'The Ratarossa': The Testarossa Spider Rebuild Project

Mine was just missing from the crate of parts that came with the car. I don't think they really ever fail. Unfortunately though Ferrari don't make them any more.

 

Both, even under normal braking I can feel it pull to the left. I will get it on a tester and see what it shows up.

My dilemma is that before getting everything setup correctly I was planning on doing the rear shocks getting the springs made up and all the suspension bushes this winter then the Suspension, brakes and everything would have been gone through updated and at that point was planning on getting it all professionally measured and setup.

 

Having had a night of thinking about the problem today I decided to start crossing off all the variables that will cause my front end pull.

Visited local tyre garage and had a new set of front tyres put on the Ratarossa. The old one had plenty of tread but they were different tyres, 1 was from 1993 and the other was 2000 so both well past their prime. I also had the wheels and steering wheel aligned.

Ive not given the car a hard road test yet but so far there is most certainly a vast improvement on the feel. It has also shown up the rear end suspension, I can feel now that all those bushes are 31 years old and looking forward to a project refreshing the back end this winter.
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Having the car up on the ramps in the light enabled me to get a good look at the underside and engine.

I have a better idea of the straight through pipes I want to get made up to attach to my euro sports muffler

And I cant wait to get this engine out and fix everything up.
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Quick light fix on the car. My right hand side light wouldn’t pop up, so the car was winking.

Culprit was loose bolt on the motor mounting arm. But in the process I managed to snap the plastic Spal connector, fortunately in my box of bits I had a spare
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Saw a couple of flies in my CS engine bay when I drove to the tyre garage this morning. Discovered a dead guest in the rear diffuser.

Should have named the CS Ferrari ‘Ratarossa’ or perhaps this little fella got lost and picked the wrong car
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Exciting week filming for these two.
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Couple of days with this dude, Matt Farah who’s just flown over from the US to do some filming on the Ratarossa for TheSmokingTire & TheDrive
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Few pics from filming this week.
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UPDATE:
With the new front tyres, wheel alignment and another brake bleed the problem is much better.

I have a set of s/s braided brakes lines just arrive so with fit these to all four corners this week.

 

I went with a red braid to go with the subtle red highlights of colour flares on the Ratarossa
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Update:

More adjustment to suspension required.

For The Drive & Smoking Tire video Matt drove the Ratarossa pretty hard, actually more than i've dared push the car so far. This was really good because the TR handled it well and seemed to soak it up. It actually filled me with confidence how good this car is capable of being. Once Ive completed a few winter jobs on the car next year is should be a really fulfilling drive.

The other thing with the car being put through its paces was once of the road we used was very undulating, this combined with a bit of speed really tested the suspension, resulting in the new springs bedding in more and settling down. This caused the tyres to rub on the arches when cornering hard.

A few turns of the coil overs to bring it back up to height will quickly resolve this.

I'm in two minds now if I want to change the rear factory shocks to the coil overs and run through this process again on the 4 rear shocks !! The ride height from factory is actually fine on the rear and the shocks perform well ????

Dilemmas ..... might just refresh all the bushes etc on the current set up ????

 

Will do

 

More ride height adjustments on the Ratarossa after the front springs have been bedded in. Few turns of the collar to raise the front slightly.
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Back to some more 'getting my hands dirty' technical stuff.

Ive had the Euro X-OST sports muffler sat around in the garage now for to long, currently I have no more filming or magazines plans on the Rat or the next few weeks, I think its time to tackle the lack of noise this Testarossa creates.

As per previous post this was never going to be a straightforward bolt on job. The Euro v US systems are completely different from the manifolds all the way back. My plan is to have some decat pipes made up to connect the manifolds 4 outlet pipes to the new Euro muffler. Really the only way to get a gauge for how this will work and fit was to get down and dirty, remove the old system and offer up the new one.

The other difference between the US and Euro cars is the mounting position where the muffler sits on the rear frame. The US system being so much bigger and wider than the Euro setup the hangers are in completely different positions. My plan is to get the Euro box in place roughly where it needs to sit, take measurements and get the Decat pipes made up, then get some new mounting points welded into the car and basically convert that to Euro Spec........ never thought this would be simple.

 

Pics of the removal

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Euro Sports v US Factory
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The weight difference is quite substantial. ill have to add the 4 decat pipes but they won't add much to the new setup

 

New system being offered up for measurements
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Fired the car up, it sounds like a beast without the system installed