Total Hero Is LS-swapping a Maserati Biturbo in His Driveway
With the addition of LS power, this $1,300 Maserati is becoming one seriously spicy meatball.
Since LS1Tech is focused on domestic vehicles, we’re going to start this post off by letting folks in on a bit of foreign trivia. You see, in the 1980s, Maserati didn’t produce the kind of finicky, somewhat unreliable machines it builds today. Oh no.
The cars the storied Italian marque produced back then were far, far, worse — and the Biturbo was the poster child for Maserati’s many mechanical maladies. Notably, the sexy sports coupe was the first production car to feature twin turbos, which made it an ambitious proposition. And overall? It performed about as well as you’d expect a basically experimental engine released by a tiny Italian manufacturer 35 years ago would. So these cars are prime candidates for a swap.
We stumbled across this build, which owner Dan has dubbed Project Meatball, on Instagram. And looking at the progress he’s made, it’s crazy to think that when he started on wrenching on it a year and a half ago, he knew next to nothing about welding or fabrication. Plus, he’s been working on this build in his driveway, which should serve as inspiration to us all.
To ensure that the Biturbo badging will remain accurate, Dan decided to also go the twin turbo route. While he says it took him “at least a dozen” tries to get the turbos to sit the front headlight surrounds, all the hard work was definitely worth it, even if it also means he’s going to need an innovative rear radiator setup.
While he started with an iron block, he scored a L33 aluminum one cheap, so he swapped over all the bits from the original engine to save weight, and topped everything with with 799 heads from a Corvette. For good measure, he heat wrapped all the pipes, and to keep the fuel flowing, he went with a Bosch 044 fuel pump, and a set of Deka 80-lb injectors from Siemens.
Aside from the addition of some fender mirrors, there hasn’t been much work done to the exterior. But the theme is apparently going to be 1980s race car, which should make this baby a popular attraction if he brings it out to a Radwood.
Behind the mighty twin-turbo mill, there’s a T56 6-speed transmission, and eagle-eyed folks might notice that the firewall and floor pan needed some slight modification to make it fit. Because as Dan joked on Instagram, “believe it or not, they don’t make-off-the-shelf T56-to-Maserati- Biturbo transmission mounts.”
The gas, clutch, and brake pedal assembly he selected is a trick floor-mounted bit from Wilwood, and along with making heel-toe downshifts a snap, we happen to think it looks the business. Given how luxurious the Maserati’s interior was at the beginning of this transformation, it’s almost sad to think most of it won’t make it back. Almost.
Now, while the Maserati mill might have had twin-turbos, the V6 was only managing to put out 185 horsepower and 208 lb-ft of torque. So to help handle the massive increase in power, the Maserati now has an 8.8-inch rear end out of a 2019 Mustang GT.
Along with the big brakes and beefy axles, this example is sporting the 3.73 gears and Torsen-style limited-slip diff from Ford’s Performance Pack, so it should be up to the task. As Dan describes on the original thread, the units are great, and “you can get them for really cheap on eBay because the Mustang boys keep crashing.” Yup, it’s funny because it’s true.
Last week, Dan actually got the Meatball fired up for the first time, and you can watch a short clip of it here. Given that the oxygen and intake air sensors aren’t hooked up, the idle is obviously a little rough. The plumbing for the intercooler, throttle body, and blow-off valve still needs to be completed too, so it’ll be a bit before we see this spicy Italian Meatball lighting up the rear tires.
But to call this build promising is a huge understatement. We’ll obviously be keeping an eye on the progress here, and hopefully convince Dan to start a thread on the forum, so stay tuned! Hopefully, LS1 member Ferrari488gt4 sees this post, and gets motivated to post an update. We’d seriously love to know what’s happening with the twin-turbo Ferrari 308 he’s building!