daytona engine rebuild. cost.

So here is my question. Why does an engine have to be rebuilt with only 53000 miles? Also if rebuilt should should you expect to only get another 50000 miles out of it before another rebuild is needed? I understand replacing the sodium hollow stem exhaust valves but don't see why these engines only last 50000 miles.

 

I think most people rebuild them because if you are spending close to a million bucks for a car, you don't want it to smoke and have to keep pouring oil into it. Not to mention leaving drips everywhere you go, although I don't know that most rebuilds fix that.

 

I think it's very simple. Unlike more utilitarian vehicles, Ferraris and their engines are and were designed and built to perform and to be operated at higher RPMs levels and driving speeds, therefore their prime performance life expectancy should be considered lot shorter than that of a daily driver.
Let's say, if a daily driver provides 80-120K miles of prime performance running on average at 3-4000 RPMs, Ferrari engine operated at expected 6-7000 RPMs range could wear itself out of its prime in close to half that mileage or sooner.

I've heard comments from far more experienced Ferrari engine builders/mechanics than I that an average prime life expectancy for an older (vintage ?) V12 is around 30K miles and with what I've experienced, it makes sense.
Yes, there probably are many with more miles on them, but are they really performing as expected ? Or even at 80% ? 60% ? ... ?
I've had a (wonderful !) opportunity to drive a Daytona with way over 100K miles on it and its engine. While it ran and drove surprisingly OK, clearly its performance was not like others I've experienced.

 

While the 365 was the best and most robust of the vintage Ferrari 12's it was still never intended or expected to last like a low rpm, low stress American V8. The comment about the current value of the cars is important too. Who wants a 7 figure performance car to run at 80%?

 

Also, what was the life expectancy of a relatively high performance American V-8 that was made in the 1960s or 1970s? Longer than the Ferrari, I'd guess, but nothing like the longevity of modern motors.

 

This is why I sold my GTC. It was making funny noises, and I didn't even like to look at the rocker panels. It was running fine, but I knew those funny noises were going to end up costing a LOT of money.

 

That makes some sense. Let's say an engine can do 2million revolutions before its worn out. If it runs at a lower rpm it lasts more miles.

 

Excuse me but this is all a bunch of horsepucky....

While these are indeed higher rpm engines in terms of their red line, they were also shorter stroke engines that had lower piston speeds, which allowed that higher redline. To put it another way while the engine might be turning at higher rpm's the shorter stroke results in similar piston speeds, so there's no real reason why these engines shouldn't have cylinder life similar to other cars.

Moreover, most of the time spent in these cars is cruising around, not on a track where the car is being pushed to redline on every shift.. You don't see someone cruising down the highway at 4,000 rpm in any of these cars., and the utilization is relatively low overall. That is, the mileage accumulated in an exotic tends to be very low (which can lead to reliability and life issues in itself).

The failure of the valves on Daytona's is simply a design and metallurgy issue, nothing more. It's a weak point that is well known and can be addressed with modern design and materials.

While most cars of the period didn't last for a hundred thousand miles, they tended to be more robust than exotics. Ferrari never had the money nor the inclination to put great engineering into the road cars, they worked and lasted just fine for the use they were exposed to and that was fine with them.

Major automakers had customer pressure to improve their life and they did, but the exotics never really had to (because of the low utilization rates), so they tended to lag behind when it came to things that improved the life of engines.

More modern cars have much better rings and modern oils provide better lubrication, so we have cars today that will last for 100,000 miles no problem. Similar improvements in valve and valve seat surfaces (as a result of running unleaded fuel) and improved valve guide materials pretty much covers the things that wear out commonly in engines. The life obtained by even the most plebian Honda is way beyond what is expected of an exotic simply because the makers get very little feedback on how long things last because of the low usage rates, so they just keep plugging along doing what they always did.

I went to GM proving ground at Milford in 1971 and saw a rack of outside chassis dyno's with cars strapped to them running unattended, a driving cycle loaded into punched strips and the cars just humming away. I'm sure Ferrari NEVER ran engines, even on a dyno for tens of thousands of miles to insure durability. They never had the resources or time to do that and for that reason they never obtained component life that was on par with higher production cars.

 

Piston speed is not the only factor that determines wear of a piston. Cyclic rate is a big issue as is chamber pressures and temperatures, two factors that any high performance motor experiences far more commonly even more so in a short stroke application. Ferrari as late as the mid 80s did in fact use substandard valves, guides, pistons and rings, no question about it but rebuilt with the best materials available is not going to make a Daytona motor last 200,000 miles the same way most modern automobile engines will. Not going to happen.

 

I agree, the geometry just isn't there, you'd have to re-engineer the parts to modern standards and no one is going to do that.

 

With all due respect Sir, while I truly appreciate your apparent experience and efforts taken to offer your view point to counter mine, but perhaps my explanation wasn't "all a bunch of horsepuky" ? I believe I was trying to convey similar message from a different perspective, but English not being my first, or even second language and having never received any formal education for it, I often struggle to present my thoughts with it as precisely as I'd like to, especially in writing.
Here's hopefully a simpler version what I was trying to say: In my view, Ferrari and similar type (exotic vintage) engines were not designed or developed with longevity or economics comparable to daily driver type engines (= apples & oranges ??)

 

Your English is certainly better than any other language I have been known to struggle with.

 

Thank you, Mr. Crall.

 

Which is probably why the Dino engine was better than the V12s. Fiat casting and machining had modern tooling and QA/QC processes unlike Ferrari.

 

True, but Fiats of the period (and even a bit later) weren't a paragon of reliability either (note: understatement of the week!!!)..

Much better than the exotics but still a good ways behind the cars made by the Germans and the USA in the through 70's.

What really kicked off the revolution in reliability and improved car life was the Japanese invasion in the very late 70's, and early 80's. The need to compete with Honda drove the entire industry to improve engine component life and that's where we are today. And remember that synthetic oils came along at that same time (very late 70's), resulting in significantly improved engine lubrication and better life.

In thinking about it a bit more, one of the reasons the exotics had relatively poor bore life was most like the use of very open induction systems with one throat per cylinder carburation (usually Webers)... A setup like that is great for high end, but tends to dump in a lot of raw fuel which leads to washing the cylinders of their lubrication and that can even be worse at lower power, which we see a lot of here in the USA. Trundling around with 12 carb throats blubbering fuel probably wasn't the best thing for bore life.... As rifledriver noted, even if you put modern materials into those old cars they wouldn't have the life of newer cars that have modern fuel injection..

 

Agree with everything you wrote. I was only using the comparison of the Dino as Fiat to Ferrari. Yeah, the Italians got leapfrogged by the Japanese in the 70s. The high HP low displacement non oil leaking Japanese engines put the other manufacturers in their place. Not only Honda but Toyota.

Carbs were bad for all manufacturers but the one throat per cylinder (Weber, etc) were really bad with fuel wash. Funny when folks want to put stone age metering device Webers on their 308QV motors. Aftermarket EFI continues to get cheaper every day.

 

Depends on what you mean better. They had problems too, just different problems. The cam drive was a constant one.

 

I get a laugh here every time someone takes off fuel injection to install carbs in the name of performance improvement. Not one single racing class in the world that allows F.I. do you ever see carbs. and for very good reason.

 

Couple that with a "keep your fingers crossed" ignition system. Actually 2 just to make sure it would get driven to the shop on one bank when one of them quit.

 

Yup, kids today don't understand the ritual that occurred every 3,000 miles in those days..

Points, plugs and condenser(s) at every oil change and every 10,000 miles it was cap and rotor too.. That was just considered "normal maintenance"..

Probably didn't need the points that often, but the plugs were so lead fouled (unless you ran Amoco) that you'd be stumbling along in no time at all..

Cars have come a long way since the 60's...

 

Throw in a couple of Italian CD units and you are there.

 

It's not quite this simple...

Top ends (a lot of reciprocating motion) tend to wear out from high RPMs. Bottom ends (a lot of rotational motion) wear out from low RPMs...

My preference is to wear out the top end by leaning towards the upper end of the rev range...a valve job and head rebuild can be done a few times to a solid bottom end. A bottom end failure will, on the other hand, eventually cause oil pressure issues which will affect the top end. IOW, the top rarely affects the bottom (unless there is catastrophic failure)...but the bottom will eventually take the top end with it (full rebuild).

Don't spend your life at and above redline...but visit it occasionally (that's why you own these cars). BUT...don't 'baby' it by never exceeding 3000 rpm...you'll hammer the con rod big ends out of round in a hurry.

 

In other words, Ferrari Spa doesn't get a **** about their customers. Indeed, why stop at the mid-80s? How long, oh lord, has Ferrari been making POS exhaust manifolds, for example?

If I was a poet (and thank goodness I'm not), I'd write something about how love is the flip side of hate. How can these cars be so good and so bad at the same time?

 

I stopped there only insofar as internal engine components, the topic of this thread is concerned. In many ways Ferrari is cheaper than ever before in their choice of purchased components and suppliers. The last Ferrari running will not be a current model. It will be a 275 or a 365.