Stiff shifting, particularly into second gear, when cold seems to be a Ferrari standard item. While my 308 suffered from stiff shifting when cold my 348 Spider is definately worse. I have to drive it a good 10-15 minutes for it to shift smoothly. Until then I usually just shift from 1st to 3rd. I understand some folks are using differnet lubrication to lower the impact of this issue but I have not done that yet although I am thinking about it seriously for the next fluid change. There have been many threads on this topic and seems to be something that falls under the catagory of "Ferrari character".
I HAVE NEVER HAD A PROBLEM WITH GEARS ON MY 348 SPIDER. THEY AE ALL SMOOTH FROM COLD. THE RUNS LKE A DREAM. STILL ON THE ORGINAL CLUTCH AFTER 35,000 MILES.....
...when cold. I would also shift into 3rd directly from first for the first 10 - 15 minutes. After that it was much smoother, but definitely not perfect. David
ha ha. for any other brand of car this would be expected. Why do ferrari clutches wear out so fast? Are the cars driven wrong?
To a certain extent, with the low TQ high HP engine in order to do drag racing starts or even high performance starts, you have to put a lot of heat through the clutch. Not so in a TQ laden car, just let out the clutch a little off idle and then mash the gas. Very little heat gets into the clutch. Trying to accelerate from a dead stop is NOT what Ferraris are made for. Although they can perform quite well at this task, the clutch takes more abuse than a similarly HPed car with a high TQ low in the RPM band (e.g. Vettes, Vipers). The real question is why it cost $2000 to change when the vette or viper cost $500 and they have to drop the drive train to get at the clutches. My F355 which arrived with 22K miles and a clutch of unknown wear went out at 26K miles. Since installing a new clutch, I have been on a race track 28 times and put 20K miles on the car. The clutch is still going strong. In regular traffic, is just ease the clutch out and accelerate about the speed of an economy car. In my other clutch cars (9 over 35 years) I have never worn out a clutch; although I never kept any of them longer than 100K miles.
I saw a very interesting tech article in one of the Ferrari magazines about five years ago. It suggested that the typical "stiff shift" trait of Ferrari gearboxes was due to tranny fluid being compressed as the shift rods moved back and forth in their holes in the case, if you can picture what I mean. The holes were a "dead end", and as the rod slid into it, the heavy fluid had nowhere to go. The author claimed to achieve great results in shifting ease by removing the cover from the case, locating the correct area in the casting, and drilling a tiny hole to act as a pressure release for the fluid. I always wondered whether he had a valid approach to the problem. Personally, my 348 shifts acceptably well, but at 46K miles it is pretty well broken in.
This is a good point, and covered in Tune to Win by Carrol Smith. For each gear selector, drill a #40 hole at the end of each sleeve pointing as downward as the cases allow.
Back to the subject of gear oil. Some 308 drivers around here, including myself, found that switching to Redline 75W90 NS Synthetic gear oil eliminated the hard second gear shift when cold, or nearly so. It certainly did in mine. The specs showed lower viscosity at lower temperatures than dino 85w90 and higher viscocity at 300 degrees than dino oil. I'm sold. I heard the same results can be found with Royal Purple. I too have heard of the #40 holes in the slider pockets and will do that modification if and when I pull the transmission. DJ
Among the 6 Fcars I have had was a 94 348 TB. It had the crappiest shifter of the bunch. This does vary from car to car however. Dave
