All, Looks like I am buying a 360 Spider '03 W/15K miles after PPI...How likely is that I have to replace the OE headers? I heard these have potential problems that might create major damage to engine. Thanks, Francisco
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is more a 430 manifold problem than the 360's. There's a ton of power to be gained in a 360 exhaust upgrade. It's a trade off of noise. But if you replace the manifolds with headers, you've left legal and will forever be swapping to get through inspection or finding a no-tell service station. Once you've done "that", might as well do the rest, IMHO.
Post-1999 cars, USA market 360's can experience breakdown of the pre-cat in the manifold, upon which all manner of nastiness ensues. I don't know if they do this on their own because of lousy build quality, or they do it because of poor running conditions and overheating the pre-cat. In either case, it is a valid consideration when looking at USA 360's with the pre-cat.
So the 360 manifolds, it's the precat material, where on the 430 manifolds, it's more of a weld issue, is that right?
I'm not really qualified to say. When folks call for 360 headers, they usually say the pre-cat broke apart. When they call for F430 headers, it seems like they simply say "cracked" or "failed". But again, that is my *very* unscientific sense of the situation.
Bob, yes that is more accurate statement. The fiberglass in the pre-cat is what becomes the issue as I understand, pieces break free and end up in the engine. The 1999 360 does not have pre-cats!!
I can see a "burn mark" the size of a quarter or so on the driver side header of my 360. My mechanic pointed it out to me. 2001 360 has 29k miles, stock headers/precats but rest of exhaust is tubi/test pipes (no emmissions testing in Ohio anymore). Given what I've read about potential engine damage from failed headers on F430 or precats on 360, I'd like to put aftermarket headers on if possible, but my understanding is that this is guaranteed to cause a CEL that is unavoidable without a ECU flash (which is like $3k). It's not high priority, but I am interested in what my options are wrt to headers, what the gains are, and what the negatives might be (ie CEL).
Do the headers and contact my tuner; he can tune your ECU delete the check engine and get more power of your car for maybe 1/2 of the $3k, even flying to Ohio!
I'm pretty sure I knew that, and that it was the reason I started looking at doing my 360 exhaust, and I think I'm just too brain dead lately to remember anything well.
Hello, Thanks for your reply, quick question, can the pre-cats be replaced without replacing the headers? Thanks, Francisco
On my car (2000 360), the pre-cats broke apart and went down stream into the main cats. According to my mechanic the stuff is not likely to be sucked back up into the motor. It was an expensive repair though as I had to replace the header that had the broken pre-cat (we decided to keep it stock Ferrari to avoid CELs), and the main cat on that side of the car that was damaged from the stuff going downstream. The one main cat that was affected would have cost more to replace with a ferrari cat than upgrading both rear main cats with Hyperflows (a better made cat than the factory cats), and so we went that route- the sound of the car with Hyperflows and the Tubi is perfect to me. I have a theory on why my pre-cat went...prior to that I was getting CELs and it turned out that both MAFs were bad. We got a CEL and replaced one MAF, and then 1-2 K miles later got CELs again and replaced the other MAF (I almost wanted to do both MAFs at the same time figuring if one went the other would be about to go). I think that time of driving with the CEL with malfunctioning MAFs caused the mixture to be off and burn out the pre-cat "prematurely" as during those miles the car had a slightly non-linear feel to the throttle. Its just a theory of mine....and my other theory is on the MAF lifespan in the 360/430. I think they have a shortened life span due to the heat generated in the 360/430 engine compartment- I have never had a car that needed a new MAF with 15K miles on the car, or a car that gets so hot in the engine compartment (the motor/exhaust headers/cats and muffler are all in one area)! In my old 911, there was sort of a seperation in the top of the motor and the bottom half that had the exhaust pipes for example, and on every front engined car the cats and mufflers are downstream from the motor...there is just more space between the MAF and the hot stuff on a front engined car that the MAF isn't subject to such harsh operating conditions. The pre-cats/headers may or may not go- it's just one of those things that is a potential cost of ownership of a 360/430...the car is worth it to me
They're not really headers, but exhaust manifolds welded together with the precat material inside. No, you cannot replace the precats without replacing the manifolds.
>>Its just a theory of mine....and my other theory is on the MAF lifespan in the 360/430. I think they have a shortened life span due to the heat generated in the 360/430 engine compartment- I have never had a car that needed a new MAF with 15K miles on the car, or a car that gets so hot in the engine compartment (the motor/exhaust headers/cats and muffler are all in one area)! I have an '00 360 as well and think the theory posted above is probably accurate. If you decide to get the '03, I wouldn't run out to spend the money on new headers right away. Believe me, you will be spending lots of money on plenty of other stuff in no time! Its just part of ownership. One thing to try to avoid is stop and go traffic because these cars really need to have some movement over the intakes/heat exchangers to give them a fighting chance at avoiding the potential damage all this heat can cause. Also, every time I park the car I open the hood and leave it open in the garage. When you finish driving (anywhere) and turn the car off, the latent heat that builds up in the engine bay can not only possibly affect exhaust components, but also wire looms and other plastic/rubber components. Its best to let that heat escape and dissipate, imo.
With test pipes and tubi, if one of the precats in the oem headers does fail, braek apart,ect, what are the chances it could damage the engine? I am confused how the material would be able to get sucked into the engine in this situation?
Variable timing. The exhaust valves can begin to open while there's still negative pressure in the cylinder.
Per my mechanic, very rare- he has never seen it happen. Test pipes and tubi shouldn't matter- still rare.
What the failure rate for stock 360 manifolds with damaged pre-cats? It this actually something to be worried about or is this like < 1% failure rate?
