It's official... the Ghibli is a classic

It feels like I've been neglecting the Ghibli of late, since I've not spent much time or effort on it recently. So in an attempt to make amends, I've spent most of the weekend giving the car a good clean an a thorough polish and to prove it I took some pictures!

Jonny's Polished Maserati Ghibli

While in the process, I had several neighbours and passers by comment on the car and pass on positive comments regarding the car and the condition, which is always nice to hear and a real charm of owning the car. Two of the passers by commented that the car is a collectors item and a rare classic... so there you have it! It's official... you can't argue with the word on the street!

Anyway, apologies for being so quiet... despite there having been plenty of stuff going on in my life recently, non of it has really revolved around the car, other than the Spax lowering springs that I ordered from the UK have arrived, which I'll get Jorrit to fit next time I take the car to Nordwijkerhout (probably in a month or so).

Squeaky brakes

I was just looking through my photos and came across this video of Jorrit driving my car back from a test ride. It's only a short one, but I think Ghiblis look much nicer on the move than they do in photos and it gives a much better feel for the proportions of the car.



The front brakes squeak a bit... but I'll let them off given how well they perform! I'm tempted to fit some new springs and lower the car a bit though...

Back at the Dyno

I know I haven't posted anything new on the exhaust yet, or on the Maserati Club International event in Assen, but I'm getting 'round to them.

In the meantime, I've been back to the dyno and to prove it I made a very short video.


The dyno results are below, with the bold lines the new results overlaying the previous results.


As you can see, I've dropped the boost pressure a little which results in a lower peak torque and less agressive ramp up. However, as a result I now have a longer flat section from 4000 rpm to about 5,500 rpm.

Overall performance can be determined by calculating the area beneath the curves... in mathematical terms, if you integrate the curve you'll calculate the actual work done. So although the new curve is not as peaky, across the rev range it's more effective, which should translate as being quicker on the road.

I think there's still some scope to tweak the inlet pressure a little, but it won't yield any big improvements. There's something fundamental preventing me from getting more power out of this engine and I can't quite put my finger on it. Fuelling is not the issue... if anything it's running too rich at the top end, but the chip tuner prefers this since it's much less likely that the engine is going to fail. But it shows that the current injectors are more than up to the job.

So if there's enough fuel, is there enough air? Air supply to the compressors is not the issue, since last time I was at the tuners I did a run with no air filters and there was hardly any difference (so I think the air filters I have fitted are more than good enough). So, maybe I'm getting a significant amount of pressure leak between the compressors and the inlet manifold? To check this I'll need to place a pressure gauge near to the outlet of the compressor and compare this with the pressure at the plenum chamber. It could be that the turbos are having to work very hard to maintain 1.20 bar, which is effecting their efficiency.

Another simple thing to try is to connect the stock boost solenoid... although it won't be controlling the inlet pressure, it's absense may be alerting the ECU and knocking it into safe mode. I don't think the Ghibli ECU has an error check circuit for this like modern cars, but I don't know, so it's worth checking it.

If it's not air supply then it has to come down to timing. I certainly think this is what is preventing me going above 1.20 bar, but I think I should be getting better performance at 1.20 bar, so I'm not going to go down this route yet. I think I should be able to get 360 hp out of this engine at 1.20 bar, so I need to find out what's preventing this before looking at changing out the distribution system.

So... the sooner I install the PLX data logger the better I think.

New exhaust is coming...

Apologies again for not writing for so long... been away on business and then took a short holiday. However, I did manage to order a new mid section exhaust from Larini before heading off on my travels, which should arrive at the garage in the next week or so.

Before playing with the cooling, I want to get the car running how I think it should be with the modification that I've carried out to date. I've also spent a bit of time reading back through this blog and seeing how the car used to perform and I've come to the conclusion that it should be performing better than it actually is at present. That's what prompted the decision to change out the mid section exhaust (coupled with me getting a bonus from work)... I've long suspected one of my cats to be plugged, so changing out the mid section will show whether I'm right or not. The reason I think this is that the car simply doesn't seem to be flowing air at high revs. I know that it's not on the inlet side since the car is running much less losses on the inlet side than a stock car and I know the turbos are in good shape. So the restrictions have to be either on the headers or in the exhaust.

Alternatively, there's something amiss with the timing of the car... and this is something that I'll also have checked out when I take the car to the garage to get the exhaust fitted and to have a few cosmetic maintenance done to the car (changing the bumpers and rolling out a coupe of dents). I'll see if I can also get the data logger installed at the same time.

In the meantime, I've been seeing a few more Maserati around the last couple of weeks. There was a nice looking dark grey Ghibli GT in Den Haag last Friday which looked like the springs had been changed out for lower ones. I also saw a nice 3200 GT in Barcelona a couple of days ago, dark blue with beige leather, exactly what I'm looking for! There's also a silver Ghibli GT that parks outside the royal stables in Den Haag that I see pretty regularly... I think the Ghibli looks good in silver. A couple of weeks ago I also saw a youngish couple drive past in a dark blue Ghibli (again, with what appeared to be shorter springs), again in Den Haag. Seems there's more and more of them around!

Intercoolers

I've been doing a bit of research on intercoolers having recently found out a couple of things.

First was from Buddy at Wereld Auto who informed me that intercoolers from a VW Golf mark IV TDi will fit on the Ghibli, although the one manifold has to be removed and a new one constructed and welded on its place. The good thing about this solution is that it's cheap (these intercoolers can be purchased on ebay for less than €100) and they offer good performance since they're twice the thickness of standard Ghibli units. However, I don't like the idea of having to modify them.

The second option was hinted to me by Jorrit at Auto Forza. He informed me that the intercoolers on the V8 engined Quatroporte is about 30% thicker than the units on the V6 cars. I then happened to stumble upon a picture of a 3200 GT being sold for parts and noticed the intercooler... the location is identical to that of the Ghibli and Quatroporte and the configuration of the ports looked the same.


So I wrote to EuroSpares and enquired as to whether they had any second hand 3200 GT intercoolers and if they could check whether they fitted a Ghibli. They wrote back to inform me that they'd been informed from the factory that the Ghibli intercoolers will fit the 3200 GT (wrong way 'round but by definition, the 3200 GT intercoolers must fit the Ghibli (although the ducting may require a bit of modification)).


Above is the parts schematic from the 3200 GT. Compare the size of the intercoolers with those for the Ghibli in the schematic below.


So I'm tempted to try and source some 3200 GT intercoolers and get Jorrit to try fitting them when he's fitting my new bumber (when it arrives... it's been on order from the factory for about 2 months now!).

As usual... I'll keep you posted of any updates.

Maserati Ghibli V8

Today I had a holiday and so took the opportunity to visit Buddy at Wereld Auto.

I went there to find out more about the KMS, but spent most of the time discussing Ghiblis. He had two in the workshop. one was a MY93 series 1a (but had Mistral style wheels). It was having some problems with a seized turbo, but Buddy has been having trouble trying to source a replacement. So he's working on manifolding a small Garret turbo; designed to flow 180 hp and with a good bearing package, it should be spooled up by 2000 rpm and offer very good low rpm drive-ability (which is what the owner of the car is after).

Buddy says that if he can get the Garret turbo mounted satisfactorily onto the Ghibli's exhaust manifold then he plans to make a kit that will offer a bolt on replacement for Ghibli owners. He also says that by using the Garret turbo, there's lots of scope to play around with compressor sizes to open up tuning possibilities. He thinks he can come up with a kit for around €800 per unit, which is far cheaper than getting a Maserati original part! I'll keep you posted if he managed to pull it off!

OK... the other car was a a very special MY92 Ghibli, but with a Maserati Evoluzione engine and running gear from a Quatroporte, running on a KMS ECU and with larger intercoolers (actually from a Golf Mark IV TDi... they're twice as thick as standard Ghibli units, but the bottom (outlet) manifold needs removing and a new one welding on). Buddy took me for a drive in the car... I've not had that much of a buzz since being in the passenger seat with Top Gear's " The Stig" at the wheel. What a fantastic performing car! The brakes and handling could be improved, but the engine performance is very impressive indeed... the car felt like it had a huge normally aspirated engine, with bags of torque available at low revs... no having to wait for the turbos to spool up like on my Ghibli or having to drop the gears to get the engine revving in it's power band, just stick your foot down and away you go! Buddy's not had it on the dyno recentyl but thinks the performance is around 380 hp with a little under 600 N.m torque. He's set up the KMS pretty conservative so as not to stress the engine too far and make the car very driveable... for example the boost pressure is mapped against throttle position to avoid the big spikes in torque when accellerating out of corners that the car was previously delivering and catching the owner off-guard. It seems that Buddy has a fair bit of track driving experience and he said that the torque spikes were occuring too quick for him to reliably control.

Very, very impressive... kind of gets me tempted to try and source a Maserati V8 and have it fitted in my car! It's a bit tight in the engine bay, but it fits ok and there's actually more ground clearance underneath the car since the V8 has a shallower sump. Plus, since this Ghibli was registered in '92 it doesn't require cats which helps out too.

Regarding the KMS... Buddy still needs to find out if it can run an odd fire engine, so i promised to send on the info that I've acquired and he'll ask the manufacturer. So, lots to report back, but not much yet on the KMS!

ECU Upgrade

Following a lead from Jarle in Norway, I started to investigate Kronenburg Management Systems as an option for upgrading the engine management system on my Ghibli to overcome the limitations of the OEM system installed by Maserati.

The Magnetti Marelli system installed by Maserati is very old compared with today's technology. To put it into context, this system was installed in Ford Sierra Cosworth cars back in the late eighties and early ninetees. The clock speed for this system is around 4MHz. Compare this to a modern laptop or desktop computer, which runs with a clock speed an order of magnitude quicker at 4GHz. In fact, you'd be luck to find a microprocessor that runs less than a hundred times quicker than that utilised in the OEM engine management system.

The effect of this is that the engine management system currently installed in my Ghibli makes significantly less decisions per second than the systems installed on typical modern street cars. Things happen and change very quickly in a car engine, particularly when it's reving at 7000rpm. That's over 100 revolutions of the crank every second, which is 25 detonations per second per cylinder.

The way an engine management system works is by taking a snapshot of the engine, which means recording the values of certain engine parameters at a moment in time by reading the output signals being sent from the various sensors located around the engine. The key sensors on the Ghibli are the inlet air temperature and the inlet air pressure for example. In order for the engine management to make decisions, it needs some reference data. This reference data comes in the form of look-up tables, which is just how people used to make complicated calculations in the days before electronic calculators. These are called maps.

A 2 dimensional map allows you to look up an answer if you know two numbers. Let's say that the inlet temperature is listed across the top row of the look-up table and the inlet pressure is listed along the left column of the table, the answer can be found by drawing a line down from the top inlet temperature value and a line across from the left inlet pressure value. Where the two lines cross is where the answer lies.

The answer tells the engine management system to perform a certain task. However, this answer is only applicable to the moment in time when the two input values were recorded, so if the system is too slow, by the time it carries out the response, it will no longer be applicable... a delayed response.

If there are more sensors, then the management system needs more look-up tables in order to know what decision to make, which takes more time. Also, the decision may require more than one response... for example the amount of fuel that is required and the time at which to ignite the fuel may need to be adjusted. Each additional response takes additional time.

My point here is that the quicker the management system can make decisions and respond, the more effective it is. In the Ghibli, it's obvious that the speed of the engine management system is not optimal, simply by virtue of the fact that TWO management systems are required, one to control the amount of fuel being injected and one to control when the fuel is ignited. So even when the Ghibli was being manufactured, it seems to have been recognised that processing speed was a limiting factor. Therefore, increasing processing speed should have a significant effect on the performance of the engine.

The next issue with the OEM management system is its lack of diagnostic capability. The only real way of determining if the system is making the right decisions is by measuring the performance of the engine, either by having a feel for the car or by sitting it on a dyno. The system does not have an easy way of monitoring what decisions are being made, except by taking the car to a specialist who can tap into the system and monitor what it is doing, which requires a degree of skill, technical knowledge and the appropriate equipment.

Modern management systems however offer a convenient way of monitoring what is happening. They generally have a convenient port into which you can plug a computer and with special software, you can record and review what decisions are being made.

Finally, if you recognise that sub-optimal decisions are being made, you need to be able to change the decision making process, which generally means altering the look-up tables or maps. Again, on the OEM management system, this is not a trivial thing to do and requires removal of the system and some special hardware to reprogramme the memory chips on which the data is stored. Also, the way this data is stored is not very user friendly, as it is stored in a way that is convenient for the microprocessor to read and not the car owner.

The beauty of a modern system is that all these things are possible. With modern software, you programme the data in a form that is easy to understand (using decimal numbers instead of hexidecimal or even binary code required for older systems) using a laptop computer. You can also record data from the engine, review it at a leisurely pace, determine what changes you want to make, update the look-up tables and see straight away the results... without having to go to a chip-tuner!

So, after contacting Van Kronenburg and discovering that they're a Dutch firm (much to my delight, since it means that they're local), I was a bit downheartened that I never heard back from them and it is then that I ordered the PLX Devices R-500 datalogger. However, I subsequently received an email from Buddy at Wereld Auto who informed me that he had been forwarded my enquiry from Van Kronenburg. Buddy is located pretty close to where I live (about a half hour drive) and can install and setup the KMS system on my Ghibli.


Above is a picture of the hardware which would replace the two OEM ECUs. He's given me a quote for fitting the system and I'm going to see if I can integrate the PLX R-500 into the installation to give me realtime feedback on the road. I've a feeling that the lambda probe that came with the R-500 is the same as that utilised by the KMS (a Bosch wideband probe) and I'll also see if I can integrate the Exhaust Gas Temperature (EGT) probe into the KMS, with maybe some feedback to prevent the exhaust gasses getting too hot and damaging the turbos.

The KMS can also control boost pressure, although I'm uncertain if it can tie into the TurboSmart solenoid valve. This would unfortunately make my E-Boost redundant, but I think the KMS would offer greater control over boost pressure with the added advantage of being able to tie in boost pressure maps with fueling and engine load.

I'm waiting to hear back from Buddy with answers to a couple more questions that I have, but if the price is right then I think I might go along with this option. The KMS is certainly much cheaper than MoTec and I like the idea of it being local, since if it stops working then I can go 'round the manufacturer personally to get them to sort it out!

Also, Buddy appears to have worked on a number of Maseratis, including a Ghibli fitted with a V8 engine from a Quatroporte in which the owner wanted the KMS system fitting. He also told me something interesting about the intercoolers from a Golf Mk4 TDi...

Ghibli prices on the up

I received an email recently from a Ghibli owner in France who had sold his MY93 car and was looking to purchase another Ghibli here in the Netherlands. He informed me that Ghibli's are relatively uncommon in France and as a result, the trend in prices had bottomed out and were now on the up.

This is probably spurred on by the recent introduction of the new Maserati GranTurismo and the ongoing success of the Quatroporte raising the profile and perceived value of the Maserati brand. The result is that more people are becoming aware of the Maserati brand and are now considering Maserati as a viable option. Unable to afford the high prices of the new cars, people start to look at second hand purchases, increasing market demand and hiking up prices.

So I just had a quick look on AutoTrader's Dutch website and indeed, although you can pick up an older Ghibli for a pretty low price (this red MY93 Ghibli (with interesting graphite coloured wheels that have obviously been painted) can be picked up for about €11,000), general prices seem to have remained at least stationary since last year and for more recent versions of the car they do indeed seem to be increasing (this dark blue MY99 Ghibli is listed at €22,000)!

It would therefore appear that now is a good time to purchase a Ghibli and that the car is set to become a classic!

Ghibli versus BMW M3

I was sent this article a while back from Jarle in Norway, but never got around to posting it... until now!


Click on it to make it bigger.

Jonny's Ghibli is on the map!

I noticed that the Maserati community has started tracking the loction of its car owners on the internet, so I couldn't resist adding my car to the list.

Why not add yours!

Ghibli nice and clean

Since moving house last year, I have to admit that I've neglected the Ghibli a little. Well, today was a holiday, so I took the opportunity to give the car a wash. It certainly needed it... I was pretty suprised how quick the water in the bucket turned black. But it was well worth the effort... it brought a smile to my face to see the car looking so good... the car's coming up to it's 15th birthday this year and the car is still on its original paint, but it still has a nice deep shine. In fact, one elderly gentleman cycled past and commented that it looked as good as new!

Here's a picture...


To dry the car off a little before putting it back in the garage, I went for a quick drive (well, it was a good excuse to go for a quick drive... I'm really enjoying driving the car at the moment since it's running really well since its 60k service). On the way I drove past another Ghibli driver in a silver GT. Needless to say, when I gave him a flash of my lights he responded with an enthusiastic wave... It's great being a member of the Maserati community!

Anyway, I'm getting some new bolts for the wheels tomorrow (longer ones on the front and maybe some locking bolts all around to stop the temptation for anyone to steal them) and in a week or two I'll be getting new bumpers and the bumps rolled out. So plenty to keep me busy for a few weeks...

Accidents do happen?

I had some problems with my Ghibli's alarm system on Friday night. I parked the car outside my office and popped inside to pick up a couple of things. When I returned to the car, it wouldn't open with the remote control, so I could only gain access with the key.

This on its own wouldn't have been a problem, but since the alarm system wouldn't recognise my remote, it wouldn't disarm the immobiliser. So I couldn't start the car!

I ended up having to leave the car parked in the street overnight while I figured out how to bypass the alarm system. Turned out this wasn't too difficult... as long as you have the original manual that came with the alarm where the magic number is written that de-activates the alarm. Since I recently moved, I had to search around the house for the manual, but once I found it then it was pretty straightforward to disarm the system.

So, I got the car going again on Saturday (I think the problem was caused by the battery level getting low, since once the car was started up again and driven for a couple of kilometers the alarm worked fine again) and drove it 'round to Auto Forza to have the new brake system installed (more on that later).

While at Auto Forza, I noticed some new damage to the car.


I was really annoyed. I left the car out in the street (and not a particularly busy or crowded street) for one night and am rewarded by a dent and scratch to the front left wing of the car. It looks like the damage was caused by a cyclist catching their pedal on the side of the car. I can only assume that they were drunk to have been so clumsy.

So, that's something new to get sorted on the car... it should be realatively simple to get the dent rolled out, but the scratch may be a little more difficult to remove. Will take the car the to body shop and get them to have a look at it when I get the bumbers repaired... if the weather stays as it is then that will be sooner rather than later!