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Today I visited a local place which specialises in stuff for GT40s, including Audi 01E trans systems. I left them my 'box so that it can be checked through and then fitted with a Quaife differential, and took away a short-shifter tower. Hopefully, I'll have the trans back in around three weeks.

After that, I drove about four miles and visited a place with a rolling road to see if they'd be prepared to hire it to me for the ECU specialist to do all the calibration. Bearing in mind that this company is in the middle of a very rural farmland area, I was very pleasantly surprised to hear that the man in question has used their facility before, and that they'd be more than happy for him to do so again.

All the pieces are slowly falling into place!

You're on a roll! (see what I did there? )

I am SOOO looking forward to eng/trans test fit day!

Yesterday was a continuation of the dismantling process. I removed all of the left front wheel assembly, so that a) it gave me better access to the area behind and b) it allowed me to start assessing whether I can make it all fit in the Dino. I'm hoping, that apart from the damper strut, the wishbones, etc. will all go in. The issue with the damper is that it's much too long, so I'll need to find something about four inches shorter. Surprisingly, due to the aspect ratios of the tyres, the actual difference in the rolling diameter of the wheels between the Dino originals and the Maserati ones is much less than I was expecting. If I were to use the Maserati ones on the same axis centres, it'd only raise the car by about 15 mm.

I then went on to remove the front seats, which on the face of it should have been straightforward - except that being electrically-powered, I needed some volts to be able to move them sufficiently to access the mounting bolts. The problem there was that as so much had been ripped off the front and back of the car, there were bare wires all over the place. Gradually I worked my way through all the relevant harnesses, then re-mounted the battery (it's original position went when I cut three feet off the back of the body to get it in the garage bay) until I was happy that a power-up was possible. Fortunately, my work was deemed acceptable by the ECU, and I got a live dash.

The computer system was rather upset by the absence of doors, boot lid/trunk, bonnet/hood, and so on, but ignoring those warnings, I was able to satisfy myself that most electrical things worked. Except the seats. The left one just twisted when powered, and the right one did nothing. On removing a load of panels from the front of the left seat, I was able to see that the drive cable had come away on one side. By some judicious finger-work, I was able to get it back in place, and it then duly drove in the desired direction, allowing me to remove the two remaining bolts. On the right, there was nothing obvious wrong, so I took a gamble that it was a switch problem, and fiddled with the motor plug until it (eventually) disconnected. After that, by adding a simple extension harness that reached the battery I was able to power the motor directly, whereupon the second seat came out.

Today's first job is to see what's involved in removing the centre console. If that behaves, then it's headlining out and I'll decide whether or not to cut the entire roof off from the bottoms of the B-pillars upwards. It'd certainly make accessing everything easier, so that's probably what I'll do!

As for engine/trans test-fit - yes, that'll be an interesting day for sure!

I don't think I understood you where planning to use the Maserati as a done car for anything other than the engine. You're thinking full new chassis then?


Is it a standard strut suspension or an a-arm setup that has a strut? If the strut is not structural you could replace it with anything, even an inboard rod and pinot type setup if needed. If it's structural I've seen ball joint adapters installed to replace the strut with an a-arm then you're free to use any shock setup you please.

I suspect there is a whole lot of rubber in the Maserati suspension that you maybe don't want on a sports car? Spring and damper retes will be about useless too so one way or another you probably need to find a way to get custom shocks or struts into the plan?

Last, are you stripping it to part it out or are you thinking you have a use for things like seats and center console?

The plan is to modify the Dino chassis as necessary - it's already rotted out along the lower sections of the three main tubes, so while I've got it up on the chassis jig to fix them I'll do whatever else has to be done. If I can fit a narrowed version of the Maserati front subframe, I'll do so as it'll mean that I've got all the wishbone mountings in the right places at the bottom. The ARB also bolts to it at the front, and the steering rack bolts straight onto the back. The upper wishbone mounts look as though they won't be far off the existing chassis tubes, so hopefully they won't fight me too much!

The Maserati has aluminium wishbones at the front with an incredibly long damper strut that runs from a through-bolt on the lower arms up to a three-bolt mounting on the chassis. If I fitted them to the Dino, I'd not only have to change the damping and spring rates, but I'd need some kind of towers poking out through the top of the front wings! So yes, I need to find something of a more appropriate length and rates. I'll leave that until I have a better idea of the likely axle weights though.

The Maserati has PU bushes in most places already, and anything that needs up-rating will be attended to, so I'm not worried about over-compliance. You have to bear in mind that the GTS is rated at 191 mph, so the engineers put a lot of work into making the chassis work properly.

I would have loved to have used the seats as they're really comfortable, but having now removed them from the car, I realise that each one weighs about the same as the entire transaxle assembly, so they won't be going anywhere near the Dino! The console is a bit lighter, but not much...

I will, of course, be putting everything that I don't intend using up for sale in order to try and offset the costs of buying two wrecked GTSs (three if you count the one I'm not cutting up).

You're going in a bit different direction with it than I thought you would. Can wait to see how some of this comes together.

On the wheel size and ride height my 18in wheel with 30 series tires give an identical OD to the 16' with 50 series my QV came with which are also identical to the 14" with 70 series tires the 1976 came with which I think are the same as the dino came with? Not sure what wheels/tires are fitted to the Maserati but but a quit look at the tirerack web sight might find you a tire option you like better with those wheels.....or just set up the new suspension to give the right right height with the taller tires.

on narrowing the front suspension, watch out for bump steer. If you narrow the the setup the rack will be too wide for a bump steer free result, maybe too wide to use at all but there are tons of rack options out there. I added a steering quickener and then an electric power assist to mine and quite like it so if your rack hunting you might want to look at ratios and power options.

Funny that you should mention the rack - it's an interesting issue that I've been thinking through for some time. The Maserati rack is very narrow, but has long C-shaped track rod ends. I'm hoping that by fitting shorter ones, I can achieve the width I want. Until I can mock everything up though, I won't know whether this will work.

As for the tyres - the Maserati ones are so low profile that it wouldn't be possible to make the rolling radius any smaller. I recently took a mate for a drive in my white Maserati (the unbroken one), but he initially refused to get in because he thought the front tyre was flat - it wasn't... So, yes - I will, indeed, be playing with the suspension until I get a ride height that I'm happy with. I may well make some adjustable dummy damper struts so that I can play away to my heart's content!

I'm guessing you know this but I'll say it just incase....the rack width, inner tierod pivot to pivot, determines where the rack needs to be mounted height wise to eliminate bump steer. If you narrow the suspension frame mounts there may not be a viable rack placement, it may need to be mounted below the car or even below the pavement.

I've been playing with this site as i think about changes to my suspension, it might help you

https://www.vsusp.com/#0.8%26project_name%3Adefault%20values%26trim%7Bbody_roll_angle%3A0%7Cfront.left_bump%3A0%7Crear.left_bump%3A0%7Cfront.right_bump%3A0%7Crear.right_bump%3A0%7D%26front%7Bframe.susp_type%3A0%7Cframe.bottom_y%3A9200%7Cframe.center_to_upper_mount_x%3A28500%7Cframe.bottom_to_upper_mount_y%3A24000%7Cframe.center_to_lower_mount_x%3A17000%7Cframe.bottom_to_lower_mount_y%3A2400%7Ccontrol_arms.upper_length%3A24800%7Ccontrol_arms.lower_length%3A37500%7Cknuckles.hub_to_upper_x%3A15000%7Cknuckles.hub_to_lower_x%3A13000%7Cknuckles.hub_to_lower_y%3A13000%7Cknuckles.hub_to_upper_y%3A13000%7Cknuckles.hub_to_strut_axis%3A14000%7Cknuckles.strut_incl%3A8000%7Csteering.active%3A0%7Csteering.hub_to_outer_tie_rod_x%3A7620%7Csteering.hub_to_outer_tie_rod_y%3A7620%7Cwheels.offset%3A4000%7Cwheels.diameter%3A1500%7Cwheels.diameter_expl%3A35000%7Ctires.size_convention%3A0%7Ctires.section_width%3A19500%7Ctires.aspect_ratio%3A4500%7Ctires.diameter_expl%3A50000%7Ctires.width_expl%3A7620%7Ctires.compression%3A0%7D%26rear%7Bframe.susp_type%3A0%7Cframe.bottom_y%3A9200%7Cframe.center_to_upper_mount_x%3A28500%7Cframe.bottom_to_upper_mount_y%3A24000%7Cframe.center_to_lower_mount_x%3A17000%7Cframe.bottom_to_lower_mount_y%3A2400%7Ccontrol_arms.upper_length%3A24800%7Ccontrol_arms.lower_length%3A37500%7Cknuckles.hub_to_upper_x%3A15000%7Cknuckles.hub_to_lower_x%3A13000%7Cknuckles.hub_to_lower_y%3A13000%7Cknuckles.hub_to_upper_y%3A13000%7Cknuckles.hub_to_strut_axis%3A14000%7Cknuckles.strut_incl%3A8000%7Csteering.active%3A0%7Csteering.hub_to_outer_tie_rod_x%3A7620%7Csteering.hub_to_outer_tie_rod_y%3A7620%7Cwheels.offset%3A4000%7Cwheels.diameter%3A1500%7Cwheels.diameter_expl%3A35000%7Ctires.size_convention%3A0%7Ctires.section_width%3A19500%7Ctires.aspect_ratio%3A4500%7Ctires.diameter_expl%3A50000%7Ctires.width_expl%3A7620%7Ctires.compression%3A0%7D%26pref%7Bdiag1.px_per_mm%3A200%7Cdiag1.front_or_rear%3Afront%7Ctab.active%3A0%7Cunits%3A0%7Cshow.f%3A1%7Cshow.ca%3A1%7Cshow.k%3A1%7Cshow.st%3A1%7Cshow.stl%3A1%7Cshow.w%3A1%7Cshow.t%3A1%7Cshow.rc%3A1%7Cshow.rcl%3A1%7Cshow.ic%3A1%7Cshow.icl%3A1%7Cshow.fvsa%3A0%7Cshow.tl%3A0%7Cshow.kpil%3A0%7Credraw_during_drag%3A1%7Cchart.x_axis_center%3A0%7Cchart.x_axis_window%3A10%7Cchart.x_axis_num_steps%3A21%7Cchart.x_axis_field%3Atrim.body_roll_angle%7Cchart.y_axis_fields%3A%5BFR%5D.general.roll_center.y%7D

Thanks for the link - it looks like a useful site!

It's been a busy week - there are still quite a few bits attached at the front, but the inside is looking distinctly bare. Next step - cut the roof off...