On my Toyota (Celica turbo), I went 60K miles and 10+ years on the original belt. About half the dealers wanted to change it (and the idler) starting from ... the minute the second belt went in at 60K. Those same dealers also wanted to change the brake rotors ... just because. I got the car back from those dealers before they broke something. But the 3sGTE is not an interference engine. If it fails, the engine stops until you put a new belt on. No valve collisions. So you can run a Toyota engine until it stops. And most people do. Should Ferrari do that? No! The 3sGTE is a wimpy 8:1 compression, until the turbo spools up. Maintenance is the price of excellence. ... and prostate jokes stop being funny when you get old enough .... to have heard them all.
Are these interference designed engines? A gf bought an old Toyota Supra that had been sitting for years and after 6 months the cam belt broke leaving her stranded (Yes, belts even break in Toyotas). The valves and pistons did not collide and although it required a tow, they quickly slapped another belt on and away it goes. Now with Ferrari (and maybe Honda? They do use a lot of high compression in their design) there is the possibility that when the belt goes, it makes a lot of noise as the parts attempt to occupy the same space simulatneously.
We really do need to catalog all these timing belt threads. Either that or just combine them in one long one like the Erickson Enzo thread. I bet it would be longer and have more views than the Enzo thread. It could become mandatory reading before posting is allowed. That would test your level of desire to be here and cut down on trolls. Losing your place would be no problem because there are only about 20 posts, all the rest are reruns.
Agreed, organized under basic funny chapters: 1) Yea, it's rubber 2) Like bedsheets, change them once in awhile 3) Here's a pic of some bent valves 4) The horror Oil Pan pic from Oz How's that so far?
308 - 328....upgrade to a newer belt design..note the teeth are round not square! Gears are round, teeth are square! Also offer better degree option over flipping OEM holes around.....although you can get REAL CLOSE if not perfect with stock design.
Actually I think the scale is more for experimentation after the cams are degreed so it can be repeatable and returnable. Good idea even if I would have to use a magnifying glass.
I think we need a sticky that basically says that anyone who starts another timing belt thread, "how do I check my oil" or "what oil viscosity should I use" thread will be immediately tarred and feathered. And keel hauled. And mercilessly ridiculed. I understand that we were all new here once and we all asked the same questions once, but some of these topics are getting so constant that it's enough to make good people stop coming here. I honestly can't imagine why Brian even has the patience to still contribute to threads like this over and over. I just did a search (in this section only) on "timing belt change" and got 124 threads! Egads! Birdman
I said every 3 weeks. 3x124/52=over 7 years. I guess I was wrong. I think a new thread every week and a half or so is more like it. Even the wood F50 doesn't show up that often.
I am new to this forum, but have been active in other auto forums for the past 3-4 yrs. Speaking from experience over there, if the same topic comes up this often there just may be a reason - it's never well answered. I've browsed some of the other threads on this topic here, and you're right, it's the same wandering thoughts as this one. Plenty of case histories of one car going 15 yrs on one belt, another breaking at 4 yrs. And those alone do nothing to help owners make an informed decision on engine out maintenance frequency. It's easy to say that well, FNA says 3 yrs so do it every 3 years and stop asking about it. But...if FNA lies and deceives so much, is it wrong for new users to question this? Especially with the cost involved? I've seen posts in those other threads by the experts here sometimes saying 'every 3 years absolutely', and other times saying '5 years at most'. See why there's so many threads now? In my other forum it was 'struts clunking'. tons of threads. eventually someone sifted through, gathered the best info, and made it a sticky. By the time I had clunking struts, read that one thread and was done. What I would like to see is a histogram poll of belt failures by year and mileage. That would be good hard data as to when these belts have a higher probability of failure.
Humor... drive the car until the belt snaps and engine blows up. Have engine rebuilt, then drive again until belt snaps. If you think about it, costs of doing that and rebuilding engine every 10 years versus every 3 year major belts service might be nearly the same
Well said! If there were more direct and straight forward answers and less effort invested towards belly aching and sarcasm, maybe the question wouldn't have to be asked so frequently.
There are a lot of reasons these questions keep coming up. One of them is the Doctor factor. There are people here who have extremely large skulls and brilliant educations and no one with anything less than a PHD from Harvard can tell them anything, they know it all. Even if you have a PHD from Harvard, they may not listen. This is why V tail Bonanzas are lovingly refered to as forked tail Doctor killers. Another one is the idiot factor. No offense, but there are some people that can barely tell one end of a screw driver from a torque wrench, but by God they have money AND a Ferrari and they are going to drive it come hell or high water. 8 year old timing belts on that GT4 they just found behind Louis car service, and it sounds just awesome when they rev it up and it runs great. It dont need no stinkin service. Then you have the analysts. They want everything figured to the exact second, millimeter, or milliliter. Any deviation from the exact measure throws them into anaphylactic shock. When Ferrari says wait 5 minutes, thier mind begins calculating. OMG, what if I pull the dip stick out at the 299 second mark, or the 301 second mark. My reading might be off. What outside ambiant air temperture must this process be done at? What barometric pressure? Relative humidity? Shall I wait until the moon aligns with Venus? You dont even want to see what happens if they read a spec anywhere that uses the phrase "about". "About" 9 quarts of oil will drive them absolutely insane. And us along with them if we dont keep answering these weekly questions. We dont deal with "cars" on Fchat, we deal with "souls" and "emotions". How doth one check the volume of blood in a soul? Its gotta be difficult, complex, and rife with drama or its just "notta gonna bes any good". Besides, Ferraris arent autos and this isnt an auto forum, lol. But more to the real point, a Hounda dont cost $15K (or more) when the belt slips or you run it out of oil.
Hah! GREAT post, Paul! Right on! Fixed me right up for another day in the trenches (battling a recalcitrant 330 GT 2+2 gearbox, pesky 348 oil leaks...) -Peter
I have the definitive answer for you: Change it just before it breaks. While you're at it, you might want to send Rob a schedule of all unplanned server outages for the rest of the year. ("You sir, are in need of a soothsayer." "How did you know that?" "I'd be a fine soothsayer if I didn't" -- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.) (A group of telephone psychics were suing their employer for not paying their salaries. One observer noted, "You'd think they'd have seen that coming.")
Bob overhauled a Cont., in a Debonaire (straight tail Banana). John and I took it up and flew it around the countryside for an hour. Flew low over his grass strip out in the country. Seen almost 180 knots once or twice. Ran really sweet, cept the oil pressure ran about 5 psi low. Next day Bob ran it up on the ramp, let it warm, advanced to full power to check pressure. Shut it down, cranked on the adjusting screw, and ran it back up. Just as hit had come up to full power, silence. the motor was siezed tight as hell. The crank had been sent out to a crankshaft rebuilder, and apparently one of the lead plugs in the oil galley of the crank let go. If it was leaking when John and I were 400 feet up at 180 knots no one could know. Airplanes can be kind of evil. I found it refreshing that Ferrari felt that threaded plugs with locktight are a better deal that a lead plug mashed into a recess. Yet when the motor stops in your Ferrari, its a sure bet your not going to die. I've thought often of putting that Bonanza down on rough terrain at 75mph. Scary stuff.
I always tried that when I was a kid. I would push things off till the cows came home, then I would decide that this weekend is the fix. Order all the parts on Wed., Then on Friday afternoon it would blow up or something.
Why shouldn't Ferrari do a non-interference engine? The compression ratio should not have anything to do with non-interference design. The 3S-GTE engine was a rather excellent engine, it wasnt actually fully designed by Toyota either, it was done together with Yamaha (of high revving motorcycle fame) and yes it did rev into the high 8's. Non-interference design I believe is actually patented hence the reason why it is not used across all car marques. Its sister engine was the 2ZJE (3.0 twin turbo) from the supra which also ran big hp and had non-interference design. All non-interference actually means is that there are recesses in the top of the pistons so that if the belt snaps the valves dont touch the pistons and bend. You just need to fit a new belt and reset the timing to tdc. GREAT way of saving big bills! The 'T' in 3s-gte designates 'Turbo' and in fact some people tuned these engines over 700bhp but they felt best at around 350-400hp as they where only 4cyl 2ltr engine (the US sadly, with its emissions regs only got 200hp stock version in the MR2 Turbo, Japan's stock engine was 265hp in some installations but power was easily boostable being a turbo engine Toyota left 30% margin for tuning with fueling, etc.). The ECU was also very clever considering its 8-bit origins, it had several layers of protection to prevent engine damage. The compression ratio was lower on the engine because it was turbocharged (to prevent detonation). If you turbocharge an engine you will lower the compression ratio hence reason why the ratio was so low compared with a normally aspirated car. There is no reason why you cannot do a high compression ratio non-interference design engine (you just need to calculate the amount of cc's lost by cutting the recess into the top of the pistons). Japanese engine design, just love its technical refinements, shame they never made a flat plane crank v8 (but I guess thats probably patented by Ferrari!) for that glorious v8 howl!
Belts every 3 years per the Bulletin.. AviatorChat is down the page! I have to explain California Smog laws to pippo.. ttyl! Great post Paul!
Yea Tex like I said, 20 of the same posts, different people, every couple of weeks. The rest are reruns.
