Ferrari 348 engine out service

I recently purchased my first Ferrari, a 1990 348. The car came with all the records back to day one. It had been only a couple thousand miles since the last belt service but that happened five years ago. I bought the car knowing I needed to do the 30K service. To most that would mean spending a bunch of money at a dealership. To me and my son it was a challenge as we both anticipated removing the motor just to see how everything works.

I began the removal process yesterday and finished it up today. During the latter part of last year and the early part of this year, I did a body off restoration on a 1964 Corvette and posted the entire process on the Corvette Forum website. I did this to share my experience which would hopefully help someone doing a similar project. However, I received more that I gave as everyone was very helpful in pointing out issues with some of the things I was doing. It was my first time doing this type of project and I really appreciated the many constructive comments that were posted. And they saved me a bunch of time and grief. I am planning on posting my progress on this project for the same reasons and welcome any suggestions.

Because of the way photos must be posted on this site, I have not figured out a way to post them exactly where I want to on each page as can be done in other sites. Thus I will have to post multiple posts to have the attached photos be meaningful.

"My Ferrari 348" website provided a great tutorial on how to remove the motor. With his car being a later model 348 some of his photos did not directly relate to my car but were close enough that we could figure out what to do. The first job was getting the car raised on my lift. I did a search and did not find a good way to do this. After looking everything over, I used my long low jack to raise the rear end on the sub frame where the suspension mounts to raise the car high enough so I could get the arms under the car. The arms were located as below.
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Well done!

Kai

 

The first thing I did was unhook the battery. I then removed all of the fender liners. They are fastened with phillips screws and were the foundation for a large pile of removed parts. On the driver's side, the top liner has a clip holding a wire that must be opened to release the wire.

There are three access panels on the bottom of the car that also need to be removed. I bagged and labeled all of the fasteners as they were removed. I placed some protective covers around the engine bay and then removed the muffler heat shields and the air box on top of the motor. Now the pile was complete.
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The oil must be drained in two places, one at the oil tank in the right rear corner of the engine bay and the other at the drain plug on the front of the motor. The oil line to the tank must also be unfastened which required a trip to Tractor Supply to buy a large adjustable wrench for the 46MM nut. The oil line must also be removed on the oil cooler which required a 37MM wrench, the same size as one of the oil lines on my Porsche. Once I had the lines off, I bagged the ends to prevent dripping.

Draining the radiators was next on the list. The LH radiator as a drain plug at the bottom. The RH drain plug is also at the bottom of the coolant radiator which is above the oil cooler. The coolant lines must also be removed at the coolant tank. At the very front of the motor, there are coolant and heater hoses that must be loosened and removed. Once they are loose, the larger hoses will slide off as the body is raised from the engine. The smaller coolant hose must be watched closely as the body is raised and needed some persuasion for it to release. It must be attached as the engine is slowly raised during the engine installation.
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Keep them coming. I will be doing mine soon.

 

Inside the car behind the seats, the two ECU's must be removed and the plugs disconnected. The other connectors in that area must also be disconnected. As the body is raised these connectors must be fed through a hole and into the engine bay. The body must be raised a bit at at time to allow these connectors to be fed through the hole.

The ground strap from the battery is attached to the transmission and must be removed as well as the positive wire that is attached to the positive battery connector. There are electrical connectors in each wheelwell that must also be disconnected as well as the two connectors to the charcoal canister. The other lines to the charcoal canister must also be removed.
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Thanks Jerry I have a 94 348 spider I will try to do my engine out this winter great pics keep them coming good luck regards john

 

One of the first instructions was to remove the engine lid. Initially we did not think we would have to remove it but getting to the throttle cable behind the intake manifold and to the heater hoses did require its removal. Be sure to mark the mounting points with a marker before removing it to make sure it will line up when re-attached.

As I became older, I began to snore. So that both my wife and I could sleep better, we have separate bedrooms. Since her bedroom is larger, the engine lid will be stored there. This makes the fourth hood or trunk lid that has now been stored in her bedroom for varying lengths of time since I retired five years ago. She said she is honored that there is now a large Ferrari part in her bedroom and would kneel before it each evening before going to bed. She might have been pulling my leg!!!

When removing the air box, there are two hoses attached to the bottom of it that must be detached. The brake line must be separated on the driver's side. The parking brake cable and the shifter cables must also be detached.
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After having someone evacuate the AC system, there are two lines that must be disconnected on the firewall on the right side above the fuel filter. The upper muffler must be detached from the frame.

The fuel return lines must be removed at the front of the intake manifold as well as the throttle cable. At the front of the intake manifold there is a C clip that must be removed on the throttle cable. At the rear of the intake manifold, the throttle cable must be removed from its mount and then pulled through to the front.
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At this point, everything should be disconnected. It is a very good time to look everything over as it is now time to begin the engine removal. Since so much of the weight is on the rear of the car, we had some concerns about what would happen to the car on the lift when that weight is removed. Would it want to tip off the lift. Better safe than sorry so we ran a strap behind the seats and strapped the car to two of the lift arms.

Once that was done, we loosened the front twelve bolts. Next we lowered the car so the sub frame was resting on the table I had built. We then removed those front twelve bolts, the four bolts at the rear and the three nuts on each shock tower. One nut remains on each shock tower. With all the bolts removed, we began lifting the body off the motor very gingerly. As I mentioned earlier, you must feed the ECU plugs through the hole a little bit at a time. Once we lifted the car high enough to feed those plugs through and all else was clear, we simply raised the body all the way up on the lift leaving the motor resting on the table. It was out!!!! Not a terribly difficult job especially since I had my son's help.
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I have to say your car is very clean. And it is a great idea building that table, except that you cannot remove the oil pan to inspect the oil pump tensioner pad now.

Good luck. Have fun.

 

Outstanding thread!

One thing you will want to do is remove the mufflers ASAP. The dual cans weigh over 70/lbs and the only thing supporting that weight is the headers, and header bolts, now that the engine is out. You don't want to bend anything if you catch my drift.

 

Great write up! As an aside to others using this as a resource; although it seems most go this same route and have the A/C (aircon to you UK'ers) drained, it is possible to leave the compressor in the car while removing the engine. It's a bit fiddly, but not too tough and saves 2 trips to the A/C service place and that oportunity for them to screw something up.
My other comment (which might get me burned at the stake) would be to suggest maybe drilling out the bolt holes in the two 6-hole plates that attach the frame to the bulkhead. The amount of time it took me to get those bolts alligned and threaded into their holes was unbelievable. I figure enlarging the holes by 1 mm ain't gonna mess up anything, but might save an hour or 2 of grief.

 

The cleanliness is one of the things that attracted me to the car. However, it will be cleaner before the motor is re-installed. I plan on cleaning the engine bay and the motor. The table isn't my idea. The tech at the place where I bought the car uses a table as he then has the motor at chest height to work on it rather than having to bend over. If I had to do mine over, I would build the table a couple inches lower.

As for the oil pan, can I remove that once the motor is in the car?

 

Thanks. I plan on installing a new clutch so I was going to remove the lower muffler anyway. I can take both of them off. BTW, it is suggestions such as the ones above are one of the reasons I posted this thread. Keep them coming.

 

I did not remove the compressor but separated the two lines on the firewall. It will be interesting to see what others have to say about drilling out the holes. Now would surely be the time.

 

I made a cart too, but when it came time to remove the oil pan to get to the oil pump chain tensioner blocks, I rolled the cart under my car lift, used straps to attach the engine to the lift, lifted the engine off the cart, rolled the cart out and put jack stands in it's place, then lowered the engine onto the jack stands. When the pan was back on, I reversed the process to get the engine back onto the cart.

 

I can do that!!! Thanks.

 

Here is my temporary solution to supporting the mufflers until I have the time to remove them.
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There we go. That's the kind of engineering we like around these parts.

Seriously though, fantastic work and great pictures. I know its a pain to take pictures when you are greasy, but these sort of threads are priceless and have saved me more than once. Looking forward to watching the entire process in detail!

 

if you want a visual on it, check about 8 1/2 minutes into the Youtube video "Ferrari 348 Engine Cambelt Change Part II. Your cart certainly looks better than mine...

 

Fantastic post with great photos thank you so much for sharing your experience this will make a great road map for other 348 owners brave enough for this kind of DIY operation.

 

I checked out your video...and your cart. The video is great!!

 

When I bought the car it was with the understanding that I would be doing the service on the car. It is an independent dealership with years of Ferrari experience. I talked with their technician for quite awhile about various items on the car. He told me that if I ever needed any help, he was just a phone call away. And he has been true to his word.

He has a 348 motor out of a car for service and when I told him I was taking mine out, he thought it would be helpful if I visited with him to talk about the project. We spent about an hour together on Monday with him giving me many helpful tips both on replacing the clutch and doing the timing belt.

Armed with that information, I was back at it today. The morning was spent doing some very non-technical cleaning of the air box, inner fender liners, the access panels and the muffler heat shields. I needed to clean them anyway and they were in my way. After cleaning them, they were safely put away in the attic above my garage.
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Removing the muffler was next on the list. I left the bottle jack in place and strapped the upper muffler to the framework. After spraying the bolts with some penetrant I still managed to break one of the muffler bolts. Once the bolts were off, I removed the jack and gradually released the straps and lifted both mufflers off as one piece.
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