The guy that I bought my 911 from was doing a complete bare-metal rebuild of a 250GTI. He had the engine in pieces to -- so it can be done. But his other car highlights the problem with "Daily Driver" or "DIY" Ferrari's. He had a 275GTB4 which he was afraid to drive because it was worth so much. In fact that is why he had the 250GTE -- because it was not worth as much, so he could still afford to fix and drive it. I think the biggest problem with DIY Ferrari's is that unless you do it right, all that you're going to do is reduce the value of the car.

That's not to say that it's not possible to do it right -- through the 70's at least the cars were just not that complex. Their engines had almost 2x as many parts as ours (at least the 12 cylinder engines did), but it's still just an engine. But given the potential risk to someone's investment, it's just not worth going there. My sense is that most owners drive them until they need major service, and then sell'em. Which raises the question -- who's going to end up owning the car "when the music stops"???

there are plenty of people over on ferrarichat who do their own work the same way those on this board do..particularly on the dinos, 308 and 308 GT4 and testarosa....from major service to engine rebuilds and transmission rebuilds. ive notices that those who are truly into them and have the interest, like here, do as much as they can on them for the same reasons we do...so you can fix a problem when your stranded, save money on service charges, personal satisfaction etc....

A 308 is an 8 cylinder X19. Lots of Fiat and Alfa guys move up the ladder to Ferraris like Beetle guys wind up with the 911. If you can drop a Beetle engine you can drop a 911 engine. If you can do a timing belt on an X19 and adjust the valves, you can do a 308.

They are not 512 BBs or Datonas