Hey 355 crowd, I received an inquiry to do some 355 engine work and I would like to know where everyone secures pistons, OEM Mahle?, JE? Or have any of you found the pistons to be reusable upon tear down? I'm not 100% sure what this engine will need, but I would like to be prepared. thanks all
Mahle are the best by a huge margin for them if you can stand to pay for them. JE???? You mean the guys that used to make good pistons before all the good people left? Haven't seen a good piston from them in a very long time.
Is the Mahle piston an OEM item I can grab from a dealer etc? Or have you tried contacting Mahle directly re custom work? I've tried getting with mahle's custom division and they are just massively backed up is the problem I've run into
Mahle US wont pick up the phone if your name isn't Hendrick or Joe Gibbs. The OE piston is only available through the Ferrari parts supply chain. Like everything, Ferrari has an exclusive proprietary contract with Mahle. Some of the Italian companies cheat a little but I doubt Mahle will. In answer to one of your questions, the rings and sleeves go first and often pistons are OK but the rings and sleeves are the same story. Rings are $100 each x 3 x 8 = much money. For the price of good rings for a modern Ferrari V8 you can get and entire rebuild kit for a SB Chevy complete with exchange crank. And they tell us there is no reason these cars need to be any more expensive than a Toyota to fix.
Good stuff. As always, thank you. I've managed to get Mahle US to respond and even quote a job but my gosh they said 8-10 weeks. That said, the price wasn't unreasonable.
On my strip down i found the pistons were in great shape. My bores were within specs, however the standard ring gaps were all over the place. It was suggested to me that the factory do not file fit each ring but just fit them straingt from the manufacturer with out gap checking. Which makes sense seeing how many units had to be built. There was also other little supprises within the block that had me thinking "WTF". The ferrari engine certainly isnt any thing like my AMG thats for sure. I bought new piston rings from a company in England that got them in from the US. I am sure the rings were made by the company "Total seal". They cost £500 and of course each ring needed to be filed fitted.
Such ring fitting doesn't surprise me at all as I'm sure ferrari would rather an engine builder not take the additional 4-5 hours hand-filing rings to assure a consistent gap. I've found main and rod bearing clearances to have similar anomalies as well. It's a time to $$$ thing.
If i may i will just let you know of one of the PITA parts of the rebuild with the 355 engine. Navigating around the piston cooling jets while instaling the pistons into the liners. Extream caution is needed because i have never seen such brittle units, and theres 4 of them, and there in the way of every thing. But you may already know this
