360 spider won't rev when rolling

Knock sensors rarely fail. Never actually seen a bad one on a 360. Incorrectly wired but not bad.

At this point I would datalog the critical points. Knock, ignition timing, var position, and add a fuel pressure gauge.

 

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Is there a way you could put paint marks on it and use a strobe to see if it moves when it is revs up - sort of like when you check the timing. Try connecting the strobe to different plugs to see if you get an image. I am assuming it has an inner and outer part to it, so 1 moves in the other.

 

Sorry to butt in on this thread so late but I only noticed Roger's thread yesterday. I am somewhat surprised that no other 3 pedal 360 owners have complained about this blipping problem. For what it's worth here is my experience:
I have a 2003 360 manual shift spider which I purchased in 2011. I love everything about this car except for downshifting. [I have owned Ferrari's and other sports cars most of my life and manual shifting greatly contributes to the fun. I have paddles on my Jag, not as satisfying]
From purchase this car would not allow fast downshifts demanding blipping the throttle for heel and toe or for double clutching. Try to blip fast and all you get is pop, cough or semi stall and no increase in rev's.....,..maddening.
I have taken the car to two Main Ferrari dealers and four independent shops. First Ferrari store had no idea about the problem, one independent replaced both air flow meters for $700--no difference. Next independent diagnosed both banks exhaust cam angles to be "off LH 653 RH 651" $2000 to implement, no guarantees! [Have not tackled this]. My favorite F mechanic told me that he believes that the 360 [unlike the 355] "drive by wire" was set up by Maranello to be optimum for the F1 gear change system. His solution was to install the "Ferrari sport exhaust" with the two relief hoses disconnected. This has solved about 90 % of the problem but the neighbours are not so pleased. Please forgive me Roger if you have already thought of and discarded this solution but my car does drive better. I certainly can't imagine any connection between exhaust back pressure and the DBW potentiometer.

 

Mate I have the same problem with my 360 in regard to backfiring on low rpm throttle blip on the downchange. So annoying. Up higher in RPM is ok. Smokes a pair of 315's hard off the line so no problem down low.
I will be taking mine down to Andrea Motori in Artarmon next week. Will post the result of what he can find.

 

It's not just your car. All of the 3 pedal cars do it, and it's annoying as hell. They just don't have that crisp throttle blip you would expect. The 355 was the king for this. You could double clutch all day long and just listen and feel the response of that engine..just beautiful. The 360 sounds like a vacuum cleaner, and in most cases does what a vacuum does best...suck. If there is a fix for it, I'm all ears.

 

My car is a '02 European 360 manual gearbox and it exhibits the exact same problem !!
I have owned this car since 2005 and it drove perfectly until December 2011 when I performed a belt change at the dealer... Then everything went bad...
My car felt weak...
It didn't pull as hard as before and sounded like crap !!
I took the car 3 times to the dealer but he could do nothing to fix it... He said it was bad fuel... Maybe turn off battery and try again... Basically full of BS...
I took my car to an independent and found that the timing was messed with... The bolts on the pulleys when changed...
I got the Workshop Manual and bought a degree wheel for my mechanic...
I explained the procedure to him how to time the intake and exhaust valves and he did it exactly was described... The situation improved a lot !! But was not completely fixed.
My car sounded more lively and loud, but still seemed to miss a bit...
Also when coasting in neutral if I blip the throttle I feel a hesitation in RPM and banging from the exhaust, as it the there is "turbo" lag...

I changed : MAF, Oxygen sensors, All air intake gaskets and recently 8 ignition coils...
Checked fuel pressure and it is okay...

Problem still exists...

I just got the Crankshaft Position Sensor and will install it next time I take my car to mechanic...

Very annoying that my car seems to idle badly (when coasting in neutral RPM drop to 800, as if the engine is going to stall one side, and come back to normal 1100)

Also the backfire when revving engine in neutral while coasting... Very annoying..

Any ideas ???

 

MD, perhaps a compression test should be done to assure no valves were bent because of the bad timing setting.

 

Forgot to mention that compression test passed with flying colors on all cylinders !

And no CEL or error codes !

Also the VIN of my car is newer than the old VIN requiring update of variators...

 

armchair thought, if it backfires, I can only think that the fuel is too much at the point of blip. normal fuel pressure doesn't mean fuel is supplied correctly. Or air is too little. MAF?
does it backfire on one exhaust or on both?

 

Difficult to say if it backfires from one exhaust or both... I just hear the backfire as soon as I try to rev the car in neutral as it coasts... the revs don't go up, there is just an explosion in the exhaust.. very annoying

(In the past, before my problems started, the car would rev nicely and sometimes the exhaust would pop on the afterrun (when I released the throttle at high rpm) This was very satisfying and nice!

 

If your mechanic doesn't have a degree wheel and you had to give him instructions on how to time the engine... alarm bells................

 

ok, you step on gas padel , ECU will tell the injectors to give more fuel to the cylinders.

Now, for a small duration of time, like you said like a turbo lag, and in this duration of time, if your plug won't spark, OR, your throttle won't open as much as it should, then you have a rich mixture of fuel/air. so unburnt fuel went to the exhaust, bang! back fire.

That's the scenario, i guess.

check the throttle, my take. Or intake manifold?

keep in mind i am just an armchair mechanic.

 

agree that this mechanic maybe not a good ferrari mechanic.
But to be fair, a very very small percentage of cars need degree wheel to replace the timing belt. So this guy might just be non-ferrari-specific.

I actually like this kind of "do what I ask you to do" mechanic.

all I need is a person to carry out what I want to carry out. I want brawn so that I myself can be the brain. haha

 

im not sure why but all of your problems resemble mine to some degree, so starting 2014, I kinda read all your posts.

1. three senarios, pick one: did the backfire thing happen after your let the dealer replace your timing belt , or you only FOUND OUT that back fire after dealer replace timing belt, or
you know backfire happen after dealer replace timing belt and NO BACKFIRE before that?

2. so after your mechnic degreed the timing, the backfire problem didn't get fixed for all these years?

3. iirc, it only backfires when you are coasting and on neutral, NOT in gear?

4. have your get a sd2/leonardo to read your codes and replaced your variator solenoid?

 

Im not aware of any engine needing a degree wheel to change the belt. All engines built properly need one to set up the valve timing correctly, including big american v8s. This is a basic tool in the workshop.

 

when built from factory, yes, they need some kind of a degree wheel. but after it was built, most cars will have a mark or some mechnism to look for alignment, except our ferrari 360....

 

After reading this whole threat and especially the findings by ForTax who started it, I came to this conclusion :

Apparently many manual gearbox 360 cars are affected by the switch on the clutch that sends a signal if clutch is depressed or not and changes the fuel mapping for the engine load.... Furthermore, based on the findings on this thread, this switch affects only one of the two engine ECUs...

So what happens is that when the car is stationary and I rev the engine, everything seems fine...

When the car is moving, if I put neutral and coast the car, as soon as I rev the engine, something weird happens and the ECU messes up the fuel mixture and ignition timing and there is hesitation in the engine and backfire in the exhaust... Furthermore, if the car is rolling and I put neutral, RPM drops to 800 and engine comes close to stalling, before it adjusts itself to normal 1100...

In the past, when my car performed well, something interesting would happen :
If I had lets say 3rd gear at 4000 rpm, I released throttle and put neutral, rev matched and depressed clutch to put 2nd gear, as soon as I released the clutch the engine would backfire in the exhaust, which was kinda cool !!!

Now depressing the clutch in neutral to double declutch has an annoying effect of a backfire with hesitation to raise RPM... Not cool at all !!!

Ideas ??

 

Here are some videos of the problem "manual 360 won't rev when rolling" that I took today... (standard OEM exhaust)

First is the startup : Engine Starts with Strong Idle... At some point (0:22) the exhaust valves close and there is some rattle (no problem here, just a little annoying) and continues with healthy idle...

https://youtu.be/R8PtJm4ci6k

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Next is the idle : As the engine continues to idle, the idle sound appears to have breaks, work intermittently... Instead of normal vrooooooooooooo , it appears to be vroo vroo vroo vroo ... As if one side or both sides of the V8 are not working properly. Open or closed exhaust valves do not change this intermittent problem...

https://youtu.be/dopw1k7j5yQ

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And now the problem : As I start to drive the car in 1st gear, I put neutral (0:12) and as I coast I rev the engine... You can see the RPM not rising immediately (lagging) and there are some exhaust explosions (seems like unburnt fuel in the exhaust)... Very strange and annoying, especially if you are downshifting and want to double declutch / rev match...

https://youtu.be/AAHE8UW9Owk

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The car is rolling in neutral, as I try to floor the engine and rev it, again there are exhaust explosions and popping...

https://youtu.be/Q3bZyevfuas

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Same problem again, car rolling in neutral, exhaust popping (these are not the exhaust valves opening) when trying to rev the engine...

https://youtu.be/d_u3dSJtIgI