My guess so far is it looks worse than it will cost in the end. It really is to bad that last I heard Ferrari still does not want dealers to fix these things and just plug a new one in because they are a slam dunk to work on. I fixed one under warranty once and boy did I get in trouble.
those are some beefy gears to be tearing up too... was this an F1 or manual? What weight/brand gear oil was he running? Ray
F1 It had Redline in it most recently but this is not a lubrication related failure. All the broken teeth have perfect wear surfaces It may be as simple as a faulty gear. One tooth breaks and they can fall like a house of cards. Since 360/550 the internals are not ZF anymore. Also I am not too worked up about this. It is only one as near as I can tell. I have seen lots of these things with a very rough life not do this, and think of all the Ch cars. Stuff happens.
too bad they don't use ZF stuff any longer. Hey, speaking of transmissions, what is the hot tip as far as clutches go? Is there like an after market setup that is better than the factory, or just stick with the factory? I was wondering about like a centerforce or maybe a kevlar something or other, etc. What's your opinion? Stick with the factory assembly if you replace it or go after market or what? Ray
So far I have only used OE. I would think in a 6 spd a carbon/carbon would be good. Bear in mind the a real limiting factor as far as heat goes is the flywheel. On the 360's they worked very hard to keep rotating mass down and the flywheel is pretty minimal. When they get hot they turn into a cereal bowl and only the outer 1 inch of disc is doing anything. If you are doing it for greater life OE clutches really last OK but I am one of those people that wears a car out around a clutch. I have heard no good stories from switching materials on the F1 cars.
If I replace the clutch over here, I will probably just use the OEM Ferrari stuff. Speaking of which, I am not sure if my car has the 3 or 6 ring starter gear - how big an issue is that and did all cars have to have that recall done? Or what's the story on it. I know my assembly number falls in the range where it was 3 bolts, but I don't recall seeing anything to indicate the ring was changed over to the later style 6 bolt setup. Ray
There was never a recall for a 6 bolt unit. It was for an improved 3 bolt unit. Put in the 6 bolt, it is a 1 time expense and the transmission case you save may be your own.
I might be wrong, but I don't think we can even get the old gears, flywheels or old bolts anymore. Never tried, to be quite honest. New # Flywheel: 181596 New # Ring Gear: 186157 New # Bolts: 186196
This is pretty disturbing info. So is the consensus that tiring contributed to this failure or a belief that it's only a part of the problem? It appears that many folks have huge rear tires, and how often is there talk of catastrophic tranny failure such as this? Or are we just not hearing about it?
My understanding is that after assembly # 43022, they switched to using 6 bolts on the starter ring. Since my car falls before that, I assume it still has the 3 bolt strater ring - since I didn't see any paper work relating to changing that over. I always thought it was something they recalled, since the starter ring could come apart and smash through the housing and blow out the tire - is that incorrect info? If/when I do the clutch, I was going to install the 6 bolt unit - does that require replacing the flywheel or just drilling and taping new holes or what? Ray
One of our Challenge car 3 bolt ring gear blew and punched a hole through the gearbox housing. The other Challenge car had new spec bolts put in and so far no issues. Definitely 6 bolt is the better design and permanent fix. If you have the older 3 bolt design and don't want to spring for a new pressure plate and ring gear, then at least get the new spec bolts. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Hey Brian, great pics, makes me want to be very nice to cold second gear!! It kills me that people feel the need to run these huge tires on a car with less than 300tq at the crank. Not sure of the correct number but it most certainy does not need 355 aspect tires. I had a blown viper that made over 700 hp and I ran 345's and needed all the rubber there was but the tq on that car was 250% what a 360 makes. thanks for the hard core illustration Brian and a happy bday to ya, JOhn
Daniel: I believe the flywheel is the same for either 3 bolt or 6 bolt ring gear design. It's the clutch pressure plate that needs to be changed when going to a 6 bolt ring gear. BTW, the new spec bolt is a 12.9 grade. From head markings they look like Unbrako bolts.
Oh, that's a fun photo. Any idea at what assembly # they switched to the stronger bolts ? I wonder if my car at least has the stronger bolts. Let me check the TSB's Ray
When we first started racing 360C, Phil warned us about possible output shaft flange failures, but he never said anything about gear failures. I imagine slicks + racing clutch combo on 360C is much harsher on the box than any street tire/clutch setup. So far none of our four 360C has any gear failures, knock on wood.
I don't know for sure, but according to parts supplier there was a clutch/ring gear change after car assembly #43021 or gear box #7921. Maybe you can try to look through the gearbox inspection hole on the bottom and try to identify the bolt head markings for yourself.
Pieces and parts. Worse than I had envisioned in our conversation. Change things and the next weak link will be found. It may take awhile but they will be found. I have found the street driving with the pot holes and a dozen load to unload situations per block make it far more harsh than track use. Brian, Push that gear back a little and see if it walked any on the shaft. I still cant believe they hold up as well as they do. Regardless of technology marching on I am just an old spline kind of guy. Start with .002" interferance fit, add those fat tires and a cold gearbox. The gear is going to get hot one heck of a lot faster than the mainshaft if not warmed up properly. Now with that situation what is the interferance fit of that gear on the shaft. My concerns have proven to be totally unfounded with this matter but I still keep looking. The coefficient of friction of the OE clutch has been programed into the software. As Brian said, when the flywheels warp and run on the outer 1" of the friction surface the friction numbers change from what was programed into the software. Pulsing starts are one result of the TCU not being able to figure out what the heck is going on. We have to figure out how to build a stable flywheel first. The clutches are quite reliable and would last a respectable amount of time if the whole face was being used all the time. Install one that grabs quicker / harder and where will that shock loading find its next victim? Tests are being done and data collected on using stress relieved flywheels (read warped to hell and surfaced) to see if there is any benifit to doing pre install treatment of the parts. Dave
Greg, easy for me to say because I do not have a 360 but I would not lose sleep over this. 360's have been on the road for 7 years this month or last and it is not only a big fleet but is also seeing daily use as never before. If this was going to be an issue we would already know it. This is probably caused by a combination of factors. We may very well have had a faulty component to start with and other factors built up to cause a failure. But I really think you should take those Hoosiers off the car and quit side stepping the clutch.
SVAG did the ring gear recall as they called it on my 99 360F1, and at no charge. This was a year and a half ago. They said they had never seen a failure before as well. Dan
Was out of town for the weekend... sorry for the delayed reply. YES, just trying to give updated numbers. Flywheel used to be 181576. It is now 181596. The clutch and PP (sold as a pair) is p/n 201680 for use with the new ring gear
