Exhaust upgrade

I have to say that if I had to do it again I would probably pay someone to remove the stock headers!! The muffler and cats were a breeze to remove once all of the items had been removed to gain access. But those damn manifold nuts were a bear to get at and the workshop manual doesn't give any helpful hints to make life easy...

That being said, it took me all afternoon to remove just the headers... Next weekend I will complete my install of the new Fabspeed headers, sport cats along with the factory racing exhaust.

While in there I will also replace the motor mounts and trans mount and finish off with CF air boxes. I should then be good to go.....

 

I'm looking forward to the completion. I knew the headers were going to tight, but damn those forward nuts are tough to get at.

If it was just the headers I believe I would have paid to have it done, but as I'm going through everything I figured I would do it all to become familiar with the car.

 

Finally have both headers off. Clearance was "challenging" at best and I ended up removing the alternator to gain access to the upper 2 nuts. The hardest nut to get at was the passenger (right) second rear upper nut, there is no clearance from top or bottom for a normal wrench/socket and the welds on the header made it near impossible to access it. I ended up taking one of my older box end offset wrenches and grinding it down to a narrow, thin walled wrench. That was the only way I could get at that nut.

I have attached a couple of pictures that show a header less motor along with a picture of the custom wrench.

Now ready to clean everything up and start putting everything back together. The one other item I did uncover is that my cam seals are weeping and need replacing. I will go ahead and take care of those and put all new belts and tensioners while I'm at it.

I would be scared to know what all I am doing would cost if the Ferrari dealer did it!?
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You can also see the new motor mounts, I haven't torqued them down yet.

 

I did remove the access panel which enabled access to the front top nut above the compressor. Don't know how you could access that one without removing either the access panel or the compressor.

It is tight, and if it wasn't for the fact that I had additional items to attend to along with wanting to familiarize myself to the 360, I would have had someone do the headers.

 

The muffler and cats were a breeze once you removed the following. You will need to remove the under tray, wheel liners and rear bumper to gain the necessary access.

First remove the tips followed by the muffler, the muffler can be a little fiddly separating it from the cats while twisting it upward but I managed to do it by myself with no problems. The cats are fastened by two bolts on each side and just lifted right out.

Make sure you remember to remove all of the lambda censors and thermocouple!!

I was able to remove all of the components, bumper, fender liners, muffler and cats in an afternoon. I decided to attend to the motor mounts and trans mount while I had the access.

 

There are several threads that walk you through the process (google will pull them up). I would also recommend you download the shop manual.

 

Here're a few pictures of my progress today, the attached are the passenger side header pre and post install. This side was very easy and the headers nuts were easy to get at and took maybe be 30 mins to complete.
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Following are he drivers side pictures, access to the nuts are a litle tougher on this side and took me about 45 mins to complete which also included the A/C compressor heat shield. Progress was slowed with the limited access to the 2 front upper and 1 front lower nut. I forgot to take a picture of the cleaned mating surfaces, but you get to see how the head looked prior to prep.
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Still need to reattach the alternator and install the heat shield. One thing that bothered me and I will correct tomorrow is the split heat shrink tubing on the alternator lead. Fortunately this never came in contact with the alternator or block, but I could only imaging the consequences if that were to happen!!
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I have no idea on how you could get a torque wrench on the stock header nuts. Heck, I think I was only able to get a socket on 3 or 4 of the nuts!!

As for the headers, I was easily able to get a socket on all but one nut.

 

Here're a few pictures of my progress today. I was able to get my sport cats, muffler, alternator, heat shields and the front lambdas mounted. I could probably have finished it today if Ferrari had provided the correct lambdas! They provided the fronts instead of the rears in error. As I had already bought new fronts, I will just order new rear lambdas and sell the ones provided in the kit on ebay or here.

I will post a few pictures shortly of the alternator heat shield installed in the event someone may want to refer to it.
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Joe,

Once I got the old ones off, the Fabspeed headers went on without issue. Very impressed with the workmanship, fit and finish and the 12mm copper nuts made life a breeze.

The A/C heat shield was a little fiddly, but 15mins later I had it installed. I'm looking forward to firing this thing up!!!! I know it's going to sound awesome!!!