Ferrari 400: July 2018

Tuesday, 31 July 2018

Toshiba Records : The Super Car Special !! Ferrari 400 1977 TW-4048

This record showed up on Ebay which I instantly bought.

The content did mention it did include the sound recording of a 400 (and the 512BB, 308GTB and 308GT4).

Till now I only knew of these series:

https://www.discogs.com/label/619837-Supercar-Sound-Series

And as can be seen, that series only does include a recording of a Ferrari 512BB and some other supercars. Also these records are produced in 1977. Just for the fun and out of curiosity I bought one last year.

Supercar Sound Series : Lamborghini Countach

I also made an effort to convert this one to MP3 and published it on YouTube:

Side A: https://youtu.be/4i_PxWaCG2s

Side B: https://youtu.be/aRKnKNNWsmY

(If you like this you might find this blog entertaining too:

https://erwinxjs.blogspot.com/2017/09/jaguar-xj-s-total-driving-experience.html)

Those supercar recordings are published by Dan Records while this one is published by Toshiba records.

Also for this record I made an effort to digitize the recording and convert it into MP3 and put it on YouTube. I have to say I can't recognize the 400 sound recording though. Which is strange as it should be a completely different sound compared to the 512 Boxer engine or the V8 engine in the 308.

If one of my readers can translate the Japanese backside for me that would be very much appreciated:

I did some furhter checking regarding this record but was unable to find anything more on the worldwide web. Except for this link: https://www.snowrecords.jp/?pid=101321592 But that does not reveal anything more. They did however produced additional recordings for other supercars (as indicated on the back cover).

Well, in any case you now can listnen to the recording here:

Monday, 30 July 2018

Zwischengas : Ferrari 400i Automatic - automobiler Belcanto für vier Personen

This German quality article got published during my holiday leave:

https://www.zwischengas.com/de/FT/fahrzeugberichte/Ferrari-400i-Automatic.html

And as I'm subscribed to their newsletter I did happen to receive a nice offer. Apparently it was their 400th newsletter. So I could get a premium account for 400 days with a one-off 40% discount. I figured to apply for it on my return. And now I just read it was only valid for 4 days meaning I'm to late. Well, in any case I now have applied for a premium light membership.

Saturday, 28 July 2018

Auction - Coys : Schloss Dyck

This one is coming up next week:

http://www.coys.co.uk/cars/1973-ferrari-365-gt4-22-2

Curious to see for how much it will go, so adding it here for the records

Carugati Automobiles - Ferrari 400i

Panic is over, I'm back from holiday leave ;-)

One of the places I visited was Geneva. If you are around that place you definately need to pay a visit at Carugati Automobiles. They have a very nice used car stock (https://www.carugati.ch/en/)

Currently they have 4x a 400 in stock, well 3x a 365GT4 2+2 and 1x 400i Automatic. Prices are near or above 6 digits in Swiss Francs (almost equals Euro's). Yes, that's what a good specimen trades for these days in Swiss.

Although I was just strolling around I was given 4 pen's when I left (one for each of the family) - how nice.

Friday, 13 July 2018

Classic & Sports Car : Ferrari bargains

The main article was about the Mondial followed by 2 pages about other models fitting the bill.

Thursday, 12 July 2018

BAT : Keep the V12, Swap the Auto: 1982 Ferrari 400i Project

And another one, enjoy the comments on BAT:

https://bringatrailer.com/2018/07/11/keep-the-v12-swap-the-auto-1982-ferrari-400i-project/

Sunday, 8 July 2018

Maintenance : flaky distributor capacitor.

Remember this blog:

http://erwin400.blogspot.com/2018/05/engine-playing-up-weber-carburettor.html

Well, it turned out this didn't cure it after all (nevertheless worthwhile to check though). Despite I had run a few tests up and down the highway without any issue the problem is back again. The week after I had done this I drove my car to have the valuation report redone for the Insurance company. Only just a few miles away it started to play up again just as before. Sigh!

By now it was also time to get the bi-yearly MOT done. Plus it did require a proper 10k maintenance check up to be done. I have driven a problem free 10k kilometers untill this nasty issue popped up out of the blue. Initially Stefan, the mechanic, stopped doing any activity as he's planning to move out of the Netherlands. But since this turned out to be more problematic as anticipated he's staying a little longer and as such could plan in limited additional work. So I consider myself Lucky as he could look into this issue and also perform the 10k maintenance interval which does include the valve check/adjustment and distribution chain check/adjustment (if needed) and the fluids, filters, etc.

He suspected an ignition issue which makes more sense. As he has got the required test equipment he easily could check out the distributor. And it became apparent it was problematic indeed, see for yourself:

And a small video on how it should be:

I was being told these type of distributors tend to be problematic due to some internal timing mechanics being used. He's quite experienced with this matter and had given up to get this fixed. The best solution was to get it rebuild electronically. On further checking it appeared there was more going on with my distributor. Internally there was some fireworks going on:

The root cause turned out to be a flaky capacitor - Sigh!

So I had to look up the correct type and model used. This particular item was not listed in the part manual.

But further checking online revealed it was the following: Magneti Marelli CE29T part nr 56181116 and 0,25 uF. It's been used on many Ferrari's (likely other Italian brands as well). And for the records, the distributor is a Magneti Marelli S138C

Since Stefan had done already many electronic conversions he did happen to have a good capacitor on stock of the right type. Also the contact points got replaced and all was tested fine. Additional a test run was performed and no more hiccups were experienced. Phew!

I'm glad it did not require an electronic conversion as I like to keep car Original as much as possible and besides it's a very costly swap.