360 Pre-cat exhaust issue

Took my 2003 360 to the service center because I was hearing a new noise upon cold start-up which was getting louder over time. The noise was like a thin piece of metal vibrating. Hard really for me to describe.

The diagnosis is exhaust manifolds going bad. My car has pre-cats so I was glad this was caught before they shed pieces into the engine!

Since my muffler is also factory (Ferrari CS sport -type and not after- market) it will be covered under factory warranty.

 

Sell ya my pre-cat exhaust manifolds. 1/2 of whatever new ones are.
Only have 15k on my car and they are fine as far as I know.

I took them off and put on Fabspeed ones. These are just sitting around.

Hunter

 

Thanks very much but my new ones are covered by the Factory .

 

Good ear my friend!!
You just saved your engine!

Keep in mind that issue, today it will be covered by the warranty but tomorrow you may not run with the same luck

 

how many miles are on the car?and did you ever get a ck eng light on?

 

Nice catch! Both mine were also replaced with 2 new ones graciously by Ferrari 2 years ago for same issue

 

About 54K miles. I did get the check engine light, but then it would extinguish after a few seconds at start up. I didn't even think that was a sign.

 

Big smile!

 

Thanks I know. I feel like a cat who is on his 9th life.

 

Yow. Good thing under warranty. Any other symptoms prior to discovery of failure, like an occasional "slow down" light?

 

Good question!

 

still think a bunch of us need to gut the pre-cats & try to find a "group buy" on ECU re-flash... get rid of the ^()I)*&&&^^%^%$$ things once & for all.... damn pre-cats are a $20,000 repair waiting to happen....

 

I'm waiting for Rob at vividracing. They are working hard on a set of headers. I'm also working with a member here with a EUC reflash but before I get exited about it I will test it.

 

Didn't get the slow down light. Glad it is covered by warranty.But the strange noise getting louder was the sign for me

 

Let me know... rumor has it the ecu flash solves the computer monitoring the pre-cat CEL's..
If we had a group buy on a flash wonder if we could get a dicounted rate instead of the $$$$ price..

 

No need for ECU reflash, just add an O2 sensor extender on the 2nd set of the O2 sensor on the main CAT.

That will solve your CEL issue with the absent of the pre-CAT.

 

Is warranty on the pre-cat failure voided if you have instaled a TUBI or Capristo?

 

The threat of having Ferrari void my warranty was one of the fActors which led me to choose the Factory sport exhaust over aftermarket units.

 

Technically, no, but many dealers and Ferrari NA has been reported to deny coverage if aftermarket exhausts are on the car, even Tubis (that they encourage you to install!). A PITA, but if you still have your stock exhaust and you have this problem, it may be worth having the stocks put back before making the claim. This probably means it has to be diagnosed by an independent first. IIRC, however, it may well be worth it, as new pre-cat headers are $12k+.

If it weren't for California's stringent emission laws, I'd probably want to go aftermarket. I'm told that even w/o the pre-cats, the car will easily pass the sniffer test. The problem is the visual inspection that could reveal the non-stock headers.

 

Yes, even without the pre-cat the car still can easily passes smog. Of course you should get the car up to running temp. and run the engine for few minutes before hooking it up to the sniffer. The pre-cat just prevents a lot of unburn gas from entering the atmosphere during old start up. Basically without the pre-car you will smell more unburn fuel smell during the first couple minutes. But once the main cat warms up the car runs super clean.

No need to worry about the visual inspection, most of the SMOG stations are not familiar with the Ferraris to even know what to look at, and the stock main cat is fairly large and will pass visual right away.

In any case this is really stupid, all the SUVs and trucks puts out 10x more pollution than our Ferraris, and they put 10000x more miles than we do.

 

That's for sure.

As for the pre-cats, yes, in an ideal world we would go to Fabspeed (or similar) headers with the air injectors in them.

 

It is possible that you can fabricate your own air injection to be fitted with the Fabspeed headers. In my case I fitted them to a set of factory headers, for whatever reason this set of used headers that I bought had the air injection tubes removed.

After Jet hot coating you can't tell the difference.
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Wow, those are gorgeous!

 

The Euro cars 03 360 spider are not pre-cast ? correct?
Also what are the main differance in pre-cast and not?

 

no "pre-cats" on the euro...

Difference means in the USA if that catlytic material vibrates loose & breaks up it CAN get sucked back in the head.... = $20,000 + or - bill to fix.

Chalk one up for the Euros...