11/22/11
2259: Engine Progress

Francois is just about done with the rebuild of 2259. This low mileage engine suffered a holed piston at about 20,000 kilometers so this engine saw very little use. The internal water passages were pretty clean, the liners showed very little corrosion, and even the finned aluminum pan was near perfect. As Francois installed the camshafts, he did his usual check of the lobe centers to the factory marks and found them to be spot on. Rarely does this happen with engines that have seen almost 50 years of use. With use and an unknown amount of rebuilds, a Vintage Ferrari engine can have worn chain sprockets, twisted cams, or lower deck heights, all changing the position of the cams in relation to the crankshaft. Checking the cam timing on one of these engines is crucial to getting all the performance Enzo intended.

I made up a set of ignition wires for this engine so we could get it ready for installation. As with Ferraris, it’s never as easy as it seems. 7mm wire has to be fed through the wrinkle painted spark plug tubes, usually with a little bit of lubrication. Rubber insulating grommets have to installed on each spark plug wire at the tubes. Care and labeling help keep the wires in order, and are installed to the firing order. Rubber o-rings and a wire keeper that installs on a distributor stud have to slipped into place before the wires are secured to the distributor cap. There’s a specific curve that the wires follow to avoid tangling with throttle linkages when the the engine is installed. The rubber boot ends are installed before the cables are stripped back and crimped with the spark plug ends. I found the 250 spark plug tubes much harder to route the cable through compared to the 330 wires I did just a few weeks ago. The earlier tubes were just a little thinner, wreaking havoc with fishing the wires through and installing the grommets. I finally finished, and the end result was worth the sore fingers!

Reminder: If you have a Ferrari related project, car, or idea you’d like to explore, I’d love to talk to you. I can also help if you’re thinking of buying or selling. This website represents what I love to do, and now it’s how I make a living, so if you’d like to do something together, let me know. It all begins with an e-mail!

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