Just set it to TDC from flywheel and the front crank at 12:00 and lock both Cams up and make your own marks don,t touch the 3 degree bolts on the front cam gear , replace both belts and recheck your marks again
Figured I'd update everyone following this post.....unfortunately, I haven't been able to do too much lately. New dial indicators arrived along with associated stands, etc. to measure TDC and valve opening/closing specs. Figure since it's down this far, I would degree the cams to what they are supposed to be set at. Had to take my timing wheel and drill out the center for the crank bolt. This was an interesting conversation with the machine shop owner. I've known him for years, but haven't been in his shop since I stopped working on domestic engines. He asked what I was working on and when I told him I was setting the timing on a Ferrari, the look he gave me was the same look that Thomas Edison must have gotten when he flipped the light switch or when Alexander G Bell made the first telephone call--sheer amazement and terror all in one! Anyway, I've been so busy lately with Hurricane Harvey stuff it's not even funny. I'm doing the renovations on my mother in laws house and when I gave the cabinet designs to the contractor he was so impressed that he asked if I could do all his kitchen and bath layouts. So, this has taken up a huge amount of my free time. I love working on my car but because of this, I am debating on sending it out to set timing rather than wait for the free time to do it myself. More to come....
Okay, for everyone following this thread.....here goes. Recently, well...actually, back in October of last year, my position as Maintenance Supervisor over a 7MM bbl storage facility formerly owned by Chevron and recently purchased by Phillips 66 came to a screeching halt as Phillips waited a year after the ink was dry and replaced most of the terminals management with their own people. Naturally, this put a halt on my discretionary funds....Opinions vary on what I thought was discretionary verses my wife/accountants views. But i digress.... To make matters worse, over the cold Southeast Texas winters (insert grin here), I was planning on taking my car into have it's 30k service completed, including belts. Since I had all this free time and I understood the concept of righty-tighty, lefty-loosey I felt I was in pretty good shape. Having made it this far in the process, I felt pretty confidant that I could complete it. Well, then this thing called Hurricane Harvey kinda screwed things up. I was one of the fortunate ones that suffered almost no damage to my property. However, my mother in law was not so lucky. When the contractor called me to go over the new kitchen layout, I handed him a CAD drawing of what I wanted based on the cabinets in his catalog. He was so impressed, he asked if I wanted to do his kitchen and bath designs for both his residential customers and commercial projects. He'd pay me in cash and a pretty good amount at that. So, my discretionary funds started to go up and my available time went down..... Then he asked if I knew anything about project management. Well, let me think a bit.....for the past six years at Chevron I was over the maintenance group running projects from a few thousand dollars to multi-million dollar capital projects. So, I said I knew a little bit.... Now, I am playing foreman on his local projects. Again, cash payments....discretionary funds increasing, available time decreasing...... Last week, I was offered a position with a subsidiary of KSB, one of the largest pump and valve manufactures in the world. Discretionary funds significantly raised with the appropriate downward spin of available time. So, my little Rosso Fiorano 360 sits, torn down without anyone to play with her. I made a call to Mark at Sphere and talked to him. Told him as a mechanic myself, I hate it when someone brings me something that either they couldn't finish or something that someone else F'd up.... Mark, being the good guy he is, tells me to bring it down and he will take care of it. So, to conclude this story, I loaded the car up and headed over to Marks new shop and dropped off by baby. The first conversation with Mark was just verify the timing was properly set and possibly degree the cams to factory specs. Since this was set up before my last opportunity, I may talk to Mark this week and see just what he will charge me to give me a running car. Now, the only thing stopping this from running is a partially flushed coolant system (coolant tank was removed for powder coating), and partial fills on the engine and tranny. Still think I will have to trailer it back over here because the under trays, bumper, interior, etc. are all off and I don't see the point in paying to put all that back together. Besides, I really don't want to cart all those parts over to Sphere and drop them off...makes for an unhappy mechanic! So, the saga continues and I should here some kind words from Mark this week! Once I have the car back, I plan on breaking out a detailed list of what I did, how much did it cost, and what went wrong....stay tuned Image Unavailable, Please Login
congrats on landing a new job and best of luck with the 360! I'd definitely be interested in knowing what some of the stuff cost....like how much it costs to degree the cams.
Talent, like cream, always rises to the top. It's great to read stories like yours, and it's a sign the economy is strong. Congratulations!
Okay final chapter here..... The next day following the car being dropped off at Sphere, I received a call from Mark. Apparently there was a misunderstanding on what was being done on the car. My intention was to have Mark set the timing and I'd pick the car up...nothing more. I did this for a few reasons....the biggest being as a mechanic, I hate to fix other peoples issues after they gave up or couldn't do it. Anyway, the next day I loaded up my truck and brought everything I had minus a few interior bits. I didn't want the job to be held up for any reason. When I dropped off everything, Mark asked about the water pump. At that time, I didn't really see a need to change it. It looked good, felt good, etc. However, Mark strongly recommended changing it while the car was open. So, I gave in. Marks final question was if I wanted the car put back together. I thought about this for a minute, weighing my time or lack there of and without asking pricing, told him to go ahead and put everything back together. Last Thursday, Mark called and said the car should be ready the following day. Still no mention about price.....even though the original estimate of setting the timing only was around $2400 given the fact that I had stripped most everything off already, I knew it would be well north of this since there was additional work being done. I was expecting somewhere north of that price, possibly even double. The only parts I didn't bring to Mark to have installed was the passenger seat and the rear carpet/insulation. When I picked up the car, we discussed what he did and what he found. I was relieved to hear him say that I did everything right and there was no issue with what I had started. However, the shop that did the last service added a few parts. Mark said that one cam had an extra set of seals installed. Wasn't sure how this was possible, but he explained that when they pulled the cam gear, they found extra seals there! So, after I smoked the credit card, I thanked Mark and drove out. Couple things of note..... With no insulation or carpet on the firewall, the car is damn loud! Car is a 99 (no pre-cats) and CS exhaust. In addition to forgetting the carpet, I also forgot the radio code so the two hours back to the house, I did get to listen to the sweet sounds of 5 valve V8....reminded me of flying a friggin' plane. Anyway, below is a break down of what was done by both me and Sphere.... What I did or bought.... New belts (OEM Ferrari) New tensioners (OEM Ferrari) New tensioner pulleys (Hill Eng) New tensioner mounting bolts (per recall) Redline 75/90 NS gear oil Redline 5/40 New seals for oil strainer, transmission strainer (OEM Ferrari) New copper washers for all fittings (OEM Ferrari) Repainted oil tank Flushed coolant system Misc. parts and tools Total parts from Ricambi, Eurosports, and Amazon was around 2k What was done at Sphere.... Pull cams & change seals Perform leakdown test Degree cams Change water pump Flush & fill coolant system Top off engine oil Top off gear oil Reinstall rear bumper Reinstall belly pans Reinstall driver seat Recharge AC system (small leak...lasts about 2 years) Mark gave me a healthy discount so I am not really comfortable revealing what the price was but I will say it was more than what was initially quoted to set the timing but less that what I anticipated for him to give me a running car. What I have learned..... Even though I have faith in my abilities, in my effort to save money and time I elected to do this myself. In the end, I exceeded my initial budget and time frame. So, going forward, if I have this car in three years, I will bring this car back to Mark at Sphere Motorsports. He has by business going forward without question.
i have to advocate for the previous mechanic, Ghostdiver, since I just tried the following oil the filter's seals, put the filter on, torque to 30NM ( hill engineer's filter tool) drive the car for a bit. come back home, using a cordless wrench, spec says up to 150 NM. The filter will not budge! However, if I just use a 1/2 rachet, it comes off easily I don't know the physics behind it, but that's what I've observed.
so I have this new style LH tensioner, I can't get the bushing off per ferrari technical update, should I just grind it off? oh plus, the bracket hole, that's the old style hole right? Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
hm......I looked at the LH and RH tensioner again. if we ignore the new style LH tensioner's protruding dowl, the only difference between the LH and the RH, is the rubber bushing you showed in the pic. So, I am thinking LH and RH are interchangeable. but I worried about the rubber bushing served a function, which I am not sure what it is. There is some other minute difference between LH and RH shape-wise, but I wouldn't think it is a problem----- why does shape matter as long as it installs without problems?
My '01 was just at Classic Coach. They replaced the bracket with one that was machined to accept the dowel, which made sense to me. The tensioner they pulled off was a newer style but the dowel had been removed. Are you saying that the original Ferrari technical update said to remove the dowel? I wonder if that's been superceded?
yea, the update said to remove dhe dowel, but how to remove it? grind it off ? turned out i used a new RH tensioner for the LH, works fine
The bushing is pressed in and can be removed with a non-locking version of cam locking tool (aka. channel locks)…..this is a dig at the WSM's use of a specialty tool to lock the cams which looks really similar to a pair of vise grips in the pic....
