355 Header Inspection

You'll know when they break.

Art

 

I'm definitely no expert, but my headers were fine when I bought the car, and they failed in just a few thousand mies, with no obvious signs evident from within the cabin, and none when looking/listening to the engine bay except for the blown out insulation which my mechanic spotted (I have a Cap 3 with Hyperflows so hearing anything besides exhaust is tough). If I were in your shoes I would replace them with some Tubis or Fabspeeds just to know they probably won't fail anytime soon. Had I done this when I bought my car, I wouldn't need a valve job. Good timing though, as my car is do for a major anyway. It would really suck for you to burn some valves/guides a year from now and have to pull the engine again.

 

Jerry, you really cannot inspect with the heat shields in place, and it would be major surgery to remove them. The most telltale sign is the asbestos matting being blown out from each end of the heat shields (up next to the heads, and out where they meet the cats).

Seriously though, if you are at 22k, they are likely begining to fail now. You will be in full failure mode within the next 5k to 10k, if not sooner. Passenger side usually fails first...but not always. I did mine preemptively at around 34k or so (they had been previously replaced at around 17k), I went with the QV London rebuilt units, and had some awesome help from a couple friends, one of whom had a lift (aka "aeroengineman").

 

I wonder if you could use one of those boroscope things and look up the header with the cat off? There is another post here that shows the internal guts of the header and it is ugly and messy. I would not be trying to open it.

 

I have only been able to see damage with a borescope on very bad cracks. The damage is much more obvious from outside when the insulation is removed. I have recently been using a smoke tester, even that will only show damage which is obvious from careful listening and observation of hotspots/escaping insulation. Currently trying to interest local fabricators in making jigs and repairing as per QV, I'll post any progress.

 

Next time you check the oil let a drip drop from the stick on top of the oil filter and spread it around. A slight film of oil on the shinny black filter top will capture and show insulation fibers very clearly and allert one to a failure before it can be heard.

As with Brian I too use my smoke machine to verify they are intact. Even made block off plates to test them off the car using the smoke machine and the flow gauge. I have a Broncoscope that I use but doubt anything with less clearity would do the trick.

 

It wasn't hat bad, just need a good angle grinder and five cut off wheels.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showpost.php?p=138620384&postcount=2

In some of those pictures you can see the material used to hold down the wrap is burnt away, creating open spots on the headers. There are corresponding burn marks on the primary tube below the burnt material. This may not be the main cause of failure, it's not helping.
One of the biggest problems with any kind of header wrap is keeping it uniform to prevent hot spots. I was very careful (with the second header) to remove the heat sheild without disturbing the wrap to see what kind of shape it's in. You can clearly see the headers are not close to evenly wrapped.

I showed these headers to a friend of mine who is a master machinist and metallurgist.
In his opinion, the wrap / shields are doing far more harm than good. Coating the headers (like I'm doing) will prevent tubes that are close together from creating hot spots between them, something the stock wrap will not do.
These headers have about 9,000 miles on them, if they still fail I'm out the $300 it costs to have Swain Technologies coat them.

 

I also prefer the smoke test method as the better way to find the leak. I have noticed that you can't rely on the hot spots on the heat shields alone, because I have seen brand new manifolds get hot spots shortly after installation and there have been no leaks present - either by listening or checking with the smoke machine.

 

Hey...pretty interesting idea. I did not think the wrap would have any negative effects but I guess it does. I guess when you combine all the 355 dynamics the headers get eaten. I wonder if your solution will be found to be helpful. I don't understand what really happens with the guides, reversion, bypass etc. I was amazed to see some headers that were all crinkled and beat like a hammer looking from all the damage. I think 355 owners are narrowing down the solution like the 348 guys did with the gearbox. I think the valve guide issue with be a thing of the past in 1 year. I don't know what the solution will be but suspect it will be perhaps a bypass delete, could be header coating, better header metals or some combo. I wonder whether the Ferrari solution of steel guides was a bandaid or the solution. It sure is a complex topic and I'm not sure why it has not been seen on a wide scale in any other ferrari.

 

Just got my car back from what I would refer to as a Major Major service. At the end of the driving season I noticed the tell tale tick tick that I could hear at idle. Car is stock except for Tubi exhaust. After considerable thought I went with the QV rebuild. I noticed the exhaust leak around 25K miles. We'll see how they hold up. QV supposedly uses a heavier gauge tubing for the rebuild.

 

This is what the guys at Competizione told me to do also.

I am at 31k miles on original headers, so far so good.

But I think I will "test" this weekend, just to be sure

 

Its very hard to inspect for cracks even with borescope with header on the bench. You can also do a visual on the heat shields too if you have some dark discoloration concentrated like a round "blue" use DHelms oil inspection to further confirm. It seems we use our smoke machine more and more for lots of diagnostics too.

If you let this go for any length of time, the ECU/ECU's compensate thinking the engine is lean adding extra fuel, washing down the liners as well as burning exhaust valves, adding more fuel into the exhaust opening the holes even wider....its an ugly and expensive engine overhaul that bring tears to owner's eyes.

 

Well, I was out for a drive last night and heard a noise. I am fairly sure the left side header has a crack. This started very faint last Sunday, barely noticeable. Last night grew louder and is now easily identified as an exhaust failure. I am going to start removing the header tonight, engine in car. Is there a possibilty that the leak could be just a header gasket?

 

Look at the last picture in this post:

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showpost.php?p=138620384&postcount=2

Normally when you see dark areas like that on the flange, it's due to an exhaust leak. I'm a bit suprised these are only a two bolt flange, I'm tempted to use some exhaust sealant when I put these back on. Usually I'm not a big fan of any kind of sealant unless specified by the factory.

 

I just had another board member did the QV job for me locally when MY99 just turned 22k as well; cost about the same as QV plus ceramic coated in and out, and heat shields and all. I elected not to put the OEM shields back on due to the ceramic coating and I did noticed my engine bay much cooler than OEM headers w. shields. I have been very happy with this route since he is local and he made the tailor made the shields while my car was on the lift

 

Sorry to put this out there as such but tried to search for any questions or answers but as a new owner of a 1997 355 Spyder should I only use Shell Helex oil or are ther better oils to use as its 12 years since the book was wrote? Heard something about Quaker State Q. As I'm 130m miles from nearest dealer I could use some advice! Also is there a proceedure for bleeding the air from the hyd system on the conv top after replacing the pump assy on the Spyder - didn't see it in the repair manual.

Thanks

 

Tonight I removed the left header because of the ticking noise that just started. Header gaskets look OK. I cannot see any insulation coming out anywhere. Look at the boss that protrudes through the shield. There is a black discoloration that could be evidence of an exhaust leak. The only thing that was obvious was the exhaust gasket that seals from from collector pipe to cat was badly cracked. When I took removed it from the collector it came apart in my hand. I think this is the problem, however I have heard of a "smoke test" to help diagnose header leaks. I want confirm that the gasket is the problem, so I would like to get a smoke test done. Is this a common test? Do I need to send the header to a dealer to have it tested?
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Maybe the moderator can move your post and mine to its own topic?

The Shell 5W40 Ultra Helix (API SL/CF, ACEA A3/B3/B4) is better than the Quaker State.....the dealers have been forced to use Q here in the states except for 430 Shell Ferrari Challenge(Shell owns Quaker State) and they hate it. It does not have the same API service rating as the old Shell. The wear additives ZDDP have been removed as "mandated" by the EPA to increase life of the catilytic converters....problem is it decreases the life of your internal engine parts. We use a european formula ELF 5w40 Excellium NF for the late model Ferrari and 10w50 Elf Excellium (API SL/CF, ACEA A3/B3) for older Ferrari. However, they just changed their packaging too for the US market to TOTAL and am afraid they API rating is going to change soon from SL to SM which is no bueno.

 

Well if you don't have a smoke machine I don't see why you can't take a header of the car which is really not that hard. You could then plug the twin collector end and fill the header with water and wait for leaks.

 

Today I sealed the header and was going to take it for the smoke test. I thought I would put some low psi shop air to it and see if they would take any pressure. It would not hold at all. Could hear and feel copious amounts of air leaking from under the heat shield. For the amount of air that was leaking, the noise from the exhaust was not very loud or noticeable.
I can hardly believe how quickly it failed. First heard it last Sunday. Took it apart on Wednesday. Check engine light came on last Sunday.
P0131 If I remember correctly.

If anyone has a used set for sale that are in good shape please send me an email or PM.
My car is a 98 355F1. Left side is bad. Right side is OK.

Also want say a BIG thank you to all on this forum that so generously contribute their knowledge and expertise so freely. I follow the tech section carefully and I enjoy working on the car myself.

Special Thanks to Dave Helms

Gary

 

You can send them to QV London and they can work some magic even on basketcases

 

+1. Don't waste your time installing used oem...just another failure waiting to happen. Same with the passenger side, it will let go eventually as well. Send them to QV London and be done with it, once and for all.