chelle

The big deal is Ferrari is aggressively intimidating anyone who uses their logo - it doesn't matter why. If I take a bunch of professional pictures of our real Ferrari and decide to make it into a poster I can rest assured that if I sell copies of that poster I will get a letter from FNA's (Ferrari of North America) lawyer telling me if I don't immediately stop they will bury me in court. It doesn't matter if I wasn't making a profit and selling at cost. All that matters is they have more money for lawyers than most shops could come up with so most cave in without ever going to court. Therefore if a few companies make something that looks like a certain Ferrari and they call it something else and need to go to great lengths to not mention Ferrari or sell even original badging then so be it - the shops are just being realistic and doing what they have to to provide us with parts and earn a living. I wish the courts didn't work this way but they do - I REALLY wish Ferrari didn't work this way but they do. If they would support the aftermarket and enthusiasts and license their logo say to makers of quality reproduction parts they would enhance customer loyalty.. However I doubt their lawyers would ever advise them to do that - they make too much money invoicing FNA for all the hours they spend seeking out and intimidating fans of the marque Chelle

Tom, I would love to buy some parts from you but have not had any luck contacting you. Please tell us how to get in touch with you so we can give you money!!! Chelle

240zoom, Just wanted to add in case you hadn't seen my other posts in another thread - you need to go even lower with this engine when installing in a GTO style body. The hood is lower that the stock Z hood. Chelle

Glen, Well I don't know if the flywheel is same as any of the other BMW's but I ordered ours new at the BMW dealer and list price was only just over $300. There aren't any obvious counterweights. The Oil pump was driven by a chain and is now mounted on the bottom left side of the engine (external) and driven by a belt. Here's some images First one - wow.. looks too big! (but don't worry - it does fit) Here's the massive front sump: And here is why the pan needs to be so huge: With the pump out and tin bottom pan off, there's a lot of wasted space! Here's a dry sump external pump on Jay's Ultima Here is what he did to modify his oilpan. He sawed off the kicked out sides and made a flat pan. Will get some pics of my pan - we took off quite a bit more of the front of the pan. Chelle

Oh and another thing is the dry sump setup is nice and eliminates like 5" of height which HAS to come out. With a drysump these will fit in a stock body z-car, with the stock crossmember. Putting one of these engines in a GTO style car requires additional lowering by either modifying the crossmember or modifying the firewall and setting the engine far enough back to be behind the firewall. There is a lot of room behind the dash to do this if you eliminate the stock heat/ac unit, but not something the typical home builder is going to be willing to try. The engine is super easy to install a dry sump in - my earlier suggestion of trying to put the pickup at the back with a rear sump mod will NOT work. The oil pump is huge and takes up a large bit of the volume of the front sump and is driven by a chain off the front of the crankshaft. You can't relocate the pump to the back. Once you remove the stock pump there are no holes to plug or anything... you remove the chain and pump and put on a modified pan that's flat and set the engine in. The pressure line from the dry sump goes into the drivers side of the engine where the external filter braided line attaches. Will post the pics later Chelle

Hiya Engine and trans was easier than ya might expect. Use a stock BMW manual trans flywheel and pressure plate. The pilot bushing on the BMW is the same size as the T-56! So that requires no adapter. The T-56 we used has a hydrolic throwout bearing so that was "easy" too. Hardest part was the bellhousing. No other BMW uses the same bellhousing, and on the rare 6-speed V-12 the bellhousing is part of the trans. Fortunately the Automatic uses a seperate bellhousing very similar to what we are all used to seeing on RWD manual trans cars. So, "all you need to do" to bolt a T-56 to one of these engines is use the BMW flywheel and pressure plate and a T-56 with the clutch disk that matches it with the T-56's throwout bearing and couple it all together with a modified BMW bellhousing. To modify the bellhousing you need to mill off enough off the back to have the length of the input shaft right. It will require you to build up some material as well to make the mounting solid, but it's really not as scary as most assume. Will post some pics this weekend Chelle

I was talking to Jay and he's starting a product line of aftermarket cams and even working on a new intake for these engines. He can set you up with brackets for your drysump as well Chelle

heya, any updates on your car? Chelle

Heya - I was just wondering how the project is coming. Did you do a drysump setup? I was digging around here at home and I have a bunch of pics of the engine setup- I've been playing with the car some lately tearing a few things down so we can repaint it and so my memory is kinda refreshed on all the issues with this swap. To refresh everyone's memory we are running a 1992 BMW V12 with a T-56 six speed. We are running a dry-sump system and this setup is in a 1977 280z chassis with a 250 GTO style body Chelle

Welcome 240Zoom... I chose to run drysump but the complete drysump system ended up costing about $1000 it's worth it though in my opinion. What are you doing for exhaust? Vela Rossa tho? sheesh - so there's going to be two BMW V12 powered GTO's out there.. and I thought I was unique.. I've been toying with a one off intake to put 6 pairs of velocity stacks in a row down the center, but it's a work in progress Glenn, thanx for alerting me about the thread Chelle

I found a pic of someone with a GTO replica in Australia who opened up his vents... unfortunately I don't have any more shots that might show it from the inside or the structure without the body in the way but it makes me want to do the same - it would sure reduce heat onder the hood looks like a nice job, I would paint it all black personally however he might not be done - like I said - I don't have more details on this car.. pretty kewl tho - it's RHD and has an interesting engine anyone know more about this car? Looks like a vela rossa Chelle

if you still have all that i'll buy it : ) Chelle sysadmin@corecomm.net

here's the guys page : ) http://www.ultimav12.ca very kewl car Chelle

It came from an 850csi. The V12 from BMW is/was only sold in the 750i and 850 series. And they all have the front sump. The McLaren supercar used a BMW block with special 4 valve heads, but I can't find a pic to see the bottom of the engine - which is just as well really, I'm not likely to find a McLaren being parted out on ebay lol Here's a pic of the McLaren engine.. Actually the new 760 series has the new 4 valve heads, but again - I'm unlikely to find any for sale this soon.. And btw - my experience is the BMW parts and service guys are useless when doing something like this - if they can't look the part up by the VIN of the BMW, they don't seem to know how to look anything up. Most of my info has come from a few persistant beemer racers : ) Chelle[/url]

Thanx Glenn, Good thoughts there. Actually I'll have to do that this week - I hadn't thought of just buying a gasket to see if I could reverse the upper part of the pan. I do have the engine here. I'll have to get someone to fabricate a oil pickup, but it would be worth trying. If it can't reverse( which I'm pretty sure it can't) I will look into the possability of getting a new pan fabricated, though I'm not ooptimistic on that. Also the 6 speed is huge so I thought about having an adapter made to put a T56 on it. It would be nice if the input shaft on the BMW trans was longer than the one on a T56, then a simple plate could be fitted to adoat it I haven't measured, but honestly the engine has just been sitting since I initially felt the pan eliminated any chance I would fight to get it in there. see it here: http://www.geocities.com/michellel_29/engine12.jpeg As for height it's 29" tall from the top of the air plenums to the bottom of the (current) oil pan. I'll post updates as this thing evolves! : ) Chelle

Well the problem as we see it is the pan is just a small section of the front of the bottom of the engine. It's like a foot square at the front of the bottom of the engine. See this pic of one someone was putting in a Lambo replica and you'll see that the crossmember needs to be in front of or behind the oil pan - there's really no way to move the sump like on most engines. I just can't see machining away a big chunk of the block lol.. http://www.lambolounge.com/Chassis/Engine/BMW-V12/Ron/image009.jpg We considered a dry sump system, but the cost is prohibitive. and in order to clear the hood on the GTO replica it still will have to sit so low that the crossmember will be in the way. So the two choices are a custom crossmember or a whole tube front end. Either is going to need a modified steering setup that places the rack behind the axle centerline (or far ahead of it to clear. I'm open to suggestions : ) BTW - great job on yours - that's a heck of an exhaust on yours Chelle

Oops , forgot to add - the red and white are both Alpha GTO replicas... Chelle

The blue car is a 1974 Lamborghini Urraco. It's original, kim and I rescued it from being a parts car a year and a half ago.. look here for more pics of it. http://members.core.com/~sysadmin/personal/Urraco/lambo.html Chelle

I just dug through my desk and found the specs. & pricing info on the Falconer V12. The street version is 600 CID, 522 lbs, 23.5" wide, 19.5" high (measured from the crankshaft centerline), and 36.5" long from back to front accessory drive pully). On 92 octane it's 620 HP @ 5000 rpm and 750 ft. lbs. torque @ 4500rpm It includes ECU, wet sump oil system, tuned port injection, and direct fire ignition. Turbocharging or supercharging is optional and the price for normally aspirated as above? It starts at $65,000. When I spoke with them last they had a used one they removed from a customer's suburban. They rebuilt is and used a new set of heads. It was available at a savings of $17,000 over a new engine, they were asking just $48,000. It's a great engine - but over the years we have bought a few running ferrari v-12's, granted they were used, for anywhere from $12,000 for a tired 1970 engine to $18,000 for a pretty fresh one with 6 carbs. What I've been watching for of late is a totaled Ferrari 550, 575, or 456 with non F1 6-speed to put in - the BWM V12 project just isn't worth spending all the time needed to make it work. Chelle

Be prepared to spend a LOT if you consider a Falconer engine - they really are wonderful however last time we priced one he had a rebuilt one a customer had traded in - and the price was well into 5 figures. If anyone is seriously considering this I can get you the specifics as well as a couple pics. They are nice people there but even the used one was several times what a decent Ferrari V-12 would cost used Chelle

Sure : ) we can get together - Two Alpha cars will be around as well as the Lambo.. We'd love to get together Please let me know what your schedule will be. during the week the best way to reach me is here or my work addy mnlonnecker@NHGL.med.navy.mil I'll call you tomorrow from the office if I can. Chat soon, Chelle

Thanx for the heads up Speedracer, I'm high bidder again - maybe his reserve has come down : ) Chelle http://members.core.com/~sysadmin/personal/Urraco/lambo.html

Drax240z, I bought a BMW V-12 and 6 speed for one of out z based cars - the biggest issue we haven't totally decided how to overcome is the front oil sump on this engine- it interferes with (well is totally in the way of) the crossmember. If we do it it will be in the GTO replica with stretched wheelbase. still there's going to be interference unless we make a custom crossmember. If we ever resolve this I'll be happy to post pics. It fits between the shock towers but I can't imagine anyone going to the trouble of putting this setup in a stock wheelbase Z.. though I'm sure there are some willing to try. Chelle http://members.core.com/~sysadmin/personal/Urraco/lambo.html

The pics of the GTO replica in bare aluminum came from Mark's site. He is the one who made Frank Beard's (from ZZ top) GTO roadster.. and one of the best - He makes the bodies from scratch and is an incredible artist when it comes to making body panels... His site is here: http://www.vgdauto.com/metal.html I highly recommend his work - the one that was on ebay repeatedly recently has a body by Alegretti and is a very nice car. The actual conversion was done using a Ferrari 330 as the basis. The seller will take $145,000. I've bid on the thing every time he lists it - but the highest I've taken the bidding to was $125k He won't come down and I can't get anyone to try to outbid me highter than that. I probably wouldn't go much higher anyway. It still needs a few minor things - doesn't have side windows at all, and it has a pretty much race only transmission with straight cut gears. If he takes $20k off I'll take it. *shrug* eventually he'll either sell it to me or he won' t. It's a nice car though. I have some good high res pics of the one in Florida if anyone is interested let me know. Chelle