355 header exposed.. again

For anyone that is curious, here is a PDF photo library of my LHS header rebuild. (its a 3.5meg file so may take a few secs to dwload)

header rebuild PDF

Car was at 29,9K mi when it was done.

The RHS was replaced with a rebuilt one from UK (QV perhaps) by the PO at 26K.

I got the car with 29,2K and had a hard time telling it was bad, as there were no signs.. no furrry bits of insulation and no noticeable sound.. it was all covered in that crap insulation and the fracture was masked by the adjacent tube..

This is where this forum is so valuable to us all.. the write-ups made me aware to look out for such an issue and to be vigilant... so I probed deeper..

My first clue to something possibly wrong was the darkened edge at the test port opening... confirmed by a listening tube... noticed a slight noise was emanating from it (when compared to the RHS).

That was enough for me..it was time for surgery..

A good friend of mine (who I consider a specialist in doing header work).. (has been at it for 30years doing mostly custom manifold work)... "Dr" K Butcher (honest).. did a great job for me.

I did the re and re on the lift at his shop and did some of the tin bashing on the shields to open up the internal spaces.

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Big issue with the OE I found was a lack of air space between tube runners.. all the paper thin clearances or points in contact are BAD news.

Anyhoo.. my only reservation was leaving number one (eight) as is.. but honestly, it seemed fine. It may turn out to be a mistake down the road.. Ill deal with it then I guess. But for now its all good.

I cant help wondering how much of the fracture and erosion of particles made it back into the bores.. seems to me that that may the main problem with having cracked headers, not so much the burnt valves we hear so much about.. (in this case my valves seem to have made it through, but time will tell on the bores. A good sign is the engine has great comp numbers 195-205.)

 

excellent thank you for taking the time to take the pics!

How has the car been running with the rebuilt manifold?

 

Fantastic work!! Satisfaction is knowing it's now better than new.

 

Awesome pics

 

Great job and attention to detail... you do wonderful work...

 

Great another thing to be paranoid about. LOL

Does your friend want additional work from FChat members? He certainly does great work.

General Question:
I've always wondered about doing a quality re-build, coating with Swain-Tech, replacing the OEM internal insulation (or using something better), and then re-installing the OEM heat shields. Comments anyone?

 

Excellent effort to take the pics and post.

 

Wow! Great job!
Thanks!

 

Quality of craftmanship looks amazing.

3k miles and th QV rebuilds were melted?????

Did you check your cats????

Would hate for this to happen again

 

The QV unit was the other one.

This is exactly how I would have done it. I'm surprised that more shops don't do this for people.

 

Thank you for goint to the effort of documenting you work. The images as so good that no text is actually required.

However, If I had gone in there that far, I would have done all 4 tubes.

 

Thanks for the great feedback..

The car has been running very well.. I have about 1500mi on the 'new' manifold.

I have a couple of very minor hot spots showing through the shield, so pretty happy overall with the effort.

Cats were replace recently (although I still don't trust them).

I actually discovered the problem literally days before my planned 1200 mi vacation road trip though BC. We managed to get the last stock of tubing from Vancouver on the Monday before our Thursday departure.. and, by god, I was determined to take the 355! (part of the reason the #8 tube didn't get changed out BTW) I cant imagine the potential grief I could have had if I hadn't repaired it and went on a 1200mi jaunt into territory devoid of ANY Ferrari support.

Anyhow Ken (the fabricator) spent three days in 105F heat repairing them for me.. I owe him a debt of gratitude for his efforts and tenacity.

It is his livelihood mind you, but he only charges $50/hr for his time. I did ask him if he would do other manifolds for F-chatters (I think the heat had gotten to him.. so he said no) However, I am sure he would do them now if I asked (now that he has recovered from the heat stroke effects)!! I expect the cost to be no less than the QV price by the time you add materials etc. One advantage is that 2000CDN costs 1800USD right now.

If we had more time, I think we would have worked on some strategic venting/ perforations of the shields to allow a little more circulation.. but that's for another day.