A 348s engine-out service, some refurb, and some tasty mods

7/12 - 7/13: 9 hours logged in. Fresh order of inner timing drive sprocket bearings came in Monday to the vendor, both from Ferrari and SKF, and both matched the correct p/n and 42mm dimensions. Overnighted for Tuesday to get back moving on assembly.

Was currently on vacation this week, and hoping to be fully assembled and timed by the end, but unfortunately the parts issues have been holding up the progress. Italian car show scheduled for the weekend of Aug 6-7th, so that is the drop dead date.

- Pressed in new sprocket bearings
- Assembled fresh oil and cam drive tensioner pads
- Installed front timing cover assembly
- Cleaned and reinstalled oil sump pan
- Completed the oil tank refinish, valve covers, upper airbox.

Glad that we were able to get the bearing issue sorted, no idea what happened in the supply chain, or how many other customers impacted, but at least we're back to moving ahead with assembly and setup. Currently waiting on an o-ring in order to install the new water pump (due Tues), and then to install the back cam belt covers, tensioners, and cam belt. Then onto timing the assembly and final button-up. While waiting on the o-ring, I'll see if I can get the intake manifold assembly off and refinished over the weekend.
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Thanks, guys.

It is a lot of fun, and I certainly feel more in-tune with the car with this sort of mechanical intimacy. It changes the relationship entirely. Hands are sore, sliced, swollen and beaten, but absolutely worth it. That's not to say that I'm not looking forward to the conclusion and getting back behind the wheel after all this.



7/16 - 7/17: 16 hours logged in on about 4 hrs worth of work. After a few days with family on the beach, I was back at it.

- Coolant tank repro sticker
- Alternator heat shield painted and installed
- Water pump installed
- Belt installed and tensioned
- Camshafts set up to assembly marks
- Crisis averted

A reproduction sticker for the coolant expansion tank showed up in the mail. It is not the normal repro one that is available through some of the common parts suppliers, as the typeface of the common repro is incorrect and appears much more thin and elongated versus original. I'm not the only one that noticed this, as a fellow FChatter (Dr Kananga) went through the lengths to make an exact OE reproduction on the metallic sticker media, with the correct proportions and typeface for Dinos and 308/328s. 348s appear to use the same sticker. He sells them through ebay now, not the still-live website as I found. It took a little while to arrive with a minor shipping hiccup, but it's here and on the tank.

Installed the water pump (Daniel @ Ricambi was able to pull a rabbit out of his hat and get that o-ring overnighted Friday versus Monday. Can't give enough thanks or say enough good things about Daniel and the others at Ricambi), idler pulley, rear timing belt covers, and then mainly just repetition of going through the TDC registration procedure, then setup of the 4 cams to their assembly marks in conjunction with belt/tensioner install and setting the belt tension. I'd find myself near the end of the process, then accidentally bump the degree indicator with my hand or tool and lose exact registered degree position, or confidence in its indication, so, back it up and do it again. Now, all tools reside in a tray to the side of the work, instead of below. Then, stupid me, the literal one time that I was pulling a cam bearing cap to lock a cam position, and had not stuffed all of the holes with shop towels, my fingers slipped and I heard the *clink* of a nut dropping down into the head, out of sight, in the neighborhood of an oil drain hole south of the #3/4 cylinder intake cam cap. A few minutes of swearing passed, followed by an hour or so of fishing with a magnet, yielding nothing. I got ready to pull the head (I suppose it would give me a chance to manually clean any carbon deposits, lol) in case it dropped down a plug hole, or drop the oil sump pan again. Then as I was looking at the front of the engine and angle of the head/block transition, wondered if there was a casting lip or gasket lip that could have caught the nut before it made its way fully down the drain hole and into the sump pan since I only heard a *clink*, not the signature *clink, clink* of a nut dropping into the head and then into the pan. I took my telescoping magnet, formed a few bends in it to snake down the oil drain, and then 2 seconds later heard the *click* of the nut snapping onto the magnet head. I've never been so glad to hear a sound, and now we're back in business. Stupid, stupid one-time oversight that I am usually absolutely anal over. I suppose this car has a bit of a sense of humor.

At any rate, the belt is in, and the cams are through initial setup to their assembly marks. I ended up:
1) Confirming the crank position at TDC with the old belt on
2) Removed belt
3) Tweaked cam positions to their assembly marks if needed
4) Locked cams in place
5) Installed new belt to marked positions (marked off old belt and its indexed positions on cogs prior to initial removal weeks ago) without tensioner, looping a zip-tie at each cog in order to keep belt teeth positioned
6) Un-pinned cogs
7) Installed tensioner and let the un-pinned cogs rotate and distribute tension (zip-ties removed)
8) Re-pinned cam cogs
9) Unlocked cams
10) Rotated the assembly 2 cycles
11) Locked down the belt tensioner pulley
12) Rotated and confirmed alignment.

Now, it is on to degreeing the cams to spec.

I found that a pair of CV boot clamping pliers that I had laying around from crimping steering rack boot clamps do a great job of grabbing and pulling the cam cog pins. Much better than standard pliers, channel-locks, or vise-grips.
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No idea about the right side chain guides. As far as installing the front cover goes, use the advantage of thermal expansion to make the fit easier onto the sprocket shaft. I took my cover assembly and baked it in the oven at 250F for 20 min (while the wife was out ), and it was a piece of cake. Make sure your contact surfaces are very clean, and take care with the crank seal. Don't forget about setting the oil pump chain up onto the tensioner while putting the cover on, then releasing the tensioner spring.

 

7/18 - 7/25: 18 hours... some final setup and the process of degreeing the cams, then a bunch of detail work that just devours time...

- Timed camshafts to euro / 'without catalyst' specs: Intake open @14* BTDC, close @ 53* ABDC, Exhaust open @ 53* BBDC close @ 10* ATDC, all at 0.50mm lift from lobe base circle.
- Re-checked cam timing and made some further adjustment, now all cams are degreed to dead-on spec or within 1 degree.
- Torqued and marked all fasteners
- Reconditioned and installed timing covers
- Installed/trimmed gaskets, valve covers on with fresh hardware
- Conditioned rubber hoses and installed fresh factory hose clamps all around
- Wire wheeled rear cam covers, exhaust hardware and mounts back to a fresh sheen
- Refreshed the exposed aluminum fin details on top of the manifold
- Fuel filters in
- Shift linkage reinstalled and greased
- Final cleaning of the gearbox case with solvent/brush/vac. Nice bright, clean casting makes me happy
- Capristo exhaust on!!

...next step, lower the body on, and bolt it up! It's getting close!
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It is, though I have a wood 'kickstand' under the muffler body overnight, as the engine is ready to go in later today. The stock upper/lower muffler assembly that was on there is quite hefty and, along with the cats which have their own heft, can put a degree of strain on the headers. Whether it is enough to cause damage, I'm not sure. I have only read of voiced concern. However, no reason to tempt fate unnecessarily. I had cut a short length of scrap to support the stocker while removing it, initially. The Capristo and test pipes are substantially lighter, but I understand the thought is still there. The joints are currently all loose-mounted to get alignment dialed in. Hanging there unsupported during the short duration of install process, I'm sure it will be fine.

Thanks again for loaning the couple of tools... I'll shoot them back your way shortly, just waiting on a small token of thanks to arrive in the mail to pack in with them.

 

7/26: 2.5 hours... the engine is IN!

Major milestone in the project achieved. Got home from work Tuesday evening and got right into it. The articulation of the 4 corner jacking cart proved invaluable, and made reinsertion and alignment a piece of cake as a 1-man job. Exactly what I was hoping for when making it. Everything was able to be precisely brought into position without putting any stress on the rear body assembly, bolts inserted and threaded in by hand. A piece of wood to wedge against the wheels to keep them chocked during rough alignment was helpful.

The steps:
- Rolled the engine cart under the car to a rough alignment
- Secured pull-through strings from the interior to the main ECU harnesses, for guiding through the bulkhead as the body was lowered.
- Lowered the body a couple inches at a time over the engine, checking alignment, adjusting, engaging coolant hoses, and feeding the harness
- Once the body was lowered about 3 inches off the engine, stopped with the lift, and switched to raising the cradle with the more precise jacks to meet the body mount points.
- Used the shock tower mount points as targets for aligning... tilt fore/aft and side/side can be gauged and adjusted by alignment of the studs into the body slots. A key step, as angle of how the car sits on the lift changes slightly with weight distribution before / after initial removal of the cradle.
- Once close to fully aligned, dropped the two rear vertical mount bolts into their holes to use as a set of free pin indicators to alignment front/rear and side/side... once the cart was positioned, these would drop through the cradle mount holes with a nice 'clunk' indicating the correct positioning of the cradle.
- Threaded bulkhead bolts in by hand, tightened up.
- Fastened the rear body mount bolts.

Now, onto line hookups and fluids
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The Max Jack has only a couple of holes for a 'catch bar' manually inserted through each tower... basically spaced just far enough to split some good betting action on if the car would dump off or not should one side fail. No ratcheting or safety latches. I am not comfortable with simply relying on the sketchy hydraulic internal valving and seals (and they are sketchy) without safety measures.

 

Yup, while it is a great asset in the garage, if I were to do it over again, I would go in a different direction.

 

7/28: 4 hours

- Reconnected all wiring, coolant hoses, brake lines, oil lines, fuel lines, parking brake, etc.
- Remounted AC Condenser
- Reattached fuel regulators, which was a major pita in-situ. There is plenty of line slack to have done it with the engine sitting on the cart, under the body, which would have made it 100x easier... and left me with more skin on the back sides of my hands.

Next up tonight is installing the rear bumper to align the exhaust and tighten the collars up, install the freshly lubed shift cables, and then fill it up with oil, coolant, and brake fluid, then light off the engine and start bleeding.

 

As of this weekend and tacking another 7 hrs into the project, we have successful ignition!

- Reinstalled and aligned the rear bumper
- Aligned and tightened up the exhaust
- Some more fresh hardware courtesy of Daniel and his team at Ricambi, for the intake/TBs
- New elec hazard sticker by the battery mains junction to complement the fresh strut mount hardware.
- Filled oil at just shy of 11qt Redline 10W40, coolant, and flushed brake/clutch
- Started it up and commenced bleeding the cooling system. A couple of minor leaks, a very slightly loose clamp to a radiator hose, and then a loose clamp to a hose in the valley under the intake manifold, which was a major pain to access, but some ingenuity with long screwdrivers, socket flex extensions, lighting, blind photography, and an afternoon of cursing in between engine cool-downs proved to be the winning recipe in resolving the seepage, getting the clamp repositioned and tightened. It seems that the hose/neck junctions on this car need to be super tight in order to fully seal under pressure... more so than other cars passing through my hands.

With that fixed, the refinished/redyed heat shielding, intake hoses, fender liners, and underbody panels went back on . Just need a spare set of capable hands to help put the lid back on this evening, then some non-threatening weather to give it a full test drive.

The decatted Capristo is LOUD, holy smokes. I have it initially set to the valves-closed mode, and it is quite an angry sounding beast. Very racey, raucous at idle. A total transformation from the stock attitude. I can't imagine what the sound will be like in person at full revs with the Challenge chips.
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