355 No compression on cylinder 2

Here is a novel idea. Pull the engine and take the head off bank 1 and find out exactly what the problem is before you fix it. You may find that you have a burnt valve in cylinder #2 and that's the extent of it. If you have good compression and leak down in the other 7 cylinders there may be nothing else to fix.

 

Disassemble engine,
Inspect every part,
Replace anything that needs replacing, (say crank to oil pump chain, timing bearings, seals, liners,...)
Machine any part needing to be machined (say valve faces, seats, head, block,...)
Clean everything that needs to be cleaned (say water galleys, lime deposits,...)

Every other major, I have them replace everything in the engine bay that is rubber, just because when the engine is out, it is so much easier to work on.

And since you are already in for $10,000 just to pull the engine before disassembly, you might as well address things now at low cost than later at higher cost and more chance of failed mechanic work due to difficult to reach fasteners.

 

Why not? It's a Ferrari, right?

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We have a very long history with these. The problems and the fixes follow a long established pattern. #2 is by far the most common 1st cylinder to have a compression issue. If the guides in #2 are bad enough there is significant compression loss others will not be far behind. Any shop that agreed to pull one head and fix valves in one cylinder are not only ill experienced idiots but they are very poorly serving the needs of their customers. It would be back soon with another bad cylinder. Paying 3/4 of the money for 1/8 of a short lived fix is no bargain to anyone.
Be no different than a doctor who only wanted to remove the worst tumors and take care of the others later.

 

Agree and disagree. That is why I said do a proper diagnosis. The OP indicated that the header was cracked and #2 cylinder loosing compression. A cracked header resulting in burnt exhaust valves may also be the cause of poor compression. The OP also indicated that the shop determined that there is valve damage in #2. Me thinks it's inappropriate to assume the guides are bad.

 

To be as always confirmed once the engine is apart.

I guess this one car could be different than the thousand cases before it.

Seen many bad headers in 355s. We had one car under warranty go through 9 headers.

Seen lots of compression problems in 355s.

Seen lots of bad valve guides in 355s.

Never once seen a burned valve but hey, you never know. Anything can happen right?

 

Perhaps not burnt but deposits due to cracked header?

Interesting thing is that recently a 95 was sold on BAT. It had been through a $37k major at Miller Motors here in CT. Compression test was done and 7 cylinders were reported to have compression in the 200 psi range. But #2 (always #2), was 100. Leak down indicated exhaust valve sealing problem on 2.The records showed they did a top end cleaning and ran the heck out of it and it retested 167 psi. Noting in the records indicated that anything additional was done to address the problem. The seller skirted the issue.

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Maybe they can try again to find the other 50psi

 

Here's one.
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They skirted nothing. They just postoned it a little.

 

That was just a poorly performed prior job.

 

Not Miller, the seller. Yea, postponed it,......for the next guy.

 

I very recently finished a major on a 355. I leaked it down before I took it out. I always do and I dont bother with compression tests.
At 29,000 miles it had as I recall around 10%, might have been 12 on #2. I told him next major we will probably be doing a valve job.
Based on his usage it will be between 5000 and 7500 miles.

When you see it a few hundred times its no mystery. Never done a valve job on a 360 for loss of compression.

 

Interesting, curious why -- isn't the 360 valvetrain basically identical to 355? Five valve heads, etc?

 

Sintered iron valve guides.

 

Interesting, I always assumed they were Sintered steel.

 

Could be if such a thing exists. I have seen many cases of Italian translations using steel and iron interchangeably.

 

Understood, thanks.

 

Sintered iron/steel guides were supposed to have been in 355's starting mid-production '98, according to a Ferrari TSB that's been posted. @Rifledriver have you seen late '98-'99 355's that need guides?

Curious since my 98 GTB was made about 400 cars after the alleged switchover.

 

Ferrari is really rotten about keeping track of what chassis number a change was made . There are lots of examples where they got it really wrong.

If the car has the iron guides they will not be a problem but I'd have to lay eyes on them before I believed I had them.

We used to pretty routinely check with a magnet when we had manifolds off.

 

rifledriver, quick question about cracked headers. my exhaust note has recently changed. its most noticable at idle. it sounds a bit muffled. would that be a sign of a cracked header. I'm not due a major for another 2 years. Otherwise, at rpm, she sounds just fine and i am using a capristo stage 3 exhaust. as for the valve guides etc on this thread, at my last major i had all 40 guides replaced and a full valve job performed. my guides were at the far end of acceptable specs. so, been there done that and dropped the $$$$$'s.

 

Grey cast iron is slipperier than steel.

 

At idle a cracked header sounds like "thuuuh" or a really long pronunciation of "the".

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzthuuuhzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzthuuuuhzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

 

Do you want it to run like a Ferrari ?

An F355 is a street legal race car. If your race car engine dropped a cylinder you you just fix that cylinder ? or would you set the engine right ?

 

The f355 is a car. If you want to track it, race it, maintain it like a race car that is your prerogative. For over 38 years on my 308 QV, and over 10 on my 355, I treat them as just another car. I don't have to worry about everyone else's car problems or experiences, and how they would address them. Only mine. If I should choose to sell one or the other I will gladly trade a $20k reduction in price for the lack of $60k worth of meaningless service records that fixed stuff that was never broken. I don't think many people get that. Perhaps because many don't buy these cars for the long term.

If this 355 were my car this is exactly what I would do:

Assuming bank 5-8 has good leak down and compression, and bank 1 is good on all but #2, I'd pull the head of bank 1 and see exactly what is wrong with #2 and fix it.

If there was significant carbon buildup on the other valves on bank 1, I'd probably pull all the valves and clean and seat them, new valve seals, and while the valves were were out check clearances on the guides. If in spec, and assuming the guides had significant, miles on them, common sense would tell you they aren't going to fail tomorrow. I'd leave them be and put everything back together. Done.

If the guides were out of spec on bank 1, I'd replace the guides and then I would have reason to pull the 5-8 head and do it.

So there you have it. Worst case, guides and valve job on both heads. Best case, fix the problem on #2 and move on.

I seriously doubt there would be any significant performance difference between the best and worse case scenarios.