Ferrari 360 major service / camshaft question

You posted a video of a lock and swap....

Degreeing the cams is optimal, but I think you would be surprised how many places don't. That is a topic worthy of it's own thread.

No surprise FNA told you it's risky to work on your car.

 

Yes, true. You make some good points

My friend at FNA was all for me working on the 360 and was mainly trying to help me do it correctly. The stuff he explained regarding the ECU and the baseline timing stuff did make sense, although it's been a while.

Me personally, I think I'd like the cams timed with any belt change. 1 degree off on the cam is 2 degrees off on the crank position. Doesn't take much to end up way off the mark. A little here and a little there.. it can stack up and next thing you know the motor is running poorly or worse.

Ray

 

If you retard the exhaust cam by 2°, the resulting loss of overlap and dynamic compression means an 8% loss of power.

Given the small diameter of the camshaft, being spot on is not as easy as it seems. And once, the crankshaft has made a few turns, the tensioner find its final resting position and you lose a few more degrees.

That's based on the specification of my vintage engine, but I don't see how a more modern engine would be more tolerant to a so-so adjustment.

We've given all possible advices to the OP. With patience and dedication he could be back in the road. Would be a great achievement.

 

Yeah, I believe it. I drove my friend's 360 after he got it back from service and where they did the camshaft timing spot on. I was shocked by how much additional get-up-and-go it seemed to have.

Unless someone re-times the cams using an accurate degree wheel and dial indicator, I wouldn't trust it.

Ray

 

Chances are high we are both on the blocked list by now, along with Brian - me for sure.

Anyway, he probably did well with Bitcoin, so I'm sure he can afford to have the dealer put a new motor in.

Ray

 

There are ways to get a rough idea of timing beyond just a degree wheel, such as with a good diagnostic tool from my understanding. It will at least inform you if you are a bit off. If I am wrong about that, I would appreciate someone clarifying.

Ray, I wanted to bite my tongue, but it comes across as kind of snobby implying the younger people with these cars must have gotten lucky with crypto, as does the way you talk about what is and isn't acceptable about a procedure you weren't willing to attempt. I can appreciate you wanting to stick up for some of the well known Fchatters, but to me it appears as if you are here to antagonize the OP instead of offering insight as to how to remedy his situation.

I, along with many others are genuinely interested in seeing the steps taken to remedy this situation and hope he can get his car back on the road. Kudos to the people here trying to help him.

 

There's no rough idea of timing when it comes to something as important as setting the camshaft degrees relative to the crankshaft rotation. Rough idea lead to bad things such as valves going through pistons usually. You might be thinking of ignition timing.

As far as the OP and his sources of income... that's nobody's business but his own. However, I'm not the one listing "Bitcoin" on my profile either and I don't know a lot of young guys who've had on this earth long enough to build substantial wealth. So, if he's as young as he's implying, I'd be kinda curious to know if it's from Bitcoin or some other way - if he's interested in sharing the details. I, myself, started with $600 and made my first few million by age 31 without a thin dime of help from anyone else. When I drove around looking like I was 22 years old in a brand new Ferrari, I had to field lots and lots of questions from people about, "what do you do for a living". I've even had police officers pull up next to me, "is that a real Ferrari?" Yeah man, it's a real Ferrari...

Anyway, all that aside, I'm on board with everyone else here: let's help this guy avoid blowing up his 360 and help him get things dialed back in. If he's the guy who stiffed me last year on providing the 360 manuals and/or he wants to block half the forum, I don't care; that doesn't change my desire to help a fellow Ferrari owner in need. Lots of people are 'hot heads' when they are you (me included); hopefully the OP has a good sense of humor and thick skin. You kinda gotta have that around this place

Luckily, most of you guys know by now that I have a funny sense of humor that doesn't always translate well on forums. haha

I'm waiting to hear what the OP has to say next just like everyone else.

Ray

 

So far the community has been quite forgiving to the OP. I had my share of tough(er) comments from Riffledriver and Paul Newman... Based on my own experience you get an unpleasant
response whenever you say or ask for something you should now is incorrect, because it was previously mentioned dozens of times in the forum.

These are professional who provide advices for free, so don't expect complacency when you don't do your homework. But as said, the advices are valuable and free.

I keep on my desk a broken piston and valve. As I work on my professional projects, these distorted bits of metals just remind me the stupid decisions I made a few year ago. Took me 9 years to fix my fully destroyed engine. Not saying the OP is heading toward the same outcome, but when the repair goes wrong it can rapidely evovle from bad to worse.

Messing with timing is a good starting point for a disaster.

 

Yeah, you ain't kidding.

I used to keep a bent rod on my desk, which went right through the side of a Datsun motor, promptly destroying it. It was a reminder to "always double check that the used car you just bought and are about to tow home is not accidentally in gear with a hydro-locked cylinder full of antifreeze"

Fun times.

Ray

 

Haha, great thread to read when my cams are sitting on my workbench. Did you seriously try to start the car without turning the engine by hand several times? Please, for the love of our Lord and Creator tell me that you didn't.

I, me, myself, was also extremely surprised to see how much "tolerance" there was with the tiny little scribe marks, at least a few degrees worth. Not all of them were dead nuts in the middle either. I would not think it would be enough to bend a valve though. My remedy was to make my own paint marks to them as dead nuts accurate as possible by lining them up, then I put tape over the marks to protect them. Easily removable with alcohol after everything's back together, and can still be degreed afterward. The tape is showing a reflection but the marks were made with painters tape so there will be no question.

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Mo mere mortal could ever possibly work on a Ferrari motor. It lubed with only the finest italian unicorn piss that's only available from 120 year old Ms. Ramone in Maranello.

 

Your correct. The use of a degree wheel requires to have a good access to the engine flywheel, which is usually not possible. So in most case we make it do with cylinder 1 at TDC (baseline crankshaft position) and the camshaft timing marks (baseline camshaft position). There are however two issues:

1) The camshaft timing marks are on a small diameter axle, so the margin of error is significant. As I mentioned previously you could loose up to 8% HP (if you loose more you've been more than careless when aligning the marks).
2) Also as the camshaft wears, this is somehow retarding the aperture, hence on an old engine, one should use a comparator in order to accurately time the valve opening. Same story if you work with camshaft that have so-so timing marks.

All in all if you line up the marks and turn the crankshaft by hand a few times prior to starting the engine you may loose a few hp but you will not destroy your engine. From then on you could perform a simple diagnostic with a compression tester. As our engines do have separate camshafts, if one bank of cylinder has more compression than the other, you know that one of your exhaust camshaft is not closing the valve on time. That's a test that makes me feel better...

Bad decision from august 2013... Whatever the OP does could hardly be worse than that.
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You do not need access to the flywheel for a degree wheel. We degree every 360 timing belt job in the car with a degree wheel on the front of the crank.

 

What the hell is that picture?

 

One of those broken sodium exhaust valves that never happens according to many around here.

It should be in a picture of a unicorn and a broken timing belt.

 

That's what's left of my cylinder after an engine rebuild that went bad. I was in a hurry so did not wait for my trusted mechanic to come back from holidays. We did replace the guides but the sodium valves were still within spec so we kept them (bean counter move). I was just ignorant of the fact that the new guides would not play well with the old valves. The engine lasted one morning...

Lessons learned: do not try to finish in a hurry, avoid false economy, do not presume you know what you are doing, and most importantly work with a trusted mechanic. For the lack of a trusted mechanic FChat does help...

 

We are gonna needs updates on this...just checking, did you use a spacer after removing the pulley? I'm just thinking there may be something else a bit less internal that may be causing the issue. I looked at the cam seal replacement procedure in the manual before pulling my exhaust cams for variator replacement, it does seem to leave a lot of room for error. Personally, I made several marks on the belt, timing cover, pulleys and had several vice grips holding everything in place, even the lower pulleys, along with the HE TDC tool in cylinder #1, even though I can tell you I'm not thrilled with that piece of equipment for this job. Looking at your photos, I just don't think the timing would be that off to cause a catastrophic failure.

 

Which car was this on?

 

Just for future reference...taking cams out without removing the pulleys it may help to keep the old belt on until you are ready to lock the cams in place then carry out the 3 year as prescribed, degreeing the cams or not. That way you can use pain or nail polish to mark the teeth and get the belt back to the exact position it was in prior to removing the cams. Then tension them, hand crank to make sure everything is completely kosher, then lock the cams and carry out belt service. Then you can degree..

I will tell you that with the Hill TDC tool, it seems like you can't actually lock it down all the way and tighten it properly with the #1 cylinder at TDC at 0. It seems to bottom out and spin...but as long as you don't mess with it too much, you can keep the gauge straight.

 

57 *cough* but who's counting...

haha

Ray

 

Those of us who are still under 40 are [emoji12]

 

I don't know if this thread is a big troll, but there are plenty of big trolls on this thread haha

Yeah, I don't remember who it was exactly that stiffed me on the manuals. If it wasn't you, no sweat. I'll have to dig through my notes and see if I can find the name of the user.

Ray