Sariel.pl

Model of the previous Ferrari flagship car. Features full suspension, manual 4-speed gearbox, V12 piston engine, pneumatically opened doors, manually opened engine cover, rotating steering wheel, moving accelerator pedal, electrically adjustable seats, automated rear wing, lights and custom stickers.

Datasheet:

Completion date: 30/12/2013
Power: electric (8878 battery) / pneumatic (internal motorized compressor)
Dimensions: length 64 studs / width 26 studs / height 15 studs
Weight: 1.967 kg
Suspension: full independent
Propulsion: RWD, 2 x PF L motor via a manual 4-speed gearbox
Motors: 2 x PF L motor, 1 x PF Servo motor, 3 x PF Medium motor, 1 x micromotor

My first Ferrari model and perhaps my first proper Technic supercar. It was an attempt at a new approach: a relatively small model based on Power Functions elements, with plenty of functions and with little focus on performance – unlike my previous supercars, which were either big and heavy, or filled with RC units and motors for performance. It turned out to be a very challenging model, and I believe I may have put too many functions in it.

The original Ferrari Enzo, or F60, belongs in the elite “flagship” line of Ferrari cars and in fact it remained a Ferrari flagship until arrival of the Ferrari LaFerrari in 2013. The only car to be named after the company’s founder, it was built around cutting-edge F1 technologies and so unique that the planned batch of 349 cars was sold before the production line even started working, and additional 50 cars were later produced after many requests from customers. It was so unique that when people in Top Gear wanted to test one, they had to borrow it from the Pink Floyd drummer:

The Enzo borrowed heavily from F1 cars, including a semi-automatic hydroelectric gearbox that is shifted using paddles behind the steering wheel, adjustable ground clearance, and active aerodynamics. Rumor has it that the company’s CEO wanted zero spoilers on this car, so instead it was fitted with a rear wing, moving fins in the front air intakes, central air duct that goes from the nose all the way to the rear diffuser, and carefully shaped chassis bottom until it had enough downforce to hold to the road above 300 km/h.

My model, which was intended to be small and simple, ended up being small but nowhere near simple. It felt like I got carried away with the number of functions, especially that only drive & steering were controlled remotely. The functions included full independent suspension, rear wheel drive via a manual 4-speed gearbox, a V12 piston engine which was motorized in a realistic way – that is, it ran at the same speed regardless of the gearbox and even with gearbox shifted to neutral – manually opened engine cover, pneumatically opened doors, pneumatic compressor, rotating steering wheel, moving acceleration pedal, automatically raised rear wing, lights and two seats whose position could be adjusted with motors. At one point I was even trying to motorize the radiator fans in the front, but I let it go – still, the fans would rotate when blown upon. The sole power source was the 8878 rechargeable battery located behind the rear axle, and there was only one IR receiver.

The functions worked fine, but not ideally. The suspension was quite hard due to the low ground clearance, and the rear axle was sinking a little low. The gearbox – a building instruction for which will be published in a separate post – worked well, but the 4th gear would often disengage when starting, and it was difficult to access the gear lever as the cabin was low and the gearbox was sitting at the back of it.

The doors, which are originally very complex as they rotate in 2 planes at once, took a lot of work to get right. Eventually, I resorted to pneumatics and to opening the doors in such way that they would press on the front mudguards and they wouldn’t leave place for the side mirrors. The compressor powering the pneumatics ran on a single small 6L pump, and thus had a low capacity. It made the doors open slowly, and the compressor was shaking the driver’s seat a little while working.

The seats were simple and downsized, fitted with a seatbelts made of sewing ribbon. Both could be moved forth and back independently thanks to two PF Medium motors, each with a single small linear actuator. The whole mechanism, including PF switches, took a lot of space in the cabin forcing me to keep the seats small, which kind of defeated the purpose. The crude accelerator pedal was moved by a micromotor coupled with propulsion motors, and wasn’t too functional as it lacked a return-to-neutral function. I was quite pleased with the rear wing though – it worked flawlessly despite being crammed into a very tight space. The wing was activated by the rear differential and there was just 1 stud of space below the 8878 battery and 1 stud of space behind it to transfer that motion. I was able to make it work in such a limited space by using a 9L link, but as the link ended inside the wing, it made it look uglier.

As for the looks, it should be noted that this was a Technic model, with no aspirations at Model Team aesthetics. Nevertheless, it was not ideal either. The side mirrors were missing for the reasons mentioned above, and there was no rear view mirror because it would collide with pneumatic valves. There was plenty of pneumatic mess below the windshield that could not be properly concealed and impacted how the model looked greatly. I wasn’t entirely happy with how the nose was shaped, and the front airtakes should have been flatter. Modelling them with curved panels didn’t work quite right. The V12 engine was sitting in the right spot, but the elements on top of it were moved backwards to make space for the IR receiver. The center of the rear diffuser was somewhat wrongly shaped and the lower side vents were shorter and sitting higher than they should be. Finally, the rear tires were somewhat oversized, because the real Enzo’s rear tires are a bit larger than the front ones and I wanted to show that difference, even if in an exaggerated way.

The model was mostly studless, with a couple of studfull sections used for the body. The seats were studfull too. In general, the internal structure was similar to that of my Ford GT40, but the model was somewhat fragile.

I wasn’t fully happy with the look nor functionality of the model. It was probably overly ambitious, and I have made a couple of wrong choices along the way, but I value the experience it gave me. Probably the best thing about it was the gearbox design, and with plenty of supercars in my future plans I will have a number of chances to learn from my mistakes.

Work in progress photos:

Photos:

Video:

Media coverage:

The Lego Car Blog, Tiles or Studs