This is a picture of a an original Ferrari engine stand. You can see them in factory photographs taken in the sixties. Most four mount V-12 Ferrari engines will fit which would include all the road going 250 Engines, and 330 engines. The late four cam 275 GTB will not fit this stand because it has one engine mount, but I believe the early two cam engines will work. Check your particular engine before building this stand.

You will need to do some welding, so you can decide if you want to make the whole stand from scratch, or if you want to modify an existing stand. The most important factor is the engine has to be mounted so the flywheel and water pump is clear to flip the whole engine over.

Scratch building this stand is simply a matter of finding steel tubing that will fit inside one another to form the pivot point that will support approximately 500 pounds. Modifying an "American" V-8 stand can be done using two stands face to face. You cut the center leg off one stand, and the wheel off the other one, and weld a channel in the stand with the missing leg so the other stand can slide into the channel. Give yourself two feet of clearance from the center of the pivot to the bottom of the drip pan, and you should be ready to go.

Here are some measurements of the support arm with a 330 engine mounted to the stand. The 12" measurement is so you can roughly guess where the center of gravity of the engine block will be. I didn't get the distance between the pivots, but if you're building a stand from scratch, this measurement can be taken from your engine.

Here's another view of a Ferrari Factory engine stand, if you can see it through all the clutter! I took some measurements of a type 209 V-12 Engine (my 330 America) and the widths are approximately:
13 inches on the flywheel side
17 inches on the water pump side.
On the engine stand pictured here, the pivots can slide in and out to make up the differences, but allow for a maximum of 19 inches of width for the wide mounts. Also notice the slots in support bars allowing for even more adjustment.
 

Another idea submitted from Mike:
A friend (& GTE owner) build a husky 4-point-mount adapter for the 250 engine to mount in a "regular" (but substantial) engine stand, the type that hangs a V-8 from the transmission end. One would think this way of mounting a V-12 would prove unwieldy and unstable, but it worked quite well for me. Price was right, too.

Jonathon Brent built an engine stand using some of the ideas I suggested, and submitted these pictures and his design. It looks great! Here's what he wrote:

"Thanks again for the engine stand dimensions.  Using those as the starting point, I was able to make my own using V8 stands and a little welding.  I started by getting two cheap stands that look like this:

These are the 1000lb units sold by Harbor Freight, on sale for $40 each.  The important part is the horizontal bar which slides into a tube at the bottom of the upright, long enough to space the mount plates far enough apart.  Any brand which assembles that way would work.  The dual casters on the short wheel tube across from the mount were a bonus.  The 750lb units were cheaper, but the usable length of the bottom bar was too short, and it only had one caster.

As you can see, the finished stand used two of the uprights, with the second simply slipped onto the bottom bar all the way to the end.  I bolted the four castors as far out on the longer wheel tubes as possible, and put the fixed wheels on only to save my ankles.  The second long wheel tube was drilled/bolted in place where the short one was on the original stand.

For the 330GT Type 209 engine, the template has the flywheel bolt holes 17 3/16" apart, the middle/forward mounts 14 1/8" apart, the for/aft bolt spacing 14 1/2", and the center of gravity marked at 12" from the flywheel bolts.  The available space under each engine mount was easily measured from the engine in the car.  The 1" steel rod and 1/2" brackets were scrap from work, made to fit the assembled stand and template.  The slots and holes in the brackets were ground a bit over 1/2", and one side of each stand plate was cut off for better access.  Combined with the loose fit of the stand parts, this gave plenty of wiggle room.  For your SF Bay Area viewers, a local welding instructor Jonathan Hyman (JHTigster@home.com), did a great job of the welding.

The stand pivot tubes were not square when both uprights were assembled on the single cross tube, so putting the plates in one way or the other made a big difference to how far apart the flywheel support brackets would be.  Also, we had to assemble the stand onto the engine while it was in the hoist, as the
center brackets are really longer than they need to be, but it fits great.

Based on your dimensions, the height and placement of the pivot tubes worked out very well.  The engine is not too top heavy, can be rotated without hitting the stand, and there is excellent access to all parts of the engine.

I hope this helps, if there are any questions/comments, feel free to contact me at jonathon.brent.b@bayer.com

Jon"

Ian Levy sent in pictures of the engine stand he made to hold his 365GTC/4 engine.

These later Ferrari engines have a single engine mount on either side of the block. Ferrari started making blocks like this in the late 60s with 275GTBs, and later 330 Engines.

Ian said he had to support the engine with a block of wood to keep it from turning over with its high center of gravity. I feel maybe removing the air conditioner compressor could help.