355 White Strands in Engine Compartment?

Can you account for the whereabouts of the neighbor's cat?

 

Could be the start of one of your exhaust headers blowing. 355s are notorious for it. Something to do with Ferrari making the headers out of tube that was right on the margin in terms of wall thickness so they'd run nice & hot. Hot headers = better gasflow.

Trouble is it seems they cut it a bit fine & they have a habit of over heating & blowing through - especially on the middle two pipes on each bank. The headers are packed inside a heat shield which is packed with some kind of insulation stuff which gets blown about the place when they fail & I'd guess that's what you are seeing. Keep an eye on it & if you start to see more of it then odds on that is your problem.

QV London do some re-manufactured headers on an exchange basis that are about a third of the price of new ones & made of slightly heavier gauge pipe so they don't blow through again.

I.

 

I thought I read the white strands/powder was the sign of the Cat failure??

Dino

 

I had this last year when my headers developed a hole in them. I had the headers replaced. It is the insulation in the heat shields being blown out. It will get worse.

 

With any exhaust leak ,you run the risk of damaging the exhaust valves. This is definately something you want to get repaired quickly.

Darrell.

 

Larry,
Your exhaust manifolds are failing...big time! What has happened is they have cracked open, under the heat shields. What you are seeing is the insulating material between the heatshield and manifold pipes.

As Dmoore states, continued driving could damage the exhaust valves.

You are probably safe to drive it to the shop. You might be able to get FNA to replace them since your car is a 99. But they will install the same crappy ones. You have several alternatives...check the archives for them.

My recommendation is to get ones that retain the heat shields over the manifold pipes to keep engine bay temps down. There is some arguement that the heat shields contribute to the failure....I think they just used poor quality metal, and too thin as well. As long as the pipes are thicker and better quality, you want heat shields. It is hot enough in the engine bay...more heat will only cook anything made of rubber or electronics.

 

larrymz3,
I would have written the same thing as davehanda. Get it checked to make sure and get new exhaust manifolds asap so you don't damage the engine.

I had this happen to me last September and studied possible fixes for the problem thoroughly. I talked to several mechanics at several shops, read all the posts, and looked at all the written info I could find. The best route I could find was to go with QV London (do a search on Fchat for all the info). If you go with the ones from QV London, they are the exact spec as the OEM manifolds (they just have thicker tubing), so you can just replace the one that is broken without having to replace both at once.

Many people also suggested Tubi, but then you would not have the heat shielding, and if your car spends any time in traffic, this should be an important consideration. And, if you go Tubi, you need both sides.

Best of luck,
David

 

Larretmz3
I had both of my exhaust manifolds on my 97 355 spider changed free of charged by FNA. Because it is part of the emissions system, they are responsible for it for for a longer time period than the standard warrenty. I would check with your Dealer to see if this is possible. Could possibly save you lots of $$$.
Darrell

 

David,
Tubi does make a "street" version 355 exhaust manifolds with heatshields. But they run close to $5000. You would still need new manifold gaskets and exhaust donuts, plus new copper nuts (another $250 to $300). Nice option, and probably a slight performance gain too.

I went the QV London route, as I wanted the fix to be permanent (over more stock manifolds). All told, I think I spent about $2600 for the rebuilt manifolds, gaskets, nuts and return shipping of my used manifolds. (I actually have not received the shipping bill yet for the return of the manifolds, but figure around $200)

I have two friends that went the QV London route as well. Since they are rebuilt stock manifolds, they retain the stock look, CO test ports, and heat shields. The only negative I can find is that where the pipes meet the exhaust flange...the pipes are not perfectly port matched...the pipe actually interferes with the exhaust stream. Not much, and not on all the pipes..I saw one on each side that intefered by 1 to 2 mm. So you lose 3 hp....no biggie.

Here is the tubi website: http://www.tubistyleusa.com/
Scroll through, and you can find the 355 "street" exhaust manifolds. They even have a picture. Look good, but my only minor concern is the heat shields don't look as durable. Feedback from those that have bought them is very positive, so my concern could be unwarranted.

 

BTW, I tried to purchase Tubi manifolds...but they are not shipping currently....something to do with EPA or California Air Research Board compliance issues. Once they get that settled, they will begin shipping again.

 

At what mileage point does this header failure typically occur??

Dino

 

Warranty expiration + 1 mile.

 

Typically between 11,000 and 20,000 miles. Usually one side (passenger) will let loose first....then a few thousand miles later the driver's side will go. That is the typical scenario...but occaisionally you will see people repeatedly replacing the passenger side with no problem on the driver's side. Or, once in a while they both go. Or the Driver's goes first....but more rare. This is largely from interpreting the poll taken last year, and also from talking to a number of people who have had to replace theirs.

 

Mine failed on the drivers side at about 30K. I went the QV route but had the NAPerformance manifolds been available when I did mine, that's the route I would have gone.

check out this thread on the NA ones: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63546

-Michael

 

The NAPerformance ones are on special and we are trying to bring this item back from the dead, demand has just died down on it. So if you want a deal just give me a ring. 405-410-8149 or email at [email protected]