Help! Have I destroyed my engine (348)?

are you sure the cam belt cover is seated properly and not rubbing or hitting anything. perhaps as the engine is running something is not lined up properly and it is hitting making the noises you described. i would check every millimeter around the cam cover and look for signs that it is not on properly.even a loose wire will make a horrible sound if it is bieng beat up by reciprocating parts. DONT START THE CAR AGAIN until you look closely!!! then remove the cover completely , look for any signs of damage and have someone " bump" the starter with the ignition disabled. i am not an owner, but i dont see how removing just the plastic cover would affect the valve to piston clearances or the belt / tensioner set up. best thing to do is look around before any more damage is done . just trying to help. michael

 

Michael, what's up? Guess what? I got some of your kind of pics yesterday! Oh Yeah!!

 

How much water entered the engine compartment when washing the car? Are you sure the drains (near the firewall) are working properly? There'd be a lot of water gushing into the general vicinity of the belt covers. (When I wash mine, I'm extremely careful not to dump water into the louvers or anywhere too close to the back window)

I'm a newbie too, but how/why did you pull the belt covers without removing the engine entirely? If you did it from the engine bay/underneath, perhaps in that confined space something just isn't lined-up properly.

-Daniel

 

Peter, sorry I digressed, are you sure you did not loosen anything else? You might want to call a dealer and describe the sound and see what they have to say.

 

Are you sure, that water from washing the car doesn´t affect the ignition or something else ? Maybe that only one cylinder bank is working because of electrical short circuit from water and this is causing the strange sound ?
Good luck & regards from germany, Georg

 

I'm confused. What "cap" or "cover" exactly did you remove?

 

Don't panic. If all you did is remove a cam belt cover on the top of the motor that has the allen bolts where you can visualize only about the top 1/2 of the cam cogs you can do NO damage. You basically can't put this bAck on wrong either to cause an interferrence. In fact you will cause no damage trying to start or run your car without it for a minute either. It is a dirt debris cover. As to your noise it is something else like water down in the lower belts area and bad bearings making all kinds of metal noise aggravated by being wet. I have seen all kinds of funny things like wet plug wire holes making for funny spark, water in lower idle pully bearings making metal noises. Let the car dry out of a day and try again. If you start your car use a long screwdriver with handle at your ear and place the other metal tip on metal of engine and walk your driver to the loudest noise in the engine and that is your source. Then get back to this list. stay away from rotating parts. If you can't do this or are scared hire a mechanic to do the diagnosis.

 

In the meantime, just remember this mantra in times of panic or worse:

And this too shall come to pass.

 

I had an awful racket coming from my 308 motor as I left Road America last year. After flat bedding home, (with unpleasant dreams of a valve puck being spat from the cam), I pulled the plugs and turned the motor over by hand (socket on the crank pulley). Only turn in the correct direction. Nothing. Then crank without plugs, crank (about 400 rpm from the starter). Nothing. Replace plugs, start her up. Awful noise. From there it was a progressive path of elimination to find the culprit (in this case the WP bearings had gone), but I'd eliminated the probability of something being awry in the motor.

If it were me, I too would let it dry out. Then, pull the plugs and turn the engine over by using a socket wrench on the engine pulley. This way you'll confirm there is no valve to piston contact. You can then crank on the starter (no plugs) to see if you can isolate what you are hearing. If it all sounds fine, put the plugs in and start her up.

Engines don't like water in the combustion chamber. Gets really expensive in about 0.2 seconds...(BTDT unfortunately)

 

please let us know, i will hope for the best. there are some great folks here, so you are in good hands! if you have an air compressor you could gently blow dry the engine area, i dont see how anything inside the valvetrain would expire from doing what you have described. the water in / around the tensioner bearings in the lower part of the shroud sure sounds like a winner to me as a possible scenario. i totally understand your frustration and fear of the unknown with $$$ at stake. if you profile was filled out a little better maybe someone could come and look at the car for you, not trying to press on your privacy though, i understand some folks are private for thier own reasons.
when the engine was making all that noise did you have time to check the tach? was it steady? rough idle? oil pressure?? have you checked the oil level lately??? any water in it??? some condensation is normal, but it should not look like a chocolate milk-shake!. i hate it when something just goes " POOF" for no good reason all of a sudden!!!! best wishes, michael.
ps tifosi69 ( AL) sent ya a PM

 

You more then likely soaked the ignition coils at the sides of ther engine compartment. If these get wet and you igintion wires are marginal in condition, then you will get all kinds of funny running issuses.
if you have access to an aircompressor and a blow gun attachement get in there and dry everything out with compressed air. Try and get access to the accessory belts aswell at the front of the engine.

I always stress to my customers NOT to wash their engines if they don't know 100% how to do it correctly. Ferrari engines like the 348 and 355 do not have good soild weather pack electrical connectors like in G.M. cars. Water will get in there and could cause all kinds of funny things to happen as you have found out.

A clean engine is nice but when dealing with newer engines with all the electronics attached to them you need to be VERY careful what you shoot water at.

Tom

 

This post is timely. Sometime soon I want to detail my engine (328) and have noted that on top of the clutch housing there are two openings that serve some purpose. Can someone tell me what they are for and what might happen if water gets in through those openings. Thanks.

 

Russ
It is a dry clutch. The water will drain out over time. If there is a lot of sludge in there, it may slip a bit until dry.

 

There may be some timing reference pointers, if that's what your referring to. On my TR, on the back side of the cam belt covers are two pointers, and the on the cams there are lines that will roughly match up to the pointers when the engine is at top dead center. This gives you a rough idea that the cam timing is okay. It's not exact, but will tell you if there's a problem. Maybe the 348 has the same set up?

 

Just a dumb idea, but did you lose any tools while doing this? Or maybe a bolt? I would take the cover off again and make sure nothing is in there, and look around your other belts and pullies for something that might be lodged in there like a missing bolt or allen wrench. Jim

 

Sounds like water...and Tom is correct about washing...

Take a look at this thread from old F Chat on how I fixed the problem:
http://www.ferrarichat.com/discus/messages/251280/230168.html

Works on any 348/355

 

I know this may seem like a daft question, but did you losen any bolts on any of the front pulleys then retighten them up. A few years ago i did this on one of my cars (not ferrari)trying to see something up the front of the engine, and there was a knocking sound that was realy bad after i tightend the pulleys again, so bad in fact that the engine had to come out,after days of hart ake and expence the noise was sorced to the pully wheel bolt/bolts not being torked up correctly, and was only slightly moveing, but sounded worse becourse it was an alloy engine( kind of bad tapping noise) Just an idea dude.

 

sounds to me like you may need to take the car to a dealer or preferred mechanic, unless you do your own work. i dont know much of ferrari waterpumps or bearings, but i have have several "normal" cars that the shafts, bearing and impellers came apart and sounded like hand grenades going off under the hood. given the $$$$ at stake i would respectfully suggest having the car towed to a shop since it may not be a " simple" fix as we all had hoped. i do not mean to imply you cannot fix it yourself, sometimes its better to have it done by an expert as they may notice other things the car may need while its in for repairs. happy Easter to all. michael