My 1983 Ferrari Mondial QV is making (im)proper noise

Although weights, measures, and currency are adjusted for a U.S. audience, colloquialisms and contextual references reflect this story’s origin on our sister site, Hagerty UK.

Adrian Clarke is a car designer, writer, and author of Hagerty’s Vision Thing series. He’s got a thing for the Fiat Panda, but his choice of classic comes in slightly higher up the Italian car food chain. —Ed.

February 1, 2023: Custom exhaust plays a sweet tune

In my introduction to Ferrari Mondial ownership, I failed to mention that I don’t have a garage. I have a lock-up where the car is stored but you’d have to be Mr. Tickle to attempt any kind of spannering in there. Small stuff I could do myself outside the house, but bigger problems would require the attention of a specialist who actually knows what they’re doing. The coolant leak I figured I should at least be able to locate, if not fix it myself.

Armed with a digital copy of the service manual and a free afternoon, a couple of hours squeezing and pulling hot hoses resulted in nothing but a burnt finger. Coolant was leaking from somewhere, because the Mondial was doing a good impression of a boiling kettle whilst stationary at the lights. What I really needed to do was get it up on a ramp and have a proper look at the hoses that ran from the radiator in the nose down the spine of the car.

Because solving one problem at a time isn’t enough of a challenge, I found myself investigating a second issue a few days later. One of the quirks with Mondials (and with all early mid-engined V-8 Ferraris) is that the exhaust note is a bit … apologetic. Designed when noise and emissions regulations were beginning to become a focus among carmakers, the standard exhaust is pretty muted and not especially musical. There is an off-the-shelf alternative available from Superformance for just under a grand, but some internet sleuthing suggested that it too didn’t sound brilliant.

Then I discovered the InfluEnzo on YouTube, whose owner, Nick, had a custom exhaust made up by Ryan Edwards at Bicester Heritage.

When I dropped the car off, Ryan kindly agreed to straight away get the Mondial up on his ramp so we could have a good poke around underneath. Looking at the standard exhaust system, Ryan explained the tips were essentially mini-silencers—thus why the sound was so quiet. The coolant leak, however, remained elusive. I left the car to have new pipework welded up based on the one made for the InfluEnzo, given that the Mondial and 308 are similar under the skin.

A couple of days (and a ridiculously expensive rail journey) later I found myself standing outside Edwards’ workshop, grinning like an idiot. The Mondial sounded so much better. Bassy enough to turn heads, with a rumble on the overrun, but not at all antisocial. Perfect – and it cost essentially the same as the off-the-shelf alternative I’d seen. As Ryan talked me through his work and I mucked about revving it up and listening, another mechanic emerged from a neighboring workshop.

“That sounds wicked, but you realize it’s misfiring!”

“Oh yeah I noticed that when I ran it up the road for a test drive,” confirmed Ryan.

Bloody hell …

February 28, 2023: Engine misfire, radio goes ga ga

The list of problems so far: A small coolant leak requiring a check on fluid levels before each drive. A stereo that only played out of one speaker. A non-functioning fuel gauge. An LCD clock with a couple of faulty segments. And now, an engine misfire.

In my defense, it didn’t feel like the car was revving improperly or struggling to pull. The only other Ferrari I had driven at the time was my best friend’s 456, so I didn’t really have anything against which to compare it. I would have thought I’m mechanically sympathetic enough to tell if the engine wasn’t firing properly, but clearly not. Given I had been unable to solve the coolant problem, and investigating the fuel gauge would necessitate dropping the tank, it was time to make sure the American Express balance was paid off. Some professional help was necessary.

The independent Ferrari specialist closest to where I live is Migliore Cars, in Bromsgrove. The shop explained that the Mondial’s fuel gauge sender units were no longer available. It might be possible to adapt a different sender or repair the existing one, but neither of these options was likely to result in an entirely accurate reading. Reasoning that working somewhat was a lot better than not working at all, I booked the car for service in a couple of weeks. I turned my attention to the next most pressing issue: the stereo.

Thoughts about a period-correct upgrade had been rolling around my head. Should I go with the quintessential-1980s 7000 series Alpine, with its distinctive six-white-button design? Sadly, like everything from that era, they’re now extremely collectible and I’d be rolling the dice on getting a working unit. The Pioneer KE-4300 in the car was fitted by the supplying dealer when the car was new (complete with Ferrari branding), but its traditional shaft fitment would necessitate hacking about the center console to get a DIN unit in there. I didn’t want to do that, which meant it was time to investigate why I was only getting sound from one speaker.

In the Mondial, the matching Pioneer speakers are mounted from inside the door trim, all of which had to be removed for access. Here’s a revelation for you. There’s nothing mystical about old Ferraris—they come apart with screws and nuts and bolts just like anything else. With a simple set of hand tools, you can find yourself in a partly disassembled Italian interior in no time. With the stereo hanging out of the console as I swapped the speaker outputs over, it became clear that one channel was definitely dead and the fault lay with the head unit and not the speakers or wiring. Still, at least I now understood how to take the door trim apart. This would surely become useful information in time.

I emailed all the vintage radio repair specialists in my web browser bookmarks (I have a small collection including a sweet Sony stack system gifted to me by a friend who owns a Ferrari 456). All these outfits wanted to do was gut the Pioneer and fit a Bluetooth module inside the case. [Give this a read if you’re stuck for reputable radio repairers – Ed.] Maybe television has given us unrealistic expectations as to repairability, but I wanted to preserve originality. I could swap the Ferrari-branded faceplate over to another Pioneer if I could find one, but again, the problem would be finding a working unit at a reasonable cost.

Eventually I stumbled across Nova Electronics, in Sheffield, which said they would be happy to take a look. Except I couldn’t actually send them the Pioneer yet because it was still in the Mondial, which had since gone off for repairs at Migliore in Bromsgrove.

Ah well, I was doing the right repairs. Just not in the right order.

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Via Hagerty UK