355/360/430 Header Question

It's has little to do with driving style. It's a fatigue failure due to engine vibration, expansion and contraction due to exhaust heat, the manner in which the exhaust is mounted and supported, and the quality of the original welds. It's just a very poor design. It's not a matter if they will fail, it's only a case of when. The rear support brackets at the transaxle are the weakest link in the chain and usually fail first (in some cases several times) before the headers crack.

 

Fred knows of what he speaks! Which is why he is in a new Porsche now.

 

Because the header assembly contains a "Precat", it carries the 8 year emissions warranty as required in the USA. I don't know the warranty periods elsewhere. I've read that Ferrari is quite good about replacing failed (cracked) headers. The one caveat is that if you wait too long, the catalyst element in the header can break up, and pieces can be sucked back into the cylinder passed the open exhaust valve. This is a worse case scenario and I've only read about a few such instances. This would lead to a much bigger repair cost and perhaps a bit of drama to get Ferrari to cover the whole tab. Logically, if the root cause of the engine failure is the failure of the header within the 8 year period, the engine failure should be viewed as collateral damage and covered by Ferrari. That's just my opinion, I don't know Ferrari's opinion.

 

Sorry for the stupid question, but what is the header in the Ferrari.
I am a recent Ferrari user and wish to learn about.

 

^ exhaust manifold.

 

Thx

 

Mileage varies all over the map from what I've heard. Mine went after 5 years and less than 12K miles. And truly Ferrari was great about replacing them...both sides. No hassle at all. No charge.

 

Dont feel stupid.

Before I owned my Ferrari I had no idea what a header or cat was!