From the UK:

Re: Ghibi Open Cup race suit

From the USA:

Re: Ghibi Open Cup in the USA!

"I had another chance to look at the rear toe adjustment yesterday and it looks like it's a design problem.

The length of the threaded rod that extends from the heim joint (uniball) goes into the threaded pipe/collar. This collar is threaded on the outside as well as the inside. The collar then threads into the end of the "A" arm. There are 2 lock nuts to secure adjustments. This entire adjustable piece is very short, maybe 1.25-1.5 inches.

There is a narrow lock nut on the threaded rod that locks the position of the threaded rod with respect to the collar.

The collar has a reverse style thread on the outside. This threads into the end of the "A" arm. Since it is a reverse thread, when you rotate the collar/pipe piece it lengthens or shortens the connections to the chassis thus effecting a toe in/out adjustment. There is a lock nut that secures the position of the outer threaded collar to the end of the "A" arm.

The problem is that the length of this adjustable linkage is so short that the width of the lock nuts is quite narrow. It'somewhere between 1/8 and 3/16 of an inch. I believe that this doesn't allow enough thread contact and due to the forces exerted from driving hard the nuts are not staying locked. What's worse is that when they become loose the fore/aft action is further damaging the threads making them an even looser fit and so they don't stay tightened.

Has anyone had any experience with this on this car?

Bob."

From Norway:

Re: Ghibi Open Cup in the USA!

"I have not looked at the problem you are talking about, so this is just a thought.

Is it possible to use aircraft specification lock nuts with holes for lock wire in them?

I ofthen use this if it is things that must not "unlock", or is some kind of 'locking adhesive' a better thing?

My white 'bella' is soon coming together b.t.w.

Until then ciao Aksel in Norway."

From the USA:

Re: Ghibi Open Cup in the USA!

"I've always had a problem with the power steering resevoir leaking fluid out of the breather on the cap.

I assumed that this was due to a pressure build up because of heat. The cooler is mounted in a bad spot on the 1996 cars as the air dam blocks flow to the cooler.

When I tried a breather through a filter it blew too much oil out and I lost steering.

When I tried a catch can I could not mount it so that it would drain back because the resevoir is to high in the engine compartment so it simply emptied too much fluid into the catch can.

Now I'm back to the original factory setup and eventually it looses enough fluid that in high G load turns I sometimes loose my power steering. Not nice.

Has anyone solved this problem?

Bob."

From the USA:

Re: Ghibi Open Cup in the USA!

"I'm having problems keeping the adjustment for rear toe tight.

I've looked at the part involved and I don't see it in the 1996 Evoluzione update manual or in the Ghibli/QPIV parts/Maintenance manual.

It's a uniball attached to the subframe with a threaded rod that fits into a double threaded tube with 2 lock nuts and then the tube has an outer reverse thread that goes into the suspension arm.

It's very hard to get to these nuts (24 & 27mm).

Is anyone familiar with this?

When was this added to the Open Cup Cars?

It appears to me that I may be missing a lock nut?

When loose, it allows toe in/out changes and it also makes the camber loose. I tighten it up but it becomes loose very quickly.

Bob."

From the USA:

Re: Ghibi Open Cup in the USA!

"Hi Henry,

Here's a picture I took after getting the engine out of my GOC.

I've got new turbos and exhaust manifolds coming from David Askew and MIE. Everything was shot. Both turbos and the manifolds werer warped and cracked.

It's been a lovely season thus far. I should be back in operation in about 3 weeks I hope.

Do you have any sources for new rubber seals for the clutch slave cylinder on the late Ghibli? David tells me that Maserati now wants 400 pounds sterling for a slave cylinder.

This is insane. What can we do about how they're treating the owners of these cars. Perhaps a picket and protest at the Modena plant?

I should also be looking for a kit for the master brake and master clutch cylinders. At those prices it will be much cheaper to just put generic racing parts on the car.

Funny picture. Didn't they know which model this was?????

BTW, that's not the turbo that is totally shot. That one got hit by the debris on the track, leaked a lot of air and caused the other one to overspin/destruct by trying to compensate for the lack of boost.

I also broke a mounting tab at the rear of my transmission that day and that allowed the engine to drop down excessively when I went over a very large early season bump on the track. The result was that the flywheel came down and cut a deep groove in the top of the steering rack. It's repairable.

Some track day wasn't it?

Bob."

From the USA:

Re: Ghibi Open Cup at the track

"Here's another update on my loss of a turbo at the track.

Yesterday I removed the heat shielding from the exhaust manifolds. I did this because of a couple people saying that the shielding causes warping and cracking. I already had a slight leak at the flange on one end of one of the manifolds that disappeared when everything was warmed up.

Well, both of these manifolds were warped at the mounting flanges and both had rather large cracks that leaked exhaust gases. I'm replacing them with the newer style ones that have a reinforcing rib cast into them. I'm also going to use external heat shields in a similar manner to those used on Mateo Panini's green Open Cup car.

One of my turbos is repairable but the other may not be. It's difficult to find parts for these as IHI has none. I've decided to put a set of turbos from a 3200GT on and get new ECU chips from Modena Performance that match this setup very closely. This should make repairs much easier. I'll put the car on a dyno and have them verify that the new map is a good match.

I'm expecting about 360hp unless I put a less restrictive set of air filters on and then it might go up a bit more.

I have noticed that the original turbos have a very stiff spring setting for the wastgates. I will measure this. I suspect this adjustment is part of the factory performance tuning. I really wonder if the wastgates could ever open as they are so stiff.

Bob."

From the USA:

Re: Ghibi Open Cup at the track

"Here's an update on my loss of a turbo at the track.

Gosh this was soooo much fun but after 28 hours the motor is out of my Ghibli Open Cup. I got a chance to compare this 96 car with that of my 84 Bitrubo during this fun filled event. With all their newly added modular connectors on this car they actually completely and total failed with this portion of the "design upgrade". While they do have "one" connector on the firewall that unscrews nicely there are dozens of connectors all over various parts of the engine which are attached to sensors, coils ... etc. This makes for an enormous wiring harness that must be extricated from the engine by cutting numerous wire ties as well as removing several retaining fixtures. Then the harness is laid back on the windshield to get it out of the way for engine removal.

Then it struck me. Staring me in the face on the windshield was this multitude of wires and modular sealed connectors neatly loomed together in THREE very nicely ribbed plastic loom covers. Why didn't they just put modular connectors at those THREE points and save hours of disassembly that's a now a waste of about 10 hours (5 out/?? back in)? Is it an electrical issue of some sort?

On to the turbo failure, well sort of. After the usual cursing about how stupidly hard it is to get the manifold nuts off of a factory car I did manage to get the manifolds off of the engine. Forget about simply removing the turbos from the manifold. Access and a supremely stupid factory selection of nuts with a 10mm wrench size for a 13mm bolt made this impossible at the time. Some one should introduce Maserati to antisieze. I have no problems like this on the 84 that I maintain but this car is now almost 10 years old with very,very low mileage. Even with days of soaking these nuts things were tough, 2.5 hours for 12 nuts.

Ok finally, drum roll please. I had the left had turbo fail instantly with no warning at a track event about a month ago. A total rattling, oil puking, no fricken boost failure. This was shortly after another track event at which I received several Viper bites to my undercarriage, left side of the car and one tire. A very talented Viper driver hit the wall hard at Pocono and spewed broken suspension and wheels all across the track. I had no choice but to drive through it all. I heard the parts bang off of my car and came into the pits to spend an hour inspecting for any the damage. I also have a very large solid sump guard under my car and I could not find any problems except that the sump drain plug was gouged.

Well, I missed something because when I pulled the turbos off I discovered that the turbo which had not failed had been hit hard enough by debris to gouge a .25" hole on the compressor housing! It didn't fail but the edges of the blades were slightly nicked. It looks to me like this caused an enormous leak so that the turbos had to over spin to maintain boost, which they did admirably. The car ran fine the rest of that day and for 2 more sessions at Watkins Glen 4 days later.

I guess that the turbo on the other side failed because even though they both were clearly spinning too fast it had more load due to it's actually being able to create some boost???

It's just kind of weird. Shoot the turbo on the right side and the one on the left fails not the one that got shot.

Once the engine was out I discovered that the "Factory" had hand painted "ghibli" on the firewall in white paint. Gee, I wonder if they mark their shoes and gloves with a big "D" and "S" as well (Italian right/left)? How could they not know it was a Ghibli(II)????

Bob S."

"I lost one of my turbos at the track last week. Can anyone provide any input on the expected longevity of these under race conditions? Also, what is the the IHI specification number for these turbos? Bob."

More interesting news from Italy:

Re: Ghibi Open Cup stickers

"Ciao Enrico,

ti spedisco una foto del kit completo di adesivi della Ghibli Open Cup. Il kit era composto dagli sponsors ufficiali del campionato ed erano gli adesivi che ogni vettura obbligatoriamente doveva avere, poi ogni pilota o scuderia era libero di aggiungere eventuali sponsors personali che non fossero però in concorrenza con gli sponsors ufficiali del campionato. Gliadesivi degli sponsors ufficiali avevano una collocazione ben precisa sulla carrozzeria della vettura (ovviamente darò la "mappa" per l'applicazione dei vari adesivi a chi me lo chiedesse).

Le vetture gialle e bianche avevano gli adesivi neri, mentre le vetture rosse li avevano bianchi.

Attualmente ho disponibili 4 kit completi di adesivi neri (per le vetture gialle e bianche), ma nel giro di pochi giorni (3 o 4) possono essere disponibili anche i kit di adesivi bianchi (per le vetture rosse).

Ti posso garantire che gli adesivi sono ASSOLUTAMENTE IDENTICI AGLI ORIGINALI, nei materiali, nelle dimensioni, nelle forme e nei colori. E' anche per questo che purtroppo la riproduzione è costata parecchio.

L'intero kit di adesivi costa attorno ai 230 Euro, e la riproduzione per ragioni di economicità è conveniente eseguirla per almeno 4 kit, per cui sono aperte le prenotazioni!

A presto!"

"Hi,

I am sending you a photo of the complete sticker kit for the Ghibli Open Cup. The kit was composed of logos promoting the official championship sponsors and were compulsory for every car taking part, then every team driver was free to add their own individual sponsor's logos as long as the companies advertised were not in direct competition with the interests of the official championship sponsors. The official championship sponsor's stickers had to be located in specified positions and I can supply a "map" with their precise loction if asked.

The yellow cars and the white cars had black stickers, whilst the red cars had white ones.

At the moment I have 4 complete kits in black available (for yellow and white cars), but in just a few days (3 or 4) I could supply kits in white for the red cars.

I can guarantee to you that these stickers are ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL TO THE ORIGINAL ONES, same material, same sizes, same design and same colours. It is for this reason that producing them doesn't come cheap!

The entire sticker kit costs around the 230 Euro, and to keep the price down I must place an order for at least 4 kits, for which I am prepared to take orders!

See you soon!"

If any owners/collectors would like a set, please email your order to me at maserati123@btopenworld.com!

Interesting news from Italy:

Re: Ghibi Open Cup Clothing

"Ciao Enrico,

Alcuni giorni fa ho contattato un amico che lavora alla Maserati perchè stavo cercando qualche capo di abbigliamento della linea Ghibli Open Cup. Infatti tra il 95 e il 96 la Maserati aveva nel suo merchandise una linea di abbigliamento e oggettistica che comprendeva anche modellini, ombrelli, valige, foulard, ecc.

Il materiale Ghibli Open Cup è esaurito da tanto tempo (molto materiale era stato anche venduto a prezzi simbolici o addirittura regalato perchè nessuno lo richiedeva più e non c'erano molte prospettive di essere venduto e comunque occupava spazio inutilmente...), ma il mio amico è riuscito a trovare qualcosa, soprattutto chiedendo ai suoi colleghi, impiegati e operai, che all'epoca avevano comprato (o gli era stato regalato) qualcosa.

In breve: sono riuscito a ritrovare praticamente quasi tutta la linea di abbigliamento Ghibli Open Cup che comprende:

- giaccone pesante
- giacca leggera
- felpa
- gilet
- camicia
- polo
- pile

Visto che il materiale verrebbe venduto in blocco, ci sono articoli con capi anche doppi, che sarei disponibile a vendere nel caso in cui qualcuno li desiderasse. Pensi che qualcuno sia interessato ?

Quando verrai in Italia ti faccio vedere il materiale doppio che metterò a disposizione di chiunque interessato.

Inoltre sto riproducendo gli adesivi della Ghibli Open Cup, prendendo come copia gli adesivi originali della mia Ghibli.

Alla fine risulteranno assolutamente identici agli originali. Visto che avrei la possibilità di produrne alcuni kit, potrei metterli a disposizione degli altri proprietari di Open Cup.

Pensi che qualcuno potrebbe essere interessato? Non so ancora il prezzo, ma credo che non sarà esagerato.

Ci sentiamo presto, ti aspettiamo!!

"Hi,

A few days ago I met up with a friend who used to work for Maserati, because I was looking for some clothing from the Ghibli Open Cup Line. between 1995 and 1996 Maserati had as part of their merchandise, a line of clothing and souveniers that also included models, umbrellas, suitcasesand scarves etc.

Ghibli Open Cup clothing been unavailable for some time now, in fact a lot of the items were sold off cheaply or even given away as nobody wanted them. and with no possibility of selling them, they were also taking up valuable space in the warehouse. But my friend has been able to find a few things after asking friends, and workers, that at the time either bought them or were given them

The yellow cars and the white cars had black stickers, whilst the red cars had white ones.

At the moment I have 4 complete kits in black available (for yellow and white cars), but in just a few days (3 or 4) I could supply kits in white for the red cars.

I can guarantee to you that these stickers are ABSOLUTELY IDENTICAL TO THE ORIGINAL ONES, same material, same sizes, same design and same colours. It is for this reason that producing them doesn't come cheap!

The entire sticker kit costs around the 230 Euro, and to keep the price down I must place an order for at least 4 kits, for which I am prepared to take orders!

See you soon!"

If any owners/collectors would like a set, please email your order to me at maserati123@btopenworld.com!

Bob in the USA writes:

Re: Ghibi Open Cup

"Hi,

I lost one of my turbos at the track last week. Can anyone provide any input on the expected longevity of these under race conditions?

Also, what is the the IHI specification number for these turbos?

Bob at staats@optonline.net."