenance done to the car (changing the bumpers and rolling out a coupe of dents). I'll see if I can also get the data logger installed at the same time.

In the meantime, I've been seeing a few more Maserati around the last couple of weeks. There was a nice looking dark grey Ghibli GT in Den Haag last Friday which looked like the springs had been changed out for lower ones. I also saw a nice 3200 GT in Barcelona a couple of days ago, dark blue with beige leather, exactly what I'm looking for! There's also a silver Ghibli GT that parks outside the royal stables in Den Haag that I see pretty regularly... I think the Ghibli looks good in silver. A couple of weeks ago I also saw a youngish couple drive past in a dark blue Ghibli (again, with what appeared to be shorter springs), again in Den Haag. Seems there's more and more of them around!

Maserati 3200 GT with Gull-Wing Doors?

I was just checking the second hand Maseratis for sale and came across this...


Have to say, I've not seen this before and can't think of a reason why someone would want to do it, but it certainly is unique!

Intercoolers

I've been doing a bit of research on intercoolers having recently found out a couple of things.

First was from Buddy at Wereld Auto who informed me that intercoolers from a VW Golf mark IV TDi will fit on the Ghibli, although the one manifold has to be removed and a new one constructed and welded on its place. The good thing about this solution is that it's cheap (these intercoolers can be purchased on ebay for less than €100) and they offer good performance since they're twice the thickness of standard Ghibli units. However, I don't like the idea of having to modify them.

The second option was hinted to me by Jorrit at Auto Forza. He informed me that the intercoolers on the V8 engined Quatroporte is about 30% thicker than the units on the V6 cars. I then happened to stumble upon a picture of a 3200 GT being sold for parts and noticed the intercooler... the location is identical to that of the Ghibli and Quatroporte and the configuration of the ports looked the same.


So I wrote to EuroSpares and enquired as to whether they had any second hand 3200 GT intercoolers and if they could check whether they fitted a Ghibli. They wrote back to inform me that they'd been informed from the factory that the Ghibli intercoolers will fit the 3200 GT (wrong way 'round but by definition, the 3200 GT intercoolers must fit the Ghibli (although the ducting may require a bit of modification)).


Above is the parts schematic from the 3200 GT. Compare the size of the intercoolers with those for the Ghibli in the schematic below.


So I'm tempted to try and source some 3200 GT intercoolers and get Jorrit to try fitting them when he's fitting my new bumber (when it arrives... it's been on order from the factory for about 2 months now!).

As usual... I'll keep you posted of any updates.

Maserati Ghibli V8

Today I had a holiday and so took the opportunity to visit Buddy at Wereld Auto.

I went there to find out more about the KMS, but spent most of the time discussing Ghiblis. He had two in the workshop. one was a MY93 series 1a (but had Mistral style wheels). It was having some problems with a seized turbo, but Buddy has been having trouble trying to source a replacement. So he's working on manifolding a small Garret turbo; designed to flow 180 hp and with a good bearing package, it should be spooled up by 2000 rpm and offer very good low rpm drive-ability (which is what the owner of the car is after).

Buddy says that if he can get the Garret turbo mounted satisfactorily onto the Ghibli's exhaust manifold then he plans to make a kit that will offer a bolt on replacement for Ghibli owners. He also says that by using the Garret turbo, there's lots of scope to play around with compressor sizes to open up tuning possibilities. He thinks he can come up with a kit for around €800 per unit, which is far cheaper than getting a Maserati original part! I'll keep you posted if he managed to pull it off!

OK... the other car was a a very special MY92 Ghibli, but with a Maserati Evoluzione engine and running gear from a Quatroporte, running on a KMS ECU and with larger intercoolers (actually from a Golf Mark IV TDi... they're twice as thick as standard Ghibli units, but the bottom (outlet) manifold needs removing and a new one welding on). Buddy took me for a drive in the car... I've not had that much of a buzz since being in the passenger seat with Top Gear's " The Stig" at the wheel. What a fantastic performing car! The brakes and handling could be improved, but the engine performance is very impressive indeed... the car felt like it had a huge normally aspirated engine, with bags of torque available at low revs... no having to wait for the turbos to spool up like on my Ghibli or having to drop the gears to get the engine revving in it's power band, just stick your foot down and away you go! Buddy's not had it on the dyno recentyl but thinks the performance is around 380 hp with a little under 600 N.m torque. He's set up the KMS pretty conservative so as not to stress the engine too far and make the car very driveable... for example the boost pressure is mapped against throttle position to avoid the big spikes in torque when accellerating out of corners that the car was previously delivering and catching the owner off-guard. It seems that Buddy has a fair bit of track driving experience and he said that the torque spikes were occuring too quick for him to reliably control.

Very, very impressive... kind of gets me tempted to try and source a Maserati V8 and have it fitted in my car! It's a bit tight in the engine bay, but it fits ok and there's actually more ground clearance underneath the car since the V8 has a shallower sump. Plus, since this Ghibli was registered in '92 it doesn't require cats which helps out too.

Regarding the KMS... Buddy still needs to find out if it can run an odd fire engine, so i promised to send on the info that I've acquired and he'll ask the manufacturer. So, lots to report back, but not much yet on the KMS!

ECU Upgrade

Following a lead from Jarle in Norway, I started to investigate Kronenburg Management Systems as an option for upgrading the engine management system on my Ghibli to overcome the limitations of the OEM system installed by Maserati.

The Magnetti Marelli system installed by Maserati is very old compared with today's technology. To put it into context, this system was installed in Ford Sierra Cosworth cars back in the late eighties and early ninetees. The clock speed for this system is around 4MHz. Compare this to a modern laptop or desktop computer, which runs with a clock speed an order of magnitude quicker at 4GHz. In fact, you'd be luck to find a microprocessor that runs less than a hundred times quicker than that utilised in the OEM engine management system.

The effect of this is that the engine management system currently installed in my Ghibli makes significantly less decisions per second than the systems installed on typical modern street cars. Things happen and change very quickly in a car engine, particularly when it's reving at 7000rpm. That's over 100 revolutions of the crank every second, which is 25 detonations per second per cylinder.

The way an engine management system works is by taking a snapshot of the engine, which means recording the values of certain engine parameters at a moment in time by reading the output signals being sent from the various sensors located around the engine. The key sensors on the Ghibli are the inlet air temperature and the inlet air pressure for example. In order for the engine management to make decisions, it needs some reference data. This reference data comes in the form of look-up tables, which is just how people used to make complicated calculations in the days before electronic calculators. These are called maps.

A 2 dimensional map allows you to look up an answer if you know two numbers. Let's say that the inlet temperature is listed across the top row of the look-up table and the inlet pressure is listed along the left column of the table, the answer can be found by drawing a line down from the top inlet temperature value and a line across from the left inlet pressure value. Where the two lines cross is where the answer lies.

The answer tells the engine management system to perform a certain task. However, this answer is only applicable to the moment in time when the two input values were recorded, so if the system is too slow, by the time it carries out the response, it will no longer be applicable... a delayed response.

If there are more sensors, then the management system needs more look-up tables in order to know what decision to make, which takes more time. Also, the decision may require more than one response... for example the amount of fuel that is required and the time at which to ignite the fuel may need to be adjusted. Each additional response takes additional time.

My point here is that the quicker the management system can make decisions and respond, the more effective it is. In the Ghibli, it's obvious that the speed of the engine management system is not optimal, simply by virtue of the fact that TWO management systems are required, one to control the amount of fuel being injected and one to control when the fuel is ignited. So even when the Ghibli was being manufactured, it seems to have been recognised that processing speed was a limiting factor. Therefore, increasing processing speed should have a significant effect on the performance of the engine.

The next issue with the OEM management system is its lack of diagnostic capability. The only real way of determining if the system is making the right decisions is by measuring the performance of the engine, either by having a feel for the car or by sitting it on a dyno. The system does not have an easy way of monitoring what decisions are being made, except by taking the car to a specialist who can tap into the system and monitor what it is doing, which requires a degree of skill, technical knowledge and the appropriate equipment.

Modern management systems however offer a convenient way of monitoring what is happening. They generally have a convenient port into which you can plug a computer and with special software, you can record and review what decisions are being made.

Finally, if you recognise that sub-optimal decisions are being made, you need to be able to change the decision making process, which generally means altering the look-up tables or maps. Again, on the OEM management system, this is not a trivial thing to do and requires removal of the system and some special hardware to reprogramme the memory chips on which the data is stored. Also, the way this data is stored is not very user friendly, as it is stored in a way that is convenient for the microprocessor to read and not the car owner.

The beauty of a modern system is that all these things are possible. With modern software, you programme the data in a form that is easy to understand (using decimal numbers instead of hexidecimal or even binary code required for older systems) using a laptop computer. You can also record data from the engine, review it at a leisurely pace, determine what changes you want to make, update the look-up tables and see straight away the results... without having to go to a chip-tuner!

So, after contacting Van Kronenburg and discovering that they're a Dutch firm (much to my delight, since it means that they're local), I was a bit downheartened that I never heard back from them and it is then that I ordered the PLX Devices R-500 datalogger. However, I subsequently received an email from Buddy at Wereld Auto who informed me that he had been forwarded my enquiry from Van Kronenburg. Buddy is located pretty close to where I live (about a half hour drive) and can install and setup the KMS system on my Ghibli.


Above is a picture of the hardware which would replace the two OEM ECUs. He's given me a quote for fitting the system and I'm going to see if I can integrate the PLX R-500 into the installation to give me realtime feedback on the road. I've a feeling that the lambda probe that came with the R-500 is the same as that utilised by the KMS (a Bosch wideband probe) and I'll also see if I can integrate the Exhaust Gas Temperature (EGT) probe into the KMS, with maybe some feedback to prevent the exhaust gasses getting too hot and damaging the turbos.

The KMS can also control boost pressure, although I'm uncertain if it can tie into the TurboSmart solenoid valve. This would unfortunately make my E-Boost redundant, but I think the KMS would offer greater control over boost pressure with the added advantage of being able to tie in boost pressure maps with fueling and engine load.

I'm waiting to hear back from Buddy with answers to a couple more questions that I have, but if the price is right then I think I might go along with this option. The KMS is certainly much cheaper than MoTec and I like the idea of it being local, since if it stops working then I can go 'round the manufacturer personally to get them to sort it out!

Also, Buddy appears to have worked on a number of Maseratis, including a Ghibli fitted with a V8 engine from a Quatroporte in which the owner wanted the KMS system fitting. He also told me something interesting about the intercoolers from a Golf Mk4 TDi...

Ghibli prices on the up

I received an email recently from a Ghibli owner in France who had sold his MY93 car and was looking to purchase another Ghibli here in the Netherlands. He informed me that Ghibli's are relatively uncommon in France and as a result, the trend in prices had bottomed out and were now on the up.

This is probably spurred on by the recent introduction of the new Maserati GranTurismo and the ongoing success of the Quatroporte raising the profile and perceived value of the Maserati brand. The result is that more people are becoming aware of the Maserati brand and are now considering Maserati as a viable option. Unable to afford the high prices of the new cars, people start to look at second hand purchases, increasing market demand and hiking up prices.

So I just had a quick look on AutoTrader's Dutch website and indeed, although you can pick up an older Ghibli for a pretty low price (this red MY93 Ghibli (with interesting graphite coloured wheels that have obviously been painted) can be picked up for about €11,000), general prices seem to have remained at least stationary since last year and for more recent versions of the car they do indeed seem to be increasing (this dark blue MY99 Ghibli is listed at €22,000)!

It would therefore appear that now is a good time to purchase a Ghibli and that the car is set to become a classic!

Boost contoller sensitivity

The last few drives I've been playing with the boost controller sensitivity setting. It was set to 20 (not that this means anything since it's application specific), so I tried increasing it to 30 (although I was a bit weary since this is quite a big step).

I drove to Amsterdam on Saturday evening so got a good opportunity to load up the engine on full boost on the A4, keeping a close eye on the TomTom for cameras. I noticed that sustaining full boost gave the tell tale signs of a too high sensitivity setting, since the pressure gauge needle "wobbled". Before switching off the engine when I arrived at the first port of call, I quickly checked the maximum boost attained during my journey (my boost controller records the highest achieved boost level) and noticed it was high at 1.26 bar.

On one occassion during the drive I noticed a distinct hesitation during accelleration at maximum boost. It lasted a fraction of a second and I'm pretty sure that it was the ECU cutting the fuel supply to the engine after detecting a condition that it considered a bit on the extreme side.

While driving, the boost seemed to be responding very quickly to the throttle, which was nice. However, the wobble at full boost and the pressure spike are not really sustainable if I want longevity from my engine. Therefore, I reduced the sensitivity down to 25 before my next drive. This time, I no longer observed the wobbling needle at full boost, although when I checked the maximum attained boost level at the end of the drive it was still a bit high, indicating that the car was over boosting, I think in the lower gears where the revs ramp up quickly. I've therefore trimmed a little more off the sensitivity to prevent the spike a little, down to a setting of 23.

I very much doubt that this will have an impact on my ultimate power rating from the car, but soon I will be able to get a better idea since my PLX Device R-500 data logger arrived today! I'm not exactly sure when I'll get to install it and will probably have to do so over a few weeks (after first buying a solderer... I've not done any soldering since I was at school so I'm a little anxious about tapping into the car's wiring). I'm looking forward to seeing the data though... should give quite an insight into what's happening with the car...

Chasing the performance gap

I've been thinking some more about the strange performance that I've been getting from my car. I had another read throught the manual that came with the E-Boost boost controller and figured that I might not have the sensitivity set up correct, so I'm slowly increasing it each time I drive the car until I notice some "wobble" on the boost pressure, at which point I'll knock the sensitivity back a little.

It could be that the boost controller is not responding quick enough with the wastegate control to maintain effective operation of the turbos, but I doubt this since I'd expect to see the boost pressure drop off in this scenario. But I'll try adjusting it nonetheless.

To see if my modifications make and change to performance, I've ordered a G-Meter to do some on the road diagnosis. Hopefully this should arrive in the next couple of weeks and I won't have to make frequent trips to Rica anymore.

I also had a look in the engine compartment yesterday, seeing if there would be space for charge coolers or increasing the size of the intercoolers. Looks like there's a couple of options that I could persue... including something interesting I read about candle wax... But whilst looking I noticed that the hose to the left intercooler has deteriorated quite badly with some nasty crack in the ninety degree elbow. It could be leaking, so I'll ask Jorrit to change it out when I next see him.

Ghibli versus BMW M3

I was sent this article a while back from Jarle in Norway, but never got around to posting it... until now!


Click on it to make it bigger.

Latest dyno results

I finally returned to Rica Engineering yesterday to get my car back on the dyno to see how it's performing. If you recall, I have previously mentioned that the car feels to be driving well, with good mid-range torque. Well, here's the results (appologies for the faint colours... seems the printer at Rica is running out of toner), which you can enlarge by clicking on the picture:


To be frank, I was a little disappointed with the results. The good news is that, as I suspected, the mid-range torque has improved significantly since the last time I was at the dyno, with power and torque shifting down the rev range and maximum torque now accessible at 4100rpm (where before it was at 5000rpm). This performance correlates directly with the set up of the boost controller, with the boost limit of 1.20 bar achieved at 4100rpm and held steady to the rev limit at 7200rpm.

But what happens after this is a little odd and I'm finding it difficult to determine what is causing it. From 4000rpm onwards, the rate of increase in engine power drops significantly and the torque curve drops away. The result is that the maximum engine power is 30hp less than it was previously, peaking at just under 300hp, where in the past I've had it running at just under 330hp.

I asked Roel at Rica to plot the air/fuel ratio, since I know from the last time I visited them that the mixture was running a bit rich. Indeed, at high revs the ratio was running below 0.8, so after a bit of convincing, I got him to lean it out a little. As you can see from the chart, the ratio is now maintained above 0.8 throughout the high rev range, but unfortunately this made no significant difference to the curves. As a side note, Roel seems reluctant to run the mixture any leaner than this, preferring to err on the side of caution and keep the mixture slightly rich so as not to over stress the engine and to help cooling a little at high revs.

I discussed the curves with Roel and it was his opinion that either the exhaust or the inlet temperature are constraining performance. I've given this some thought overnight and I'm not convinced.


On Enrico's pages there's a chart of a stock Ghibli torque and power curve (the torque is in different units, but just multiply by 10 to get approximate Nm values) which I've attached above. On these curves, there's no sudden change in gradient that I'm seeing on my curves. There seems to be a bit more inertia with my turbos spooling up too... mine have a bit more lag, but once they start spooling up they do so much quicker than the stock ones appear to do.

So, things are looking ok up to 4100rpm. At this stage, the boost controller opens up the wastegates and starts bypassing the compressors and suddenly there's a drop in the rate of power increase and a drop in torque. On the stock curves, the torque stays flat until about 5000rpm and on the Ghibli Cup, this is extended further to 6000rpm with more efficient bearings, as illustrated below.


I'd expect my results to be more akin to the Ghibli Cup ones, since my turbos have roller bearings and are "geared" for greater flowrates and should therefore be more efficient with higher revs. I also have a sports mufflers fitted which should flow better with high revs over the stock car.

For reference, here's an old dyno chart.


You can see that the car used to spool up much slower, which has been rectified by installing a free flowing inlet system and optimising the boost controller settings. However, the car used to produce considerably more power at the top end?

I don't think the inlet temperature can be the cause for the change since nothing has changed that could have increased the inlet temperature unless the efficieny of the intercoolers has changed since last time, which is unlikely. There may be a problem with the exhaust since I know one of the cats is not working and may be causing a restriction? But then I'd expect this to effect performance through the entire rev range, not just from 4000rpm and above?

I was thinking that it was maybe the timing that is out, but this hasn't been changed since the last dyno run. So I'm confused now to explain the difference. Any ideas?

Zagato's Maserati GS

I received an email from Enrico this week with pictures of Zagato's concept Maserati GS with the following text:

"Fashionable Italian custom car builder Zagato, which is based in Milan, is to unveil a dazzling two-seater at the Concours d'Elegance Villa d'Este.

The Maserati GS by Zagato is set to be a real showstopper.

It is based on the Maserati GranSport Spyder but is about 25cm shorter.

According to Zagato the GS has "excellent handling and stability on curves, with extraordinary torsional rigidity".

The car is striking with its all-aluminum bodywork and prominent logos: the trident on the bonnet and the Z on the wing.

Zagato said the vehicle was commissioned by Italian entrepreneur Paolo Boffi. The company said it proposed a vehicle "that evoked the historical Maserati A6 G Zagato of 1954."

I read in a magazine article the other week an interview with Maserati's chief designer, who hinted that Maserati were going to releas a third car in their line up which would be of a more sporting nature, to complement the GranTourismo and the executive Quatroporte. Could this be it?


It's certainly a stunning looking car, with a nice blend of creases and curves, but it doesn't sit well with the current family styling shared by the Pininfarina designed GranTourismo and Quatroporte. My guess is that the third car will come from Pininfarina, since they seem to have forged a bit of a relationship with Maserati of late, with the two current cars and also with last year's concept Birdcage 75th.