Hello all, As some of you may know this is my second 355 that I have owned. I owned the first one for 3 years without even the slightest problem, until I had to sell due to moving and buying a new home. So here I am with my second 355. So far the only stuff that has gone wrong has been minor ie. ecu's and a leaking steering rack. Yesterday morning she sounded very angry when I woke her up. A lot of rattling when first starting out. The check engine light coming on and off (this occurring when at a red light, or stop sign). Very strange idling. I would quickly step on and release the gas while in neutral. The rpm would hover at 2000 for a few seconds before settling back down. All of this went away after driving it for about 10 minutes. The outside temp was close to 80 degrees when this was happening. Is this a sign of valve guide problems?
I don't know what it is but it sounds like a problem. I wouldn't drive it till I got it checked out. I had a motor not a Ferrari making weird slapping noises and I had to rebuild the entire engine. I broke a pushrod and it went in the engine.
I'm definitely not going to tempt fate and drive it until I figure out what's happening, but I can't see how it can be something as serious as a pushrod, because all of the issues go away after the car has thoroughly warmed up. I just never had these issues when the car is cold. Is there anything that can be a serious issue that will seemingly go away when the car is warmed up?
The F355 does not have pushrods, let's just make that clear. The pistons may rattle a bit when cold, forged pistons expand more than cast or hypeurutectic so they require more clearance in the bores. It could be something in the valve train. It's hard to pinpoint without hearing it. The fact that you had a blinking CEL is not very comforting. Regardless these cars should be warmed up (coolant, engine oil and gearbox) before being driven hard. Rob
I bought an OBDII this morning to scan my codes, but the interface will not fit with what I have under the dash. I then read the fine print on the scanner and it says that it is good for 1996 or newer. Since I have an Early '95 (built in '94), do I need a different unit? Advanced Auto has a unit that will do both OBD1 and 2, but it is over $400.00.
Good news - you don't have OBDII. Pulling the codes is fairly straightfoward on a 95/OBDI car. You don't need a special tool just a 5mm hex key to get the covers off so you can access the Motronic "brains" for each bank. Then follow the procedure documented in many threads on this forum. Oh yeah, you have to be able to count to 4 - so, as long as you have most of your fingers or toes you should be ok. Once you have the code(s), do another lookup to see what it/they mean and post your results here...many should be able to help. Good luck.
Download the workshop manuals while you're at it...I believe the procedure for pulling codes and the table explaining what they mean is all in here. http://www.ferraridatabase.com/The_Downloads/Manuals_Workshop.htm
Mine did something very similiar. Turned out to be some fuel pressure regulator part that was about 30 bucks. Did you see smoke indicating a fuel mix problem?
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=163420&highlight=355+Fuel+Pressure+Regulator See this thread.
No, nothing like that. As a matter of fact, I started the car and let it idle for about 5-7 minutes and there was no problem at all. The CEL never came on or anything. I haven't checked the codes yet, football consumed most of my day. Maybe it was just a bad morning for the car.
how was the oil pressure during this? sounds like a lifter was bleeding down. this could be because of a few things. just a thought. or maybe a simple as a belt tensioner sticking. but with the cel light i bet lifter
