360 Considering Fabspeed Headers – Avoiding CELs & Pre-Cat Concerns

There is also a company that specialized in that sort of thing for F430's: https://quicksilverexhausts.store/collections/ferrari-f430-1/products/ferrari-f430-manifold-exchange-2004-09

Not sure if they can do a 360 as well but might not hurt to ask. Not a fancy header, but it looks stock.

 

I don't have any experience on these, but years ago I had a cat go bad on another car. Use a drill with a long bit to chip away and remove the cat through the exhaust connection. Always a possibility you can do that here I guess but you'd have to be super certain there aren't any bits left.

 

They are well known as a good supplier in the Lamborghini world, I have their exhaust setup on my Diablo Roadster

 

I had a shop via an fchat member here modify a set of stock 360 headers by removing the pre cats.

the tech cut a window in the outer shield and the header at the cat section.. removed the cat, then welded up the two flaps.

the other option is to find a set of euro headers


I put my stock oem catted headers aside for the next owner of this car.

 

I would not butcher headers.... either go new OEM, or just buy aftermarket. I went Fabspeed and very happy with them. I also wrapped them in inconel shields, I like them. Idle and valve closed noise has not increased, but it screams with valves open , doh.

I went with www.atpwrap.com, excellent work:




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I don't trust home made welding on Ferrari headers, is all. The stock headers have an insulation between outer layer of some kind, you need to cut through that, remove cats, weld back... why not get a new set of better flowing headers and get some gains too... Plenty of them to choose from.

...But it's your car, you do what you want with it, just posting a personal opinion.

 

I think the only other option was the challenge headers, but those are up in price now. It may also no longer be available. The metal used for the factory headers was weaker than it should have been.

 

I thought about doing that myself until I talked to a Ferrari tech who said that it would cause flat spots in the power curve due to the change in resonance from the empty bulge in the header.

Then there's the issue of getting ALL that stuff out of the header. Miss a bit and it will likely end up bouncing around inside your combustion chamber for a while.

From what I've read, plenty of people have cleaned out the precats and just kept using the OEM headers, so you won't be a pioneer.

 

The 99 headers have noticeably less bulge where the precats would be. They're also 4-2-1 and what Ferrari originally designed for the car. The headers with precats are effectively a 99 header with a precat hacked in making it a 4-1 layout.

 

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/360-tubi-headers.647227/

Tubi makes the best aftermarket headers WITH shielding and you CAN get them with the correct O2 sensor ports and the air rails, you just need to be sure and order them that way.** (people say you can't get them that way, you can, just need to do some due diligence to get it done).

I went thru Vivid Racing (forum sponsor) and got them for a lot less than the $8k quoted above. Give them a call and see what kind of deal you can get. I worked with Steve (IIRC). Make after you tell them you want YR/MODEL specific headers and Vivid orders the header from Tubi. They are made to order. After you place the order, send Tubi and email thru their web page to confirm they got your order and CONFIRM you want the USA headers with the air injection rails and O2 sensor port.**. If you don't, you might get the wrong header as I did (See link above).

The headers for the 360 are made to order so Tubi will drop this the headers to you from Italy. They originally shipped me the headers without the O2 sensor port (euro cars are different). Vivid basically said "we order the USA headers, we can't do anything"....so I then email Tubi directly thru their web page and they confirmed the order and admitted they made a mistake. Vivid then called and sent me a Fed Ex label to ship the headers back to Vivid (b/c of customs, I could not ship back to Italy/Tubi and their USA rep Vivid had to do it). Tubi then shipped me a new set of headers with the correct O2 ports and air rails.

YOU WILL GET A CHECK ENGINE LIGHT b/c you've removed the pre-cat and this will cause a cat error. This can only be corrected by a tune.

I had a Masse Tune done to mine which is basically a 360CS tune (I hear Trevor is also good) so you'll need new MAF sensors as the CS is different than the standard 360 and also new air box covers as the MAF are larger. Make sure you tall Masse or Trevor what you are doing so they tune it correctly. You need F430 MAF sensors. Those can be ordered thru Ferrari for $400+ each or you can get them from Summit Racing for $220 (they were $150 when I did my car 2-years ago). They are just Bosche sensors. The extra $180 will get you a yellow box with a prancing horse in it and a Bosche MAF inside.

https://www.summitracing.com/search/part-type/maf-sensors/make/ferrari/model/f430?srsltid=AfmBOoqFtQ37scq8OtaithtKW3LPtS-0BbEZVZM60ris0eZP1HXj9EwC

I went with Tubi b/c all the other manu sell you bare headers with no shields/covers and IMO this is just an all around bad idea. It gets extremely hot in the engine bay and the covers are there for a reason. Also, Tubi has a rep. for fantastic work.

You'll need a new clamp for the rubber ducting between the MAF and Air Flow Meter and new hardware (bolts/nuts) to attach the MAF sensor to the new airbox. I bought R-Tuned from FerrParts (I think).

All said and done, Headers, Tune, MAF, misc. hardware and header install by shop was ~ $8,500. IMO it was worth it. Car sounds better, a little better throttle response (not a ton of power gain, but feels better) more bark on down shifts and no more worries about the pre-cat. Yeah, it's probably over blown but I wanted to upgrade with the best I could find. this was 2-years ago before inflation really kicked in. The MAF sensors are already ~50% more money.

EDIT: you don't have to do the F430 MAF sensors. I just opted to do that with the tune I did. It only added the $150x2 MAF sensors and $800 for the R-Tuned airbox covers so I figured WTH.

 

Here are the 99/Challenge headers with heat shield removed showing the 4 runners merging into 2 then 1.
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These are the later model headers with heat shield removed (this particular set has an aftermarket coating) showing the 4 runners empty into the cat. I don't know that any comparison data exists, but I find it hard to believe there would be no measurable performance difference between them.
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I'm currently having a new exhaust installed on my 360. I'm keeping my OEM headers. The shop preps and runs a few race 360's and I am having them "remove" the cat material from my OEM headers. They are in perfectly fine condition with only 30K miles on the car and an inspection for any structural issues came back negative. If you find a shop that understands this 360 situation, it is no big deal to them. The shop I have my 360 in has done it many times. They are able to remedy any CEL that gets set off by the modification-- and that was my biggest concern. NO CEL issue. I was promised there would be none. I'll keep you posted when the car is back in my hands.

The OEM headers on the 360 are nicely insulated and are keepers IMO as is the opinion of the shop doing the work-- hands down.

 

We already put the car on a Dyno prior to (great minds think alike- Ha!) and we will do a run after. But with that said I am doing the timing belts as well as degree-ing the cams so the Dyno run "after" may not be a real good read on just the removal of the pre-cats.

Probably my biggest concern would be any shop that does this for you should be sure to evacuate the headers of ALL stray particles that could make their way into the engine. I trust my guy since he has done it many times and on his race cars. My guy tells me there will be a significant "sound" difference as well as a performance uptick with these removed.

 

I highly doubt there is any downside to the deletion of the pre-cats. In fact my guy says just the opposite. But with that said, I live in a state that has no "inspections". So any mods are not going to be an issue. But with any State Inspections board, maybe... Those guys sometimes have an attitude and look for problems, especially on a Ferrari.