360 HEAT EXCHANGER DELETE/BYPASS

There's a reason the heat exchanger was included in the design of the 360. It serves two important purposes:

1. It pre-heats the transaxle oil, making shifts in first and second easier.
2. It cools the oil during heavy operational use, like track, or going to the grocery store the long way.

Removing the heat exchanger would be like removing your pancreas. You can live without out it, for a while, but it will be missed.

 

I'm definitely doing this bypass next time I have the intake manifold off. I'm going to add an external gear oil cooler with a thermostatic valve.
I'll probably run -10AN lines and a thermostatic valve (165 or 185 degs) like this https://www.improvedracing.com/high-flow-engine-transmission-oil-cooler-thermostat.html
and whatever cooler I can fit.

To me it's not worth it to keep the exchanger. They can fail at any time and how will you know?
The cost benefit ratio is:

Faster warming of gearbox oil
vs
Silent destruction of gearbox internals worth tens of thousands of dollars

 

I removed my heat exchanger 10 years ago. Have had no problems. But I do live in South Texas and do not track my car.

 

I bought my 07 430 in Dec 09 with 2015 miles. It never shifted that well, especially dropping down into second. Three years later, shifting was terrible. On it's annual service, the heat exchanger had failed. I feel it fried all the internals in the gearbox. A ten year debacle ensued. 4 different mechanics. 10s of thousands of dollars. Finally ended up at F of Ft Laud 2 years ago and bought a brand new gearbox.
I find it outrageous that this part can be so fragile. Not sure how this helps the conversation. I guess I'm letting others know this part is suspect.

 

There is a reason it is a "heat exchanger" as opposed to a "trans oil cooler." The main reason is to bring the heat of the gearbox oil up to temp as the water heats up faster. Simply swapping out the exchanger for a new one is easier than deleting it and it's likely that it will outlast your ownership of the car.

Also, yes, these units are failing everywhere, but it's more because of the age of the car than it being an unreliable part. Swap it out, and the problems go away (don't forget to flush out the trans and cooling system a million times, should it break).

Finally, it makes no difference on the miles. It's time. Many gearbox oils are not compatible with yellow metals and it eats away the syncros and the exchanger. I've now seen both fail (sometimes the syncros before the exchanger). I've now had personal experience with 10K mile cars failing and 95K mile cars with original exchangers doing just fine. The difference was the 95K mile exchanger was 10 years ago and the 10K mile car was recently. Any 360 you purchase at this point in time, without recent records of a replacement having been done, needs a new exchanger, period.

 

I have cured this on two cars, just by switching to Redline NS. Yes the exchanger will trigger syncro issues but I've now revived two bad transmission by switching and flushing multiple times with NS.

When I bought mine, the transmission was "toast." Grinded loud on every gear. Terrible. Dominick recommended I try the NS fluid with a friction modifier and told me it would be a slow improvement, if it works. He was right, it was slow - took about 4-5K miles. But 30K miles later (I drive everyday), it runs like new. Upshifts, downshifts, it screams at 85K miles.

Just did the same on my friend's 30K mile 360 with a recent heat exchanger failure. Started grinding and not shifting. I had the dealer flush it with Redline twice, and it's back on the road!

My point is that anyone who is experiencing transmission trouble after a failure should try this first. Once the syncros start working, one at a time, you could be home free. It may not help every time, but I'm 2 for 2 right now - both following dealers prescribed new gearboxes.

 

I have an issue with all these arguments that it's equivalent to your pancreas, yet Ferrari did not engineer it in one of their most bad-ass versions, the Challenge or Challenge Stradale. My records indicate that one of them came with an external Air-to-Oil Hx and not the prone to failure Water-to-Oil as in my car.
Please correct me if I am wrong.

For me, not having the knowledge to argue yay or nay, I went the preventative maintenance way and settled for a new install using an upgraded version that was selling in Canada. I also flush 50% of my coolant every year (whatever volume comes out - I put in the same fresh amount). Gear oil changed every 2 years

 

The challenge had a external one above the exhaust with a fresh air supply to it of the deck lid. The CS had the same as the modena. I have a setrab that I would like to use inline with the Left air supply and found all the AN fittings for the transmission.

 

Did the challenge have a thermostatic bypass for the external cooler? I'm guessing no as it was made to be a race car and you have time to properly warm up a race car.

 

Challenge
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Aftermarket

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Yeah. Maybe the majority has to do with age, but mine failed at less than 4k miles or sooner. Maybe it had failed when I purchased in Dec 09 not even 2 years after original owner took ownership in Jan 08 from the dealer. Who knows exactly when? Maybe gearbox was a lemon from factory coupled with that problem. No one really knows. Only seen 5 mechanics, FOFL being the last.

Yes, replace this part if you haven't already.

My problem is it has soured me on Ferrari. 10 years of problems with shifting when you want to drive your car can do that to people. 430 was my first F car.

We bought a 458 for my wife. 430 sat on a battery charger for 5 years. Garage kept, barely driven and the 458 dash leather shrunk and peeled away. Couple that with the ever present sticky buttons that we all know about (and F knows about and doesn't care) and she wanted out.

I will never buy another Ferrari. And that's a shame.

 

I get it, trust me.

My friend wanted a car like mine (360) and I told him he had to be willing to get his hands dirty. The best alternative would be a California T - upgraded with the best and easy to maintain. No clutch. Etc, etc. Well we found a 26K mile example, dealer maintained 2015. Perfect. 3 weeks of ownership and the DCT suffered from the "weap hole" issue where the inner bearing goes bad, mixing the clutch and trans fluids and it leaks out the weap hole. That's 25K to fix! Turns out all the Getrag DCTs in Ferraris will do it eventually and, regardless of miles, about 12 years into the life the fluid eats away at the inner seals. The equipped repair shops will FULL of Calis, 458s, FFs, and even 488s are starting to fail. I had no idea.

Needless to say, he was one of my close friends but I haven't heard from him in nearly a year. He literally wrote me off for the bad advice I gave.

 

Details on this upgrade one?

 

It's a little ridiculous for a close friend to write you off because of that. That's not a friend at all. if they are though, I hope you are able to reconcile with them.

 

Details on the this is a setrab oil cooler instead of the water to oil one. It sits above the exhaust and fresh air from the decklid.
I have most of the parts but want to move it on the left side intrac of the air duct.

 

In the mid-2000, due to the number of Hx failures that he had to replace on customer's cars, the owner of Daytona Sports Cars Alex Armellin (Independent Ferrari Dealer) designed an upgraded Hx with stronger walls between the tubes etc. and tested it at higher pressures. Not sure it's available anymore.

I think they're now called Daytona Auto Centre, Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada

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Thanks

 

I believe this is the upgraded one that AWItalian sells as kit. Don’t quote me though. I could be mistaken.

 

I thought my early exchanger was toast 2 years ago but I'm not so sure now. I had an early aluminum exchanger on the car (which I kept BTW) and debated the delete.. but ended up just switching it to another exchanger. Was easier and cheaper in the end. Now.. just keep an eye on the transaxle coolant.