Tacoma Alternator in Ferrari 348

Here’s a quick, cool little story: A couple of gear heads with a strong urge to bolt turbochargers onto older exotics adopted a 1994 Ferrari 348 and, using a large number of Toyota parts, add on a twin-turbo system. From EuropeanCarWeb.com:

This is where the story gets really interesting. The amount of R&D put into this Ferrari is mind-numbing…Next, I had to get an engine pan from a 355 and fit it to the engine by moving a couple of studs. I then had to machine brackets for the Toyota Tacoma alternator…Wiring and injection came next. I wanted reliability, so I used Toyota coil-on-plug coils.

Here’s the Ferrari in question:

1994 Ferrari 348 Challenge Twin Turbo with Tacoma alternator - click the image to read the full story.

Not bad, eh? Seems like a decent car for banging around town. According to the man who put this car together, Toyota parts are the way to go when looking for reliability. From the article:

A lot of Toyota parts have been used in this build as they are reliable, readily available and of high quality. But after the throttle incident, a few guys started saying that maybe a Toyota ghost had gotten into the Ferrari. Maxwell laughed along with them when…We put it back on the dyno and when it went up on power I saw the whole engine lift up about 3 inches, said Maxwell. “I realized then the engine was making so much power it had broken the front mounts. When it lifted it rotated back and the throttle jammed under the intercooler.”

The stuck throttle problem alluded to in the paragraph above was not caused by a Toyota part, but it must have been pretty scary. According to the post, the throttle became stuck at about 150mph, and despite the high speed the Ferrari kept accelerating.

The bottom line is, if a genuine Toyota alternator is good enough for a custom Ferrari, it’s probably good enough for a Tacoma.

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