Air bubbles on dip stick - 360 Modena

I know you do this professionally,

I know you are a consultant and thus highly honored on the board.

But in your efforts to correct my previous post you might have gone over the top here:

Oil in the tank isn’t lubricating the engine. Oil in the engine, as in the thin film between moving parts, is lubricating the engine.



A small typo I’m sure, but with that out of the way, and to satisfy a curiosity - because from your post you must have seen a few blown engines - what is the first thing to go on a 360 that has been road driven (not tracked) and has oil on the dip stick? The cams? The main bearings? The big ends? The oil pump?

 

Well, I can only vouch for tracked engines, but here's what I have seen from 8 or 9 rebuilt 360C engines now....

Cracked heads.... But only an insignificant crack between the inlet valves in the port. Technically, the heads need replacing, but I give the customer the option.

Damaged rods. At first glance, the Titanium rods appear to be fine, but they cannot be stress analysed accurately, and if you remove the shells from the big end, you will often see much bruising of the rod. On a normal steel rod, you can re-size them, but the titanium ones are not to be touched. fit new.

Variators. its well known variators fail.

Belt tensioner supprts. They break. There has been 4 separate upgrades of the LH tensioner support.

Oil pumps.. the casing breaks around one of the mounting lugs. Fit new.

Heads stud stretch. The corner studs are skinnier than the rest. They stretch and the head chatters at the ends, which can promote head gasket failure. I simply fit the stronger studs from the centre. I cannot find an answer for WHY the skinny ones are on the corners.

Oil pump chain failure/sprocket wear..... The oil pump chain tensioner spring is weak. Later cars have a stronger spring.

Pistons and Bores. These are amazing. I havent seen enough wear to need replacement or even machining yet. The oldest engine I've measured had done 15000 racing and track km only.

I have seen one broken oil control ring, but this engine had been previously rebuilt, and I suspect human error.

 

Correct. The only oil functioning is the stuff pumped through the galleries of the crank, cams etc and then some splash on pistons nd rods, after that it falls around and waits to get sucked out by the scavenge pump. The 360 holds very little oil compared to 355 and 349 dry sump systems, so the oil recircultes more often in effect, hence works harder, collects more heat (OK, collects same heat) but doesn,t disperse as quick. The tank design works fine on racing cars but is really marginal for a street car IMO. But that's why the Fcar myth continues.....

 

People of all degrees of technical understanding read this and we all play to all. I meant no offense to you with your understandably better knowledge than most. I just wanted to convey the difference between wet sump and dry sump lubrication methodology.

In answer to your question the really remarkable thing about Ferrari motors is and always has been their ability to be abused in so many ways and still keep coming back like a loyal dog. Despite that they do have their limits and in that situation the rod bearings seem to take the worst of it first.

The list Phil gave seems to match the weaknesses everyone has experienced in competition use. Not bad for a street motor.

 

Just found this thread…

So it's normal for the oil to bubble / foam up like this while the car is at idle????
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No it is not. I'll bet you got water in there and it is boiling off. Check that radiator fluid and see if it is low. Oil will also look light brown and opaque if there is antifreeze in it.

Get that checked right away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Radiator level is fine.

Just don't know why it does that?

 

+2

Im no mechanic, but that looks like Chocolate Milk and the only thing that make oil look like that is coolant.

I'm sure someone with more experience will chime in.

 

i have had winter time foaming oil in my 348 also. 1st time 5 yrs ago i panicked, thought was antifreeze and had towed for what i suspected was leaking head gasket. shop pressure tested and all was well

explanation i got was its expected to happen in cars not driven long enough at normal operating temperature. esp in winter. condensation will collect if car is not run enough to burn it off it.

never had problem with it

 

Trust me it's not coolant.

 

The only problem I've had is that it foams up really high into the intakes sometimes and smokes...
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Every modern Ferrari I have known requires that the engine oil be checked shortly after the engine is turned off. This is stated in all the owners manuals. Please read your owners manual. They are also available for download for free from FNA. There is no reason to err in this important manor.

In my opinion any mechanic who states otherwise is suspect for a major lack of knowledge and I would not use them.

In these cars any overfilling by a quart or more may result in oil ingress into the intake manifold. This may result in plug fouling. On the other hand the oil reservoirs are quite large and for daily street driving you can probably be 3 or 4 quarts low and not have any problems. The same is not true of wet sump cars of course.

If the oil is milk-like you have water ingress. The cause must be determined.

aehaas

 

From reading other threads I thought you check the oil level while the car is at idle temp and the vehicle at idle? I haven’t check the owners manual yet.

The weird thing is that the coolant level is good the temp is good also.

 

Yikes, those last two pictures freak me out. I would check if your insurance covers engine failure. I don't mean to freak you out, but your oil should definitley not look like that. Good luck with that.

 

You should read the owners manual for either your Enzo page 3.7 or any 360 manual but the one I looked at happened to be the 03 360 manual page 5.10. Both state the oil should be checked with the engine idling. I have seen inserts that say the 360 oil should be checked with the engine off but as yet have never seen a US model with that information.

 

I have seen many cases of the Shell oil foaming as is yours. At this time I only use Redline and have seen no foaming.

The oil in the intake plenum indicates the oil was overfilled at some point.


Do not run the 360 as low as suggested is possible. 360'S do starve for oil when run low and serious motor damage can result.

 

On my 328, at idle there is no oil on the dip stick. The book states to check the oil level 15 minutes after turning off the engine. The oil should then be between the marks on the dip stick and it is.

Check your book it could be different.

 

I'm going to look into that, THANKS!

 

The Enzo manual is a little unclear. This is true. They assume you know that the engine must be off. It is a given.

aehaas

 

Rifledriver,

Do drysump motors suffer the same problem as wetsump motors if overfilled, i.e. oil foaming from getting churned by the crank eggbeating the oil into a froth?

 

Hey FBB, Just ran across this post. I thought I would throw my 2 cents at your question. Part of a dry sump systems methology is to keep oil away from your crank. The scavenge pumps keep the oil flowback area empty and pump the oil back to the tank, which is essentially the oil sump/oil pan. This keeps the crank from ever coming in contact with oil that it doesn't need. Its possible to overfill the oil tank but not the flowback area(using that word instead of sump, sump means to me a storage/holding area) of the engine when you put oil into a Ferrari dry sump you fill the tank not the engine. The oil in the tank can and will flow into the engine when it is not running(reason for not checking oil level in the tank when engine is cold, it flows into the engine)but as soon as you start the engine the scavenge pumps pump the oil back to the tank and the engine feed pump draws from the tank. The problem that I have seen on over filling a dry sump is that PVC system will suck oil into the intake plenums and make a mess in there an of course cause the engine to smoke. After typing all this why do I get the feeling you alresdy know this? Was this a trick question? Regards, Vern

 

Yeah... but you have to WAYYYYY over to make that happen... like 50mm over max for example...

 

I'm going to call the dealer today about changing out the shell oil for some redline to see if the foaming goes away.

Are there different grades of redline?

My car has about 13,000 miles on it and I drive it as much as can.

 

If you do not believe your owners manual have a look at the shop manual section 3.01.

The oil is checked in the same way as the 360 and Ferrari was very clear that the oil level was to tested running.

Sounds to me like Maranello has a major lack of knowledge and I wouldn't use them.

 

With a 2 to 1 pump capacity of supply to scavange as Phil said the motor would have to be so overfilled it would be nearly "FULL".