06 Mar Engine Day
Lots more engine work is taking place at Fluid MotorUnion this week. Let’s see what’s on the docket, shall we?
First up, in the midst of yesterday’s blizzard, we had an arrival that you don’t typically expect to arrive in the midst of a bad snowstorm.
Yep, that’s a Ferrari 360 Modena, seen here in convertible Spider form. Featuring a 3.6L V8 motor that puts out 400 bhp in stock form, while it’s not the most worshipped Ferrari on the planet, it’s still a product of Italy and one that deserves good care and attention. Speaking of good care, that’s why it’s here at Fluid MotorUnion. The coolant splashed around the engine bay (among other things) leads us to believe that it’s suffering from a blown head gasket. If the owner wants us to check out the full extent of its issues, we’ll be sure to bring you the lowdown right here on the FMU blog. For now, though, it never hurts to have an extra piece of Italian eye candy in the shop.
For some non-Italian engine work, we have a customer’s Dinan-modified E90 335i in the shop for a few things. First, it’s going to get warmer next week, so he’s opted to swap over to summer tires. No matter what rubber’s on this car, though, it’s a good thing the wheels’ spokes are far apart, or else we wouldn’t be able to check out the StopTech BBK he has installed. Something tells us the wheel choice was intentional for that exact reason.
But neither of those things have to do with the engine. Rather, we’ll be helping this 6-pot breathe a little easier by way of some ceramic-coated Macht Schnell downpipes. They’re much larger than the OEM offerings, helping to reduce flow restrictions, opening up both sound and power. Furthermore, the ceramic coating will help keep heat where it needs to be — inside the pipe, not outside it. The first step in installing these new downpipes were to remove the old ones, one of which is pictured below. With the help of some high-powered elbow grease due to sticking bolts, we had the pipes out in no time.
After that, it’s a simple matter of installing the new pipes. Although it’s not that simple — given the size increase of the Macht Schnell pipes, there has to be a fair bit of twisting and moving compared to the OEM downpipes. That said, this isn’t our first rodeo with these parts, so after a little while, everything is in place and tightened down. We’ve run a baseline dyno already, so once we run it again, we’ll let you know what kind of power gains to expect with your own similar setup.
Finally, we’re sticking with the German marques, but we’re doubling the cylinders. Over in fabrication, Tom’s V12-powered Mercedes SL600 is just about ready for its new custom exhaust. As with every other custom exhaust we build at Fluid MotorUnion, we’ll be handcrafting this setup without any robotic assistance. We’ve got everything cleared out of the car past the headers, so now it’s time to start plotting angles and test-fitting pipes. We’ll be watching this one closely, as it’s part of a larger build that we’ll be bringing to the forefront as the month continues. Hopefully you’ll be following along with us at home!
Have a great day, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!
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