Rubber Pads

My car is getting to the age where the rubber parts are needing replacement. Unfortunately, some of these parts are becoming increasingly difficult to source.


The latest parts requiring replacement are part of the suspension set-up and are labelled number 45 in the drawing above and Maserati refer to them as RUBBER PAD Part No. 396650021. The effect of these wearing is primarily felt when braking... the front suspension feels to move a little before, which can be a little un-nerving!

It seems that the non-ABS Ghibli was the only Maserati fitted with these parts, since the group of parts were changed for the ABS and later variants. Although the drawing looks identical for the 2.24v, it has a different part number (BUFFER Part No. 316620110 (Supercedes To Part No. 396650110)).

If the part I need is no longer available, I have a couple of options. First, I need to check whether the 2.24v part and the Ghibli part is actually physically different. If they're the same then I can just get one of those. Another alternative is to upgrade to the ABS parts, but this may not be straight forward and may require changing out some other components such as the subframe, which will turn out to be expensive. Another alternative is to fit some polyurethane generic replacement from Powerflex and then machine some adapter spacers. At least these generic parts will be easier to source in future plus they're stiffer and much tougher wearing, so shouldn't require replacing as frequently!

Blow Off Valves on Shamal

I'm starting to wish that I'd arranged some sort of royalty deal with Forge now... only kidding, since it's great to see people adopting these valves for their Maserati Bi-turbos. They're now making their debut on the superb V8 engine Shamal that you can see pictured above.

Thanks for the picture Mark!

Potential Catalyst Source

I've been keeping an eye open to see if I can find a catalyst that I can use in my cat-less front section. At the moment, I need to replace the entire front section with one fitted with cats when driving on the road (ahem), which involves disconnecting and re-connecting the Exhaust Gas Temperature and lambda sensors.

This is obviously a bit of a hassle, so I've been wanting to find a suitable catalyst that I can install into my de-cat section, so I only have to install or remove the cat and not the entire front section. Well, looks like I might have found something...


It's made in the UK by EEC and the price doesn't seem too bad. I just need to get under my car and measure up my exhaust and beneath the car to get a feel for if it will fit. Looks promising though.

It's not the MAP sensor

On Saturday I put the inside of my car back together (the passenger side foot well has been a mess while I've been installing the PLX R-500) in preparation for my drive to the UK this week. After doing so, I went for a drive to check that everything was connected properly and working.

Despite the boost only getting up to 1.10 bar, I'm still getting a stutter when I accellerate full throttle in third gear. However, the stutter did come later in the rev range. So, this really rules out the MAP sensor and I'm back to trying to find the cause of my problem.

It has to be somethingon the control side of the engine... I suspect it's the ignition timing but to be honest I think it could be anything on the ECU side. I think it's going to be extremely difficult to track this down and this lends more weight to me installing a new ECU, if only to be able to get a better insight into what's happening in the engine. So, I could be installing that Haltech ECU sooner rather than later, depending on how Jarle in Norway gets on with finishing his Haltech installation in his bi-turbo over the next few weeks...

Oil cooler and MAP

Well, I finally ordered the Laminova oil cooler, take off plate and remote oil filter parts from Think Automotive last week and they arrived ready for me to pick up on my trip to the UK next week. When I'm back I'll book the car in with Jorrit at Auto Forza and ask him to fit it all for me along with some custom length hoses. I'd do it myself, but I just don't have the facilities unfortunately.

Also, I think I've figured out the cause of my stutter and drop off in performance around 4000 rpm. Contrary to what I thought, the MAP sensor in my non-ABS Ghibli is the Marelli APS-03 sensor (where as I thought it was an 06 sensor). As you can see from this link, the APS-03 sensor only reads up to 2.16 bar absolute pressure, which is exactly the pressure in my plenum chamber when the car gives a stutter. So I think it's reasonable to assume that the ECU in my car is designed to set the timing "safe" when the MAP sensor reading goes out of range.

I've set the maximum inlet pressure down to just below 1.16 bar gauge pressure now, but I haven't been for a drive yet to see how it performs. But I'll be doing a lot of driving next week since I'm planning on taking the car over to the UK on the ferry, so I can get a feel for how it's performing then.

No other news other than I gave the car a wash the other weekend... it was filthy and I needed four buckets of water to clean it!