348 starting question

My 348 makes a clanking (metalic) sound before it starts up only when its hot. It also takes about 3-5 seconds to fire (when hot). Seems abnormal. (I just bought the car). Runs perfect after that. Any suggestions?

 

Sounds like a couple of symptoms associated with the 348 2-piece flywheel needing to be refreshed ("clanking" between the components due to wear & old/no grease, being worse when the grease is thin, and the unexpected motion making the ignition system unhappy with erratic input signals during starter motor cranking) -- just speculation...has your flywheel had any attention since birth?

 

It has 400 miles since a 30K by Ferrari. I am not sure if this is an item they would look at or not. Car has 23k miles on it.

 

Is the perforated metal plate (bottom of clutch housing) clean or greasy?

 

The 348 brotherhood has put up some really good posts on the flywheel issues (and I'm so glad that TRs don't have that 2-piece flywheel ), but IIRC most of the time the "mess" that Dave is suggesting was a fairly clear sign that something was/is seriously amiss in their clutch/flywheel area.

Can't recall that it's ever been discussed how to independently "test" for 348 flywheel issues without the mess present. Perhaps with a timing light you could verify if the ignition to the spark plugs is delayed and/or inconsistent during your warm restarts compared to the cold restarts. Still, you might just have something inocuous rattling so don't do anything drastic yet based on just my guesses -- let the 348 brotherhood speak

 

If there is a problem with the flywheel (seems likely based on the symptoms) it will also probably make a distinctive rattling sound when shutting OFF the engine.

If it gets bad enough, the engine can become extremely difficult to start. It will crank and crank and crank and not want to fire.

Looking at the perforated panel on the bottom of the clutch housing will let you know if diluted Kluber grease is being slung out of the flywheel. It makes a big-time mess. There are several threads here about removing and repacking the flywheel.

I would think that the Ferrari dealer would notice leaks from the flywheel during a major service, but the owner may have declined to have the problem repaired if he was given a huge estimate for the work. The dealer would most likely only want to replace the flywheel ($2000+++) rather than repack it.

 

http://webpages.charter.net/aircover/348/1994Ferrari348Spider.html#HardStart

 

I love this board. Thanks for the info!!!

 

I don't think it's "engine-out", but it's "pumpkin-off" (and probably what's directly behind the pumpkin) -- do the search -- many good photos posted like this:
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