355 1996 F355 Gated - Which H.E. Throwout Bearing kit?

When I had my 96, I just used the throwout bearing without the new flange. It is also possible to modify your flange to make it fit better IF you needed it.

 

The best (safest) way to find out what exactly you need is to contact Hill Engineering.

Otherwise, you can see at Maranello website that your gearbox p/n 168435 is a "355F1 Gearbox". If you check at HE website (for 355, "Clutch Related") the subgroups for "Clutch Release Bearings/Slave" and for "Flanges" you will find out what parts you need for your car.

 

On the other hand, you may have a gearbox which was converted from F1 to Gated. In this case it is probably best that you open-up the clutch and see what you have inside. You may already have an HE TO bearing. If not, take pictures of what you have and send them to HE.

 

You can see that the gearbox is dated "97" so it cannot be original to your '96 Ferrari 355 but from a '97 or '98 car.

 

Ferrari part 168435 - 355F1 Gearbox | Maranello Classic Parts (ferrariparts.co.uk)
It looks like you can use either the HE kit 177784 or 158209 ("late 355 manual") so you should check with them which one is for your gearbox. Maranello state that the kit 177784 is for 2.7 and 5.2 Ferrari 355 and that kit 158209 is for 5.2 Ferrari 355. So, it looks like the 355 5.2 had two different types of TO bearings, perhaps early and late. Hope you can clarify this "mess" with HE and/or Maranello and/or Ricambi.

 

There is only 1 release bearing for the 355. Hill Engineering manufactures 2 flanges for the 355 to accommodate the different spacing between the springs.

 

Having been through it on my early '95, you can run the early flange with the hill bearing. I also bought the flange but it was kind of a waste of money, the only thing it does is hold the springs straight vs at an angle. I put it on the original flange and it worked fine but I had bought the new one so put it in anyway.

 

See post number 2!

 

For non-F1 355s (and 348s), it is correct that HE make only one type of release bearing and it has 86 mm spacing of the springs. With regard to the two types of HE flanges, I understand that they both have 86 mm spacing of the spring pockets (to match the HE's TO bearing). The two types of flanges:

CRBF 348-355 (#168589) - 86mm spring spacing, to upgrade 348 & early 355's, also offered in a kit with the 86mm HE clutch release bearing (Kit 177784).
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158209 for late 355 - 86mm spring spacing, also offered in a kit with the 86mm HE clutch release bearing (Kit 158209-KIT01).
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I don't see any 82mm spring spacing flanges for the 348/355 offered at the HE website.

The third type of HE flange, and the second type of HE TO bearing, are for the 355 F1 - Flange 173970 and TO bearing CRB-355F1-S - spring spacing not mentioned, not offered as a kit.
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That must be newer, back when I changed mine they just included a plug for the F1 port in the flange. I'm guessing they stopped as it's cheaper to not do the extra machining if it's not needed.

 

168594 and 170182 are the OEM bearings. The other two are the Hill uprated bearings - definitely get the Hill.

 

168594 - HE TO bearing with OEM seals (as stated by HE) - this is (was) a version of HE TO bearing which uses OEM seals; it seems that this version is NLA as HE do not provide a price for it but, instead, state "use CRB-355-MS" which is basically same as 168594 but with teflon (or something) seals.

The CRB-355-MS has spring pockets at 86mm spacing (and so did the 168594, I believe) so, if your original flange has 82mm spring spacing, you can either machine them out by 2 mm each or you can buy a new HE 86mm flange. In my case, I just machined the pockets on my 82mm flange as it was still in very good condition. I first though of not machining out the 82mm pockets on my flange but, when I checked the (angled) sitting of the springs, I found that they were rubbing against the corners of the HE cylinder. The pic below shows my TO bearing after the mod of the flange spring pockets. The red lines point at the corners at which the springs were rubbing before I did the mod.

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So we are down to essentially one release bearing with the seals material changed for manual vs F1 cars. The reason is gated cars use brake fluid to activate the release bearing and F1 cars use Power Steering fluid to activate the release bearing so the seals have to change to be compatible.

 

Well, 168594 and 170182 are the Ferrari p/n's. I think I replaced my TO bearing with the Hill unit 10-12 years ago and even then it was the CRB-355 p/n. I don't know if those were very early versions or if they just list the Ferrari part numbers for people searching them and then say to use the CRB-355 as replacement.

 

It looks like the F1 TO bearing carrier is also different from the non-F1:

F1: CRB-355F1 with some special bracket (red line)
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Non-F1: CRB-355MS
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The colour of the seals is the same on both. Teflon, I believe, is good for brake fluid as well as for PS/ATF fluids so the seals may not be different between F1 and non-F1.

 

Looking at the MS part - it has the threaded plug in it is used for the f1 system. So probably the same part modified slightly. Likely could use the f1 part in a manual, but I don't know why you'd want to.