Hi all, I was told that this is the place to get all the Ferrari answers, so here I am. I was in a discussion with someone and he told me Ferrari engine blocks are made by Chevrolet. It seemed weird to me, I know a little about Ferraris, but not enough to argue, as his arguments sounded..well, legitimate. Is this true? It seems silly to me...and why wouldn't they just build their own facilities to produce tham? I know I'm right..but...I need reliable proof.
Hi there. Ferrari manufacturers their own engines, and has since the earliest days of the factory. Here's a video of how the motors are made: http://youtube.com/watch?v=iYQNM-eVmTQ
GM did, at one point, do a stock swap with Fiat company -- but that still gave them zero input with Ferrari. Ferrari remains semi-autonomous under Fiat, per the agreement Enzo made back when Fiat took over Ferrari's road car manufacturing. Fiat Auto Group (that GM got involved with) includes Fiat, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo, but NOT Ferrari. There was a rumor that a new Alfa for the US market would be based on the GM Epsilon chassis, but that was only one of a dozen passing rumors about Alfa returning to the US market. But GM never had any connection with Ferrari. As said above, Ferrari has always made their own engines. Other cars in the past have used Ferrari produced engines -- e.g. the Lancia Stratos and recent Maseratis. The Stratos only got Dino engines because there were some left over when 246GT production ended. A persistant unconfirmed quote from Enzo is that when you buy a Ferrari, you're buying the engine -- they throw in the car for free. If you look around the site here, you can find an "OWNED" card to play on your 'Vette driving friend.
If Ford had it's way and came close years ago---they would have owned Ferrari---can you imagine the horror!!!
Maybe this rumor stems from the fact that GM of Australia is making the engine blocks for the new Alfa Romeo V-6 engines.
That's interesting, Steven.... Ferrari's in house casting ability is legendary.....maybe the confusion is from the recent attempted merger with GM.....they called it off and unwound the mutual stock swap......for major cash payments! SOME components are the product of the world market, Alcoa does lots of aluminum parts for the 360/430, IIRC. Early automatic transmissions were GM too.... And in the real old racing days many blown Ferrari engines were pulled to be replaced by the Chevy V8 and others.....as these cars skyrocketed in value many were reunited with the original or replica block. US parts I have found on my Ferrari: Gates belts Goodyear tires and hoses Baldwin industrial filters...... Stuff like that......
Engine block casting is an art... Newer CAD/CAM takes a little away from the old lost wax days, but it's still 'make or break' once you start pouring!
You find this kind of thing quite a lot. I have an MV Agusta f41000 motorcycle and keep getting told that Suzuki make the engine for it. Truth of the matter is the engine is made in Italy and Ferrari had some design input into the heads. On the otherhand it may be that I am misstaken and what I am seeing is a GM V8 tucked in the frame. Russell
At least they only thought Ferrari's used GM engines, I was trailering my 308 home from the dealership I bought it from, When I a very nice older lady came up and commented what a pretty red car........ thats a Firebird isn't it I wanted to bring the car back to the dealer after that comment! Doug
Ferrari just has there cam acting directly on bucket tappets??? I thought they would surely have roller rockers in between the cams and tappets to improve efficiency. Tim
Chevrolet makes their engines in Mexico,Not real good for building all alloy engines.When G.M wanted to build the Lotus designed all aluminium twin cam V-8 that they put in the ZR-1/ZL-1?they had to go to Mercury Marine to have it made cause they couldnt do it.Think of all of the light weight all aluminium ,hitech engines that Mercury Marine have made over the years.good choice.
great pictures, but a little bit kitschy soundtrack for my taste. It's no magic, it's just modern technology. Best Regards from Germany Martin
Jgirl~ Many years ago, when I was young, I'm at this party and this dumb kid starts on as how a Z-28 Camaro had the engine in "upside down". He seen it with his own eyes. Of course this "stock" Camaro would also go over 200 mph. I have heard about all these "stock" cars, Mustangs, Firebirds, Camaros, Roadrunners, etc, and how many would go "over" 200 mph. More BS stories than you can shake a stick at. I think Enzo would have puked before letting GM make anything for one of his cars.
This has been going on for a while, I worked on the launch of the previous Vauxhall (Opel/GM) Vectra and some of the material mentioned GM made bottom ends in Alfa's V6's. I think it was when they switched from TwinSpark to the current crop of engines. Wasn't the MV Agusta's engine based on the design produced for the Cagiva 500 GP based road bike (the road design was going to replace the 500 2 stroke with a straight 4 four stroke) and Ferrari Engineering designed that engine but the bike never went into production? + some of the 360's F1 gearbox internals are built by Citroen.
Roller rockers? Now there is something that belongs in the Smithsonian. The only race motors in the world that do not have cams acting directly on the cam followers are the ones that are so restricted by the rules that they cannot. The only known better system is electronic actuation which is a technology that has been in the development stage since the mid 80's.
I'd be glad they used it. Ferrari has used a high percentage of vendor supplied parts since day one. Can you imagine how much these cars would cost if they had to build or had built every minute part on a low quanity basis? And Ferrari has been using GM as a vendor at least since the early 70's. Very possibly earlier than that.
The 400 and 412 automatics have GM transmissions, although I believe it was a division of GM located in France that made them. I don't know what's worse, the GM part or the France part.
The stock 30A fuseholder under the trunk liner for the 348 AC unit (yep, the one that melts) has Ford stamped on it. The reason it melts is not because it's a Ford piece; it's that Ferrari used the wrong piece for the application. Jimbo
