Jonny's Maserati Ghibli

Jonny's Ghibli Valued!

2008-07-31T12:09:00.002+02:00

The nice folks at Kröller insurance here in the Netherlands have agreed to insure my car as an old-timer after I made them aware of a quote from one of their competitors. This is good news for me since it will more than half the cost of the yearly insurance premium!

In order to calculate the new premium, the insurance company requested that I have the car inspected and valued by an independent assessor. So on Monday I met up with Rob from Hofkamp Projects. I received his report yesterday, in which he marked the overal condition of the car as 8.5 out of 10 and gave the car an insurance value of €22,000. This is higher than I anticipated since the market value of the car is probably more like €15,000, but he included the value of the modifications made to the car, so the indicated value is what he thinks it would cost to replace the car.

So, nice to see a high value for the car, but not so good for the insurance premium calculation!

Updated Fuel Economy

2008-07-27T16:27:00.003+02:00

Another year or so has passed so I thought it was about time to update the fuel economy chart for the Ghibli (and empty the glove box of petrol station receipts!).

As you can see, the car is returning an average of 6.8 km/liter, which according to an online converter is equivalent to an American 16 mpg or a British 19 mpg, which is pretty awful for a 2.0 liter car, but great fun though!

Summer fun

2008-07-25T10:48:00.002+02:00

After spending a couple of weeks in Syria at the start of the month, it was great to get back home and have the opportunity to drive to work everyday in the Ghibli. Without fail, I step out of the car with a big grin on my face and I'm simply loving driving it!

Following on from the discoveries in my last post, I've trimmed back the sensitivity setting on the E-Boost controller and voila... the stuttering during hard acceleration has stopped! I've now increased the gain setting slightly to compensate and to set the boost pressure right at the end of the amber section on the dash boost gauge (I need to check but this should be just over 1.20 bar).

I'm also now slowly increasing the gate pressure setting, which is the pressure at which the controller starts to open the wastegates. It's currently set at 1.05 bar, but in third gear at least there's scope to increase this. Since my 3200 GT turbos don't spool up very quickly, there's less risk of over boost so the gate pressure can be set reasonably close to the desired boost pressure.

I'm really happy with the way that the car is performing now. Acceleration is nice and steady, with a kick in the arse coming around 4000 rpm. Keep the revs below this and the car is very civilised, above this and its nice and aggressive with a quick throttle response.

The warm weather is testing the new oil cooler. Now that I'm driving it more I'm noticing how it performs. It's obvious that when being driven with decent speed, the oil temp is being kept pretty low as the water temp is maintained below 80 deg C and the oil pressure stays just below 5 bar.

Slowing down or stopping when driving through town, the water temp is elevated and stays between 80-90 deg C with the fan coming on alot. Also, the oil pressure drops to 2.5 bar. But as soon as you get some speed up and get air flowing across the radiator, the temp is straight back below 80 deg C and the oil pressure to just below 5 bar.

So my conclusion is that the oil cooler is working well. It has no problem keeping the oil temp low when driving at speed (with good flow across the radiator) and it manages to take the edge off the heat when the car is stationary, which is where the problems occurred on the track.

There's some noticeable additional load on the engine at idle though, particularly when the engine is cold. It's only small, but the engine is more prone to stalling now and a dab of revs is required to prevent stall when reversing with full steering lock. I will get this sorted though when the car is dropped off at the garge next week end... the idle needs setting a fraction higher I think.

The car is going for the annual APK (road test) next weekend and also to have a few things done:

Re-fit the original distributor; it was replaced with a new one to check whether this was the cause of the stuttering, but since it isn't then the original can be refitted.
The volt meter has stopped working completely, so the wiring needs to be checked.
The idle needs resetting.
Maybe fit the new springs. I'm in two minds about this though as the ground clearance around town is good at the moment.
See if it's possible to modify the left wheel arch to increase the clearance a little and prevent the tire from rubbing on fast or tight right hand corners.
Perform small service (oil change).

I'll try and capture some log data to show the changes in the boost pressure... I expect that the boost curve will be much flatter now at the top end instead of oscillating up and down. I think the top end is now performing much better as a result. Feels like the car is back at 330 hp, but I'd need to take it back onto the dyno to check this...

Water plumbing for Laminova oil cooler

2008-06-28T13:50:00.004+02:00

I was asked last week to show some more details of how to connect up the Mocal Laminova oil cooler to the water side of the Ghibli's engine. Well, hopefully this hand sketch I made will help?

Engine Inlet Temperature

2008-06-20T19:32:00.004+02:00

Looking through the visitor stats for this site, it seems that lots of people are interested in upgrading the intercoolers on the Ghibli. I have to admit that this is something that I looked into myself, since the stock air/air coolers seem a bit small compared with the huge aftermarket coolers that can be purchased for the likes of VW Golfs and Mitsubishi Evos.

So, I pulled up one of the data logs from my PLX Devices R-500, since I have it tapped into the air temperature sensor on the throttle body. This sensor measures the temperature of the charge air entering the engine, after it has been cooled by the intercooler. I have to admit that I expected the temperature to be in the range of 70 to 90 degrees since after going for an enthusiastic drive, the throttle body and plenum chamber are too hot to keep my finger on.

The picture above is a screen grab of the PLX Logger software charting the data in 2D. It's a bit rough... I've been having trouble getting reliable RPM data from the engine speed tap and so this needs to be multiplied by 5 to give the correct engine speed (I think I'm going to tap into one of the ignition timing wires instead). The MAP values are also a little bit out. However, the chart gives a good enough idea of what's happening and the temperature values are correct.

What you see is that at idle, when the car is stationary and no cooling air is flowing across the intercoolers, the inlet temperature is up around 50 degrees Centigrade. It's important to realise that the ambient temperature when these reading were taken was around 5 degrees Centigrade, so pretty cool. As soon as the car starts moving, the inlet temperature rapidly starts to decrease to a steady state around 30 degrees above the ambient temperature. When the car is driven hard at around 380 seconds, there are significant peaks in the inlet temperature. The temperature is quick to fall back to a steady state less than 40 degrees Centigrade.

I still need to capture some log data for summer temperature, but I suspect that steady state with an ambient temperature around 30 degrees Centigrade will be about 70 degrees Centigrade. This is less than I expected and my conclusion from this is that, unless the car is going to be raced on a track where the engine is kept at full load for a long time, then there's no huge benefit to changing out the stock intercoolers if the car is being run with 1.20 barg inlet pressure. Bear in mind that if the car is run on the track, there will be a good flow of air all the time over the intercoolers helping to keep them cool. The highest inlet temperatures are occurring when the car is stationary or moving slowly and increasing the intercooler size is not going to help this.

What I'm therefore thinking of doing is adding a cooling fan behind each intercooler, connected to the water radiator cooling fans. These fans generally only activate when the car is moving slowly or stationary so would be a good control for the intercooler fans. This should then keep the intercoolers at a relatively low temperature when driving around town for example, or when the car is cooling down after a hard drive.

It's official... the Ghibli is a classic

2008-06-15T20:34:00.004+02:00

It feels like I've been neglecting the Ghibli of late, since I've not spent much time or effort on it recently. So in an attempt to make amends, I've spent most of the weekend giving the car a good clean an a thorough polish and to prove it I took some pictures!

Jonny's Polished Maserati Ghibli

While in the process, I had several neighbours and passers by comment on the car and pass on positive comments regarding the car and the condition, which is always nice to hear and a real charm of owning the car. Two of the passers by commented that the car is a collectors item and a rare classic... so there you have it! It's official... you can't argue with the word on the street!

Anyway, apologies for being so quiet... despite there having been plenty of stuff going on in my life recently, non of it has really revolved around the car, other than the Spax lowering springs that I ordered from the UK have arrived, which I'll get Jorrit to fit next time I take the car to Nordwijkerhout (probably in a month or so).

Mocal Laminova oil cooler fitted

2008-05-03T09:28:00.003+02:00

While away on holiday this week, I asked Jorrit at Auto Forza if he could install the oil cooler I purchased a few weeks back, along with the take off plate and remote filter mount that I ordered with the cooler.

The inspiration for this upgrade came from Bob (staatsof) on the BiturboZentrum forum, who recently fitted this cooler on his track Ghibli Open Cup and kindly shared pictures of the fitting to the forum members. I was already looking to fit an oil cooler after my experience on the Assen TT track last year where my oil overheated when the car was stationary after completing a couple of hard laps. However, I was looking at installing a conventional oil/air cooler and hadn't considered fitting a oil/water cooler, but after reading Bob's comments it made perfect sense for my application.

The Mocal Laminova oil/water cooler is a heat exchanger that flows oil through the centre of a core and water around the core. The oil is pumped via the oil pump on the engine block and water comes from the engine cooling water system. What makes the system so good for me is that the cooling water quickly warms up to about 60 degrees centigrade in the engine block before it then starts to circulate through the engine radiator. It is at this point that it starts to circulate through the oil cooler and initially it actually warms up the engine oil, meaning that it actually helps warm up the engine quicker. The quicker the engine warms up, the less likely you are to over-stress it. Therefore, when the oil is cooler than the water, it actually helps keep the water temperature down and there's less need for the radiator fans to kick in.

I like the idea of the entire engine block running at an even temperature, rather than having hot spots where different fluid circuits are flowing.

The installation of the cooler went really well. Rather than try and explain this, I've posted a load of pictures with lengthy descriptions that should make it all clear. The installation looks pretty professional, although as Jorrit pointed out, probably four too many tie-wraps used to get away with it looking like a Maserati fitted system.

I've not had the opportunity to give the car a good drive yet, but on the way home I did notice that the engine temperature was running a bit lower than normal, with the water temperature not getting above 80 degrees on the gauge and only once did I hear the fan come on when I was stationary in town. So it appears that in normal use, the oil is actually cooling the water! This is a good thing, since it likely means that the oil before wasn't really getting up to its optimum temperature with normal driving.

One thing I learnt is that my Ghibli (the first non-ABS variant) has a slightly unique sump. The reason it didn't have a cooler is because the sump on my car is a little taller than previous Bi-turbos to provide for a bit more air cooling. But it turned out that the reduced ground clearance led to leaking sumps from the increased abrasion with the road, which is why Maserati went back to the shallow sump and fitted an oil cooler to give the required cooling. Since my car has the taller sump plus an oil cooler, I shouldn't get any problems with cooling now. However, I will be fitting the shallower sump as soon as I get a leak on the current one, since I wish to drop the height of my car a little, but the clearance is a little tight as it is.

I had a couple of other things changed while the car was with Jorrit. The front bushings had worn out and I was getting some play when I pressed the brakes, which wasn't very confidence inspiring. So I had the bushings upgraded to the later Ghibli GT design. The consumable rubbers for these bushings are much cheaper than my original ones so I should recover the cost in the long run. The car's feeling much better to drive now though, much stiffer and less creaky at the front.

Also, still trying to figure out the cause of the stuttering problem, I asked Jorrit to fit a known good distributor to my car to see if this is the cause. He did so and I initially thought that the problem was solved on my drive home until I managed to induce a stutter again by accelerating hard in third gear. It only happened once though so I need to do a few more miles to be conclusive.

Next on the agenda is repairing or replacing the radiator as it has started to leak and it seems to be getting worse. Jorrit knows some guys who can refurbish the existing radiator, essentially by fitting a new core, but this could be an opportunity to install a new aluminium one?

Rubber Update

2008-04-01T08:43:00.005+02:00

Following on from my last post, I've explored a few options and spoke with Jorrit at Auto Forza who's been aware of this issue for a while and has been on the look out for a solution.

It seems that Maserati made an adapter kit for the non-ABS Ghibli in order to fit the later designed package from the GT variant. I also discovered that the design of the ABS and the subsequent GT cars are both different, which surprised me.

Fortuitously, Jorrit came across a Ghibli non-ABS subframe fitted with the adapter rings to fit the new parts from a GT car. Since he suspects that the second hand subframe is not completely straight, he's going to remove the adapters from this and fit them onto my good subframe and then order parts 1 to 7 in the drawing below. Since the rubbers from this GT group are cheap, I'll order a spare couple and take some measurements from these and try and get an equivalent poly part sourced.

This set up should make the front of my car feel stiffer and should help prevent rubbing my tires against the wheel arch when I corner hard. Talking of which, I checked my front tire size to jog my memory and indeed I fitted a pair of 225x40 tires on the front. Next time I'll fit some 225x35 which should prevent future rubbing... I went with the larger wall height to try and raise the front of the car a bit, but I think 40 was a little excessive in hindsight.

So, I'll be booking my car in with Jorrit shortly to do the following:

Upgrade the front bushings to GT spec.
Fit the Mocal oil/water heat exchanger.
Replace the pin in the driver's side door hinge.
Measure up the exhaust so that I can order some catalysts.

Hopefully I can get this sorted next week and ready for a drive to Mosel in Germany at the end of the month!

Rubber Pads

2008-03-31T08:56:00.003+02:00

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

2008-03-27T21:59:00.005+01:00

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

2008-03-19T21:31:00.003+01:00

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

2008-03-17T14:38:00.004+01:00

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

2008-03-11T21:17:00.003+01:00

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!

Preparing for the spring

2008-01-20T13:39:00.000+01:00

A few weeks back, I received an email from an old friend who was asking whether I'd be interested in joining him for a drive down to Germany and onto the Nürburgring. Of course, I'd love to, but after my last experience on the track I really need to install some oil cooling before venturing back.

I've therefore been researching into oil cooling. Initially, I was looking into fitting an efficient air cooler and locating it in front of the engine cooling radiator, in a similar fashion to the Modena performance air/oil cooler pictured here (from Enrico's Maserati pages). It's the large silver coloured one in the centre. I actually think this cooler is a bit over the top, since an efficient cooler of half this size should be sufficient, although I think this Modena prepared car is awaiting a V8 engine conversion. Also, I don't think it's very efficient mounting the cooler with such a large gap between the rear of the cooler and the front of the water radiator, since the exhaust flow from the oil cooler will not flow nicely through the radiator.

So, I was researching into fitting an sandwich adapter between the oil pump and the oil filter to facilitate fitting hoses to the front mounted oil cooler and had managed to source a second hand Maserati part with built in thermostat, pictured here. This little device only sends oil to the cooler after it has reached a certain temperature (around 80 degrees C) in order to warm the oil up to operating temperature as quickly as possible, otherwise the oil will be too cool and hence quite viscous.

While discussing my options with the Bi-turbo forum on Yahoo, one of the members talked about the oil/water cooler he has fitted to his Maserati Ghibli Cup and subsequently sent some pictures of the cooler fitted to his car. After researching the cooler (it's a Mocal Laminova cooler), the benefits, particularly for my application, were clear.

A water/oil cooler does not need a thermostat and warms the oil up to operating temperature much quicker than an air/oil cooler. This is because the water/oil cooler is actually a heat exchanger and the water cooling is very effective at taking heating from the engine and therefore warms up quickly. The water/oil cooler then transfers this heat into the oil, hence warming it up quickly. I often drive drive reasonably short journeys in my car (twenty minutes) which is only just long enough to get the engine properly warmed up. Therefore, anything I can do to warm it up quicker is certainly a bonus.

Although the water warms up the oil quickly, the water cooling on the Ghibli is very effective at maintaining the water temperature at around 90 degrees C, even in extreme use. The idea of the water/oil cooler is that the fluid temperatures of the oil and water remain about the same, which means that the oil temperature should be maintained around 90 degrees, which is about perfect!

In order to fit the water/oil cooler, I'll have to fit a remote oil filter and an adapter plate to the oil pump to facilitate running lines to the remote filter. The cooler itself will be mounted behind the water radiator, spliced into the line that takes cool water from the radiator back into the engine block. In the drawing, this will mean rotating part 34 clockwise about 90 degrees, fitting in the Mocal cooler, then installing a new 90 degree elbow to face upwards, then installing part 6 (will have to flip it round) up and into part 5, which will have to be rotated 90 degrees anti-clockwise.

The parts are made by Think Auto in the UK, who are not proving to be the most effective with e-mail correspondence. However, I have managed to get a quote off them for the parts I require... the water Laminova is not cheap, but the other parts are pretty reasonable and Jorrit at Auto Forza can get all the hose and fittings tailor made for me.

I'm hoping to get it installed within the next couple of months.

Squeaky brakes

2008-01-05T01:16:00.000+01:00

I was just looking through my photos and came across this video of Jorrit driving my car back from a test ride. It's only a short one, but I think Ghiblis look much nicer on the move than they do in photos and it gives a much better feel for the proportions of the car.

The front brakes squeak a bit... but I'll let them off given how well they perform! I'm tempted to fit some new springs and lower the car a bit though...

Sneak preview of PLX Devices R-800

2007-12-27T12:56:00.000+01:00

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

2007-12-23T14:19:00.000+01:00

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

2007-10-22T20:48:00.000+02:00

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

2007-10-07T11:44:00.000+02:00

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

2007-09-23T22:06:00.001+02:00

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

2007-09-22T19:07:00.000+02:00

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

2007-09-17T09:38:00.000+02:00

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

2007-09-10T19:21:00.000+02:00

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

2007-09-06T17:44:00.000+02:00

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

2007-09-02T10:20:00.000+02:00

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.