StanceWorks: K24 Swapped Ferrari: The Final Countdown – SEMA 2022 is in 10 Days… and I expect to drive it.

StanceWorks Video Transcript

Foreign Guys this episode is going to be a whirlwind if you haven’t connected the dots yet the Ferrari is going to SEMA with CSF radiators and I’ve got about 10 days left to finish it up this episode format is going to be a little bit different than normal because I have not

Been recording over these last two weeks not like I normally do it’s going to be more of a highlight reel because I have been working like crazy to get the car finished I feel really good about it the next episode you guys see this car will

Move under its own power if there are no major issues so let’s keep our fingers crossed let me show you what we’ve gotten done and a special thanks to omaze for sponsoring this episode two weeks ago we got the engine bay of the Ferrari fully sandblasted and then

Coated in a fresh coat of black paint I have spent months criticizing just how ugly Ferrari’s Factory chassis work is and to be frank I’m not sure we’ll ever do anything to make it look much better but the black paint hides Ferrari’s crimes and I think this whole thing is

Going to transform drastically once we drop our engine back into place I sent out all of the engine mounts parts and pieces to get powder coated and they have returned and are ready for installation this is the first time in a year and a half that I’ve seen these

Parts in something other than a rusty finish so I’m really excited for how this is coming together with the engine in place it’s impossible to fit the fuel cell in so it is first on the list and first to be crossed off following that the engine is dropped

Into place and then I recently got our turbo manifold back from the ceramic coater I had Brett Walker machine the flange itself perfectly flat and then had it finished in titanium silver I was hoping for white but I couldn’t find anything ready to handle the temperatures this thing will see so

Silver it is I’m still eager to rebuild this manifold later down the line because I know I could do a much better job this day and age but I’m still happy to see how it’ll perform and I think it turned out reasonably well for my first ever realtig project

From here it’s a highlight reel of Parts installation you’ve seen every one of these parts and pieces go into the car before although there are some mild changes such as the fact that our throttle body is finally fully welded the devil is in these small details that

Get the car to the finish line we’re still missing our plumbing and our wiring but all of the hard parts are back in the engine bay and this thing looks absolutely incredible frankly it’s a dream come true I never expected the outcome to be this good but with the

Manifold and the exhaust fully coated all of the charge piping in the intercooler brushed and everything else either painted or powder coated this thing looks like a million bucks and I am stoked this build may have taken a long time to get to this point but I think it goes to

Show what a little bit of extra effort on that fit and finish can do for a project we’ve still got other details like installing our mag valve cover but that’ll happen in the next episode for now let’s turn the clock back one more time and talk about those lower quarter

Panels that I removed from the car these are one of the few fiberglass components to the 308 and while the outside looks good the part that was visible inside of the engine bay is absolutely hideous its rough unfinished fiberglass because it was never really meant to be seen it

Comes with carpet over top of it from the factory but in our case I couldn’t stand looking at it in all of the ugly structure attached to it so I want to cut it apart the plan is to leave behind only the exterior shell and in turn giving us a

Lot of open space in the engine bay but I’m gonna take my time on cutting these apart because if I mess up I’m in deep trouble there’s a pair of these for sale on eBay right now for five thousand dollars each that’s probably because they’re no longer available from Ferrari and the

Only way to get some is from a wrecked car of which there aren’t many but if I let the fear of cutting up things I can’t afford to replace dissuade me well this project would never have gotten off the ground so fearlessly we’re gonna chop these things to bits

We’re left with an outer skin but no structure with which to mount it so on the lathe I turned down some one inch long 35 000 thick segments of tube and we’re going to attach some weld nuts to the ends of them at less than a millimeter thick this is

Definitely my tiniest weld job so far but I’m excited to try it out now because this stuff is so thin I’m just gonna fuse welded there’s no reason to add filler material because we’re going to get solid penetration from The Arc alone as you can see these are extremely

Tiny welds and I had a bit of undercutting but I’m excited about it the lower quarter panel had two pre-existing holes so we’re gonna Mount those tube nuts to these holes and then figure out how to attach that to the chassis I bolted a third and final tube nut to

The original bumper shock mount which now supports our wing I then bridged that Gap with half inch diameter 35 thousandths wall tube because of flexibility in the quarter panel and the fiberglass it took a lot of effort to make sure both lower quarter panels were mounted at the exact same angle

It took a lot more work and time than expected but the lower quarter panels are now mounted and they’re extremely rigid a much better solution than what we had from the factory we can cross these strong lightweight mounts off the list and move on to our headlights

As some of you guys might remember I bought these hella jumbo 220 driving lights as an alternative to the pop-ups and as an alternative to a more typical quad driving light as found on the 288 GTO I like this solution a lot because I know that it’s Unique and it still

Retains a bit of a factory look in the front end of the 308 it’s not garishly aftermarket the problem is we’ve got to figure out exactly how we want to mount them my buddy Ryan spent the day at the shop and together we brainstormed a lot of

Different ideas on how to pull this off before landing on something that we thought made True sense I wanted something not only lightweight and adjustable but also simple at its core after welding some bits and pieces of aluminum together we landed on this now even I can admit this is a

Completely ridiculous looking headlight Mount sitting by itself on the workbench but hear me out I think it makes some sense the Hella slides over the 5 8 aluminum rod through its original pivoting Mount and this gives us the ability to pitch the light up and down

Slotted holes on the chassis side of the mount give us the ability to pitch the light inwards and outwards whether that’s towards the side of the road or towards the center and then last I put some clevis mounts on the bottoms of the lights so that we

Can lock everything into place by using these small turnbuckles that I fabricated off screen and by using these fixed rod ends we can actually lock the position of the light into place with no extra Hardware in all the lights have a great range of motion for adjustment and I’m really

Happy with the solution given the fact that it weighs hardly anything at all seeing the finished lights in place without the covers is even more exciting and the front of this thing is really coming together all that’s left is we need a front grille and to mount that splitter

Remember when I said I didn’t film everything over the last two weeks that’s because some of it is flat out boring especially when it involves taping off the entirety of the inside of the 308 and if you think I’m underestimating no I mean the entirety of the inside of the 308

This is more than three full rolls of tape and more than a day’s work of masking off everything that I could and you might be wondering why but the answer should be pretty obvious it’s because the inside of this car is ugly Ferrari’s fiberglass and Sheet Metal

Work in here are ugly and to be clear paint won’t help but black paint might at least hide it so with everything masked off I painted the inside of the car and while the paint dried I turned my attention towards the dashboard which originally was in good shape but it’s

Now completely covered in sand and has a bit of damage that I’d like to repair the sand is an easy fix it’s just a result of sandblasting the car without removing the dashboard some leather cleaner and conditioner took care of everything but on the other hand some of

The glue that holds the leather down to the dash itself has deteriorated over the years with everything fixed in the dash back in the car you get an idea of how the interior is shaping up especially with some fresh black paint we’ve still got a lot of interior

Paneling to install and some carpet to glue down but I think this is shaping up as you guys know I’m not huge on ad Integrations but when omaze reached out to me and said not only could my audience enter for a chance to win a sick car we could also support charity

At the same time I said that is what I’m all about so this episode is brought to you guys by omaze the Buick GNX is considered to be the last muscle car ever made and with a 3.8 liter V6 under the hood producing 276 horsepower and 360 foot-pounds of torque

It is a well-earned reputation this one’s number 51 of just 547 produced and it only has 2 000 miles on the odometer that means it’s worth an estimated 185 thousand dollars and the car includes taxes and shipping you can enter for your chance to win this car at omaze.com stanceworks where your

Donations will go towards supporting and benefiting the American civil liberties Union Foundation since 1920 the ACLU has sought to preserve and defend the individual liberties of everyone in this country no matter who they are or where they’re from so if you ask me entering this sweepstakes is a win-win so again head

To omaze.com stanceworks for your chance to win this insane car and to do some good at the same time all right it is about midnight uh just finished up my aluminum bulkhead covers again I wish I had recorded to this whole thing but I just needed to focus

On building them but they turned out sick all of my bends line up really well they fit the inside of the car perfectly my Snaps worked out perfectly these guys are quick disconnects I can just press the button the panels come off and then I can push them they snap back into

Place I’m stoked with how these turned out it was a way bigger project than I anticipated probably took realistically all day to get everything fit the way I wanted it to to get all the bins to line up I’ve been both panels at the same

Time to get all my Snaps perfectly in a row figure out where I can position them get those to line up with the panels etc etc they’re pretty much done but now I need to wrap them in carpet and I want to do that before I go to bed so let’s see

What they look like all finished and boom now there are still panels that go above these that kind of trim everything out but overall I am stoked on how these bulkhead covers turned out they’re really simple and fit that f40esque minimalism that I’m looking for and they

Do a great job of hiding Ferrari’s ugly chassis that’s hidden behind them and then of course there are those push button quick releases which give me access to the storage space behind them if you haven’t seen previous episodes this is where all of the car’s Electronics live the PDM the ECU and a

Handful of other modules speaking of I need to get those installed ASAP but for now let’s turn our attention to the hood I mentioned in a previous episode that I was giving this Hood to my friend Paul better known as son of Cobra he’s incredibly talented when it comes to

Custom Composites and he’s going to take the work that I’ve put into this hood and transform it entirely he’ll body work it to Perfection and then use it as a plug for a mold so that we can have a custom carbon fiber hood last week he invited me to his Workshop

Just down the street so that I could see his progress so far he had finished all of the Bodywork and had test fitted the hood on the car to make sure it was going to fit exactly the way that we want it to to say he had done an

Incredible job up to this point is an understatement he fixed every problem I had introduced with my own work and then gave the hood his own Flair he introduced a lit to the Leading Edge of the duck for better airflow and refined all of the edges so that it was

Aesthetically perfect but we’re not using this Hood instead he’s used this Hood to make a perfect mold the beauty here is that if I ever need a replacement hood or if somebody else wants one that’s just like mine we can now make as many as we want

Paul called me over when he was ready to infuse the very first part and this was a true moment of excitement watching the resin rush through the flow media and into the carbon fiber itself this was watching a part come to life before my very eyes if you’re unfamiliar with the process a

Vacuum pump draws resin through Dry carbon fiber throughout the entirety of the part it will then cure inside of this mold be placed into an oven and then about 24 hours later we’ll get to see the finished result but what was an agonizing exciting weight for me is mere moments for you

The following afternoon Paul called me over so that I could film the process of breaking the carbon hood free from the mold I’ve never tackled a part quite like this but I can attest firsthand that this is the worst part of the whole process it’s hard work and it fights the entire

Time eventually though Paul worked his way around the entire mold breaking away all of the leftover resin the peel ply and the flow media this began to reveal the carbon part underneath as well as the geometric reinforcements layered inside of the carbon itself this will be a single piece Hood when

It’s done with one seam in the middle because of a two-part mold when the part is freed it will still need quite a bit of finishing work but you’ll see what a Craftsman Paul is because the part itself is still absolutely impressive it still needs trimming polishing and

Some touch-ups here and there as well as work to cover the seam in the middle of the duct but even still I cannot believe how amazing This Hood looks already Paul’s craftsmanship has all of the carbon weave perfectly straight and all of the Contours lining up with one another

To be frank it feels like it would be a crime to paint This Hood so we’ll have to see what I decide later down the line all right now we gotta shift gears we got to talk front suspension we’ve got all of our geometry figured out except

For one thing which I’ve mentioned in the past we do not have our Ackerman angle figured out now forgive the talking head segment I have explained Ackerman briefly before I’m going to do it again for those that missed it skip ahead if you want Ackerman angle is important imagine your

Car is driving around a fixed point a cone in a parking lot you’re driving in a circle the size of that circle is different for your inside front wheel versus your outside front wheel that inside wheel is turning on a smaller Circle than the outside one thanks to the width of your

Car the track width you need to get the differential between those that Delta between the inside wheel and the outside wheel dialed in correctly so that your tires aren’t scrubbing as you’re going through a turn now that’s typically defined by the length of your steering arm in relation

To the overall wheelbase and a few other factors I did some math I made some changes to our steering arms I believe that I am within a degree and we can fine tune it later so that is solved at this point but there’s one other thing

We need to do some of you guys might remember we have a really tall bumps to your spacer which means we’ve got a really long lever pulling on our steering arm I want to get that into double Shear so we don’t have to worry about anymore here’s how I did it

I’m using some simple two inch wide cold rolled stock for this job my plan is to make a really simple reinforcement so that our tie rod is mounted in double Shear some of you guys may think that my overall plan is a bit weak but it really

Only needs to be strong on one axis so we’re going to keep it simple and lightweight After figuring out some complicated math on exactly what shape this arm needs to be to line up with the lower Mount and to get the Ackerman angle correct I buzzed it out on the bandsaw and then

Finished it on my Disc Sander that finally works I clamped it into place TIG welded it to our spindle and then called it done all that’s left is to coat this thing in some steal it Somewhere along the line I pressed in the ball joints and we can cross these off the list as well they’re ready for our wheel hubs which we’ll get to here in a moment we’ll also need our control arms which means we need to rebuild our lower ball

Joints these are full of dust and grime from being in the workshop for over a year now so I pulled them apart cleaned them up and we’re going to reassemble them torque them to spec and grease them appropriately foreign From here they get reinstalled in the lower control arms and if you remember from the last episode we sent them out for powder coat I landed on a champagnish brassy silver color as something unique and not too off the shelf and the outcome is amazing I couldn’t be happier with the choice of

Color and the powder coat itself looks great on these things I’m really happy with how they turned out they look like professionally built parts and that means if I can do it any of you guys can too and with that all of our suspension is

Ready to go back on the car except for one simple problem we’re missing something so the problem at hand is my wheel studs are not long enough I don’t have very much threat engagement on my lug nuts I want to put extended wheel studs into my

Hubs they are not here yet I don’t want to assemble all of the suspension only to take it all back apart in another day when they show up they might even be here today so suspension is going to wait then it can all go on brakes can go

Back on all that jazz everything should work though it’s all been on the car before the only question will be we’ve got a dial on the ride height we have to realign the whole car that’ll take some time so what else is left well it is admittedly a pretty long list but it’s

Pretty short compared to everything else we’ve gotten done I’ve got a little bit of work left to do on the inside some carpet work some templating to do uh I’ve got to mount the seats got to mount the shifter put the steering wheel in really not very

Much waiting on some pieces to come back from the upholstery shop got door cards to go in in the front of the car Paul’s finishing up our Hood we’ve got the lights done I’ve got to run our wiring harness I’ve got some Plumbing to do oh a

Plumbing sauce to go back in the car the wiring has to go back in the car otherwise we’re pretty good suspension’s got to go on got to get fluids in this thing got to put the axles in that’s probably the biggest variable I don’t know if the axles do fit yet I haven’t

Put them in the car we have to find out if my measurements are good I’m hopeful that they are because I want to drive this thing in got a lot of little details to paint stuff to put on the car I mean it’s a long list but I feel really good about

It this thing is so freaking close I am so stoked so if you’re gonna be at SEMA I will be at the CSF radiators Booth or I’ll be cruising around if you see me come say hi come see the car I’d love to show you guys I’d love to talk to you

About it I’ll be there all week long I am so stoked I don’t know if I’m gonna have an episode out next week uh it’s just I’m probably going to be pushing to get the car done so might have to wait till Sema who knows but either way

I will film what I am doing next week we’ll do another highlight reel kind of like this episode hopefully you guys enjoy it nonetheless uh we’ll still talk about everything that it took to get it there and then we’ll call this the rough draft revision one we gotta start tuning

It testing it driving it and fix every single thing that it’s gonna need and it’s gonna be a lot I already know but that’s what this is all about anyways I’ll quit rambling I am so freaking stoked it’s so close hope you guys have been enjoying this sorry for the absence

I hope you guys understand I have just been putting in work to get this thing done and now I gotta edit this episode and then get back to it so I’ll catch you guys next week or during SEMA thank you as always for the support