Four Cylinders

I finally got all of the little issues fixed (new fuse panel, removal of the alarm and steering column issues) on the 308.

Then last Saturday, I drove to the Exotics car show at Redmond Town Center.  About 6 blocks from the show, the car died at a light.  It restarted, but I had to keep the idle up to prevent it from dying again.  When the light changed, the revs dropped to about 1500 as I tried to move off.  Adding fuel didn't help while revving it back up and slipping the clutch again just caused it to move a little further.  Of course, there was a Porsche Cayenne blowing his horn right behind while I was trying to get the car going.  Eventually, I got through the intersection and nursed it the last few blocks.  By the time I got there, I had decided that I had lost one of the banks of cylinders.

This was confirmed later when a friend checked the exhaust and left side was hot gases while the right side was cold smelly air.  This means that the rear bank isn't working.  It has to be an electrical issue involving the coil, distributor, points, cap, etc.

I took a quick look at the wiring at the show, but didn't see anything obvious.  I have the rubber rain covers over the cap, so it's difficult to pop it off and look at the points, etc.  I ended up driving it home, only about 7 miles.  I did figure out that you needed to rev it up to 4-5K and then slip the clutch, keeping the revs above 3K to get it started moving in first gear.  After that, just keep it in a gear that keeps the RPMs up around 3-4K, and avoid stops if at all possible.  My house is at the top of a 300 foot hill and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to drive it up there.  At the bottom, I took the turn at about 25 MPH in second and quickly realized that it wouldn't go up in second, so quickly shifted to first.  That allowed me to keep the revs over 3K and slowly got it the rest of the way home.  A friend followed me home in his 328, but rapidly found out that he needed to be back a couple of hundred yards as the unburned gas smell was quite obnoxious.

Someone else at the show mentioned that I had the only four cylinder Ferrari there!

I decided not to work on the bank issue since I have several other things that needed fixing. So, I had Dennison International pickup the 308 when they delivered the 330 GT back to me.

       

This is the list of things to be addressed:

1. Belts and tensioner bearings.
2. Valve adjustment.
3. Carb adjustment. It runs rich and I think the prior owner said that he had changed jets as he used it for hill climbs.
4. Figure out what is wrong with the one bank. It’s been a while since the points were done, but wires, plugs and extenders were changed a couple of years ago. No R2 points in it.
5. Pulls under braking, so check out the brakes.
6. Change the oil and filter.
7. Replace the leatherette on the fuse panel cover. There was an alarm system and a hole was drilled for the keypad, so will need hole filled and new cloth on the back side.
8. Replace the foam in the driver’s side arm rest to make the bump go away.
9. Adjust the parking brake.  I added this as it wouldn't hold when moving the car to the trailer.