I have a new and disturbing noise on my 355 F1 since today, a sort of screeching rattle when: - idle in neutral (sometimes, not always) - when downshifting, while the clutch is open - never while in gear - never while upshifting Downshifts while breaking also seem much slower, and the throttle blips even more modest. Sounds like a schkling-pause-shklinglinling when I downshift, really bizarre. When I popped the engine cover open in neutral, I could not hear the noise, but had the feeling that there was like a suction noise, but could not locate where and nothing looks loose. '98 GTS F1, 32Kmi, original clutch. Bought the car when it had 12Kmi, so I know it fairly well. Clutch will eventually go, that's a given, but I have no sign of slippage, never have. Does that sound familiar to anyone ?
Yes, sounds like the throw out bearing is cracked/cracking and is failing. Drive a bit more and you will lose all the hydraulic fluid and the clutch will be done. Order the new Hill Engineering bearing when you repair it. My car made a similar sound only very rarely...but I ignored it, and about three months later it completely leaked all the hydraulic fluid....flat bed to Ferrari of Seattle.
Actually, it turned out to be a tricky but benign problem to find. My independent spend nearly a full day chasing the problem running the car on a lift and prowling with a stethoscope, so puzzled that he did not charge me for most of his time. The symptoms where a that screeching noise on downshifts and coïncidental bad temper when starting from cold. The root cause was related. From what I understood (apologies for the approximations), there is a stepper motor that adjusts that regulates idle when cold (by adjusting the qty of air that gets in I suppose.). This stepper was stuck so the car was grumpy when starting when cold. I understand that it's also used to blip for the shy rev blips the 355 does on downshifts. Being stuck, there was a vacuum ripple noise when downshifting, what could audibly be confused with screeching. Simple clean-up and lubrication of the stepper and things are fine again. And my ex-factory clutch is still running fine after 32kmi.
As I understand the F1's (and maybe all newer models?) had an improved throw out bearing...can anyone else confirm this? ze_shark - glad the problem got fixed!
It is different for the F1, but I don't believe there is any improvement...in other words it still has the same failure mode as the manual cars. Hill Engineering makes an upgraded part for the F1 cars too. Glad to hear it was not a clutch issue....drive on!
Here in Brazil, Ferrari says that noise is the flywheel, but I think it's BEARING, it makes noise. It is a very annoying noise, if you find the solution please let me know
