1995 F355 GTS: Restoration and Major Service

Right, Elliott. It's the same for MY1995. My 1995 F355 Challenge was ordered through Miller Motorcars, the sponsoring and supporting dealership, as a road car with the Challenge kit which was installed as per Challenge regulations. 1995 cars came from the Factory with radio delete plates which were removed when dealerships installed radios.

The radio delete plate that came with my car was used to house the left and right cooling fan switches and a shielded master ignition switch...


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It's metal covered with leather.

Challenge regulations required both cooling fans be running when the car was on the track.

 

It’s engine out time again. It’s been 3 years since the last and and about 7000 kms. So it’s very early to pull it again but there was a few things I wanted to address. 2022 was a big year and I pulled 4 F355 engines out and performed various restorative works on them so armed with a lot more experience, tooling and knowledge I thought it was time to take it to the next level for my own car.

The things I initially wanted to address in this engine out service:

•Zinc plate the remaining items left that I had not yet plated.

•refinish the cam covers- more wrinkle and a better more correct color

•replace water pump pulley (as it has previously rubbed against a loose heatshield mount and wore the anodizing.

•address the leaking cam seals - the tech who assisted me with the head rebuild had not installed any sealant on cam seals and they have been leaking pretty much from day one.

•replace the Tubi headers with custom refurbished OEM headers that retain the heat-shields

Of course there would be little things I’d find while in there and I wanted to do an overall engine bay tidy up to keep it looking fresh.

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It's good to see that you removed the coverplates from your gearbox... especially after the mess I discovered behind mine. Your drain plug looks clean, too.

 

Yeah I checked my gear box oil pretty regularly. Because last engine out I changed the heat exchanger only for it to be manufactured with a defect and it mixed the coolant with the gear oil. I flushed it 5 times and happily I caught it very early on and has been no issue since. The gear oil was nice and clean and so was the coolant.
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Engine out - and ready for close up inspection of all components.

So much easier with a proper adjustable engine stand and 2 post hoist.


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Yikes. I might have to make a list of all the broken new parts that Ferrari ships to us.

By the way, is that oil on the gear (not a missing piece)?

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That's one of the gears which failed on mine.

 

No all the gears are intact and no noticeable wear.

 

Tubi headers removed, they have served the car well but I wanted to go for the OEM look without concern for reliability. Changed the coolant drain plugs and washers, thankfully they came out without stripping.
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Looks great. What is the reason for removing the gearbox bottom plates? I had the big center one off but it was during the manual conversion and I was swapping out the F1 plate (which has a bung for a sensor) with the manual plate. Everything visible up there looked good on mine.

 

Perhaps peace of mind... especially if you don't know the history of the car

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Previous dodgy owners may have cleaned the swarf/chunks of gear from the magplug.

 

You get about half a liter more drained when you remove the plates and let it sit for a bit. Quite a lot sits on the plates. I wanted to refresh the gaskets and make sure everything was ok. Not normal practice but it’s my own car and I can go the extra mile.

 

Water pump pulley replaced. The rubbing wore through a rivet so I drilled it out and replaced it after cleaning up the heatshield and giving it a lick of heatproof paint.
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Replaced the LHD radiator fan with an OEM version as previously I had swapped in one that needed the connector spliced in. The new Ferrari SPAL fans are a lot louder than the original type. Not sure why but it’s noticeable when they are active.

Gave the bay a good tidy up, it was quite nice already but a good chance to clean it up while the engine is out.

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It appears Elliot does engine outs when he’s bored .

 

This thread now documents 3 engine outs, more than you have driven your car haha.

I do enjoy this process though. Once this one is done fingers crossed it’s pretty much done mechanically for quite some time though.

 

The headers came out very nice. Took time to find the right person to perform this work and make it look OEM.

I pulled these headers off a few years ago and installed the Tubi items. No issue with those but I wanted to have an all OEM car without the known risks of running the OEM stuff. As you can see the tubes weren’t looking the best at all.

Headers are now in 321 stainless, ceramic coated and fiberglass matted. Retaining the 4,2,1 design and the heatshield clamshells.
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Took a leaf from @kenneyd and picked up this awesome crankshaft rotation socket, makes it so much easier to turn over the crank without a large 36mm socket that falls off easily.

Made light work of the leak down test, very happy with the results. I didn’t perform a test after the heads were rebuilt - which at the time showed up to 25% leakage. Now all cylinders are the same after 3 years of use with very little air escaping even up to 100 psi.
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I had previously rebuilt my a/c compressor but they had painted it and the leaking oil from the cam seals had made a mess of the finish, found a NOS original unit for a reasonable price and made the swap. Looks very nice and matches the rest of the engine. Headers reinstalled with new gaskets and copper nuts.
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Cam seals were replaced and sealant applied to the o-ring it was done dry last time and developed some pretty decent leaks on both banks.
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Changed the tensioner bracket bushings, new Dayco Ferrari belts, Hill Engineering tensioner bearings, and the oil drain plug and washer. Hydraulic tensioners were changed last service.
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Curious to learn more about the AC compressor rebuild if you don't mind. My AC doesn't hold refrigerant and it's probably the compressor. Would rather rebuild than replace. Did you find a kit or did you buy individual parts?

 

Reading through this makes me really miss my 355 and the time we spent in the garage together.

 

It was rebuilt at the very beginning of this thread some 7 years ago - I sent it off to be re- built as it was leaking refrigerant at the rear seal. The extent of the repair I don’t know, but it has been working perfectly and leak free since that service.

 

Yeah I don’t know what I would do with my spare time if I didn’t have an F355 to wrench on. Love working on them.

 

There was only a very small amount of components and hardware on the entire car that I hadn’t already re plated. I took the opportunity to finish off the rest of the items and re plated them myself.

Sand blasted, wire wheeled, acid dipped, parts washed and then zinc plated and yellow passivated.


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