Is the 360 disintegrating precat problem inevitable?

My hunch is that it will eventually occur regardless of driving style.
I also don’t see how you find that with a comp/ leak down test?
And if they’re already coming apart, I think you’d get indications.

My Spider started getting a CEL light and failed smog.
Luckily, I didn’t ignore the symptoms and had it borescoped right away.
Found about a dozen cells missing.

 

I think you are worrying too much, the f430 is way too much prone to ingest precat material than the 360 because the precat is located way closer to the engine than the 360.

When the precat material begins desintegrating it will make a rattling sound when cold start, before the heat expands the material and it will stop.
How can you go borescope through the exhaust to see the precat if you have the main cats before that??



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The latter. I'll try and post pictures later. Since it was so few cells and such small pieces, there was no rattling sound on start up.

I don't think you're worrying too much. The car is 18 years old now. I prefer to think of it as risk management: being well informed and prepared....

 

First thing I did with my 430 was get rid of the pre cats. Would have done the same with my old 360 but it was euro and had none. I would factor in new headers if it were me.

 

I suspect some of it is because of occasional faulty coils, which leads to dumping of fuel into the header and burning of the fuel there vs. in the cylinder. Not sure if why vibration might be cause of disintegration...

 

Yes

Inevitable

 

430 even more so

 

My first 360 had the precast let loose and it was noticeable and noisy. They may not always be that noisy I suppose, but there was no doubt I had a problem. At the time, I was at a FCA event with a group on a “spirited” ride in the hills in western NC. I was driving hard on somewhat rough roads. Replaced with Fabspeed headers and took the opportunity to upgrade to the factory racing exhaust. Loved the change for sound and performance noticeably improved. So, it costs money, but for peace of mind and possibly performance improvement, it is worth considering.

 

In a word YES, same as the complete lies peddled on the F430 OEM manifolds, yes they break at the welds, so weld em back up again!, nothing to do with the preCATS.
In three & a half years for trying I never got a shred of evidence in picture form of a preCAT failure or ingested bits causing piston damage. All talk, and we all know talk is cheap!!

 

Thats not true, the rattle when cold is the broken weld, NOT the preCAT, I should know, I had it happen. Again nothing to do with preCATS

 

Precat material can/will get sucked back into the cylinder (when they start to fail), and since it’s ceramic material it will damage the cylinder and/or the piston. That’s why a boroscope is used (via spark plug hole).

 

Rifledriver once commented that he had never seen a precat fail in a correctly running car....implying that if you maintain the car and address misfires and other issues right away it would be a rare occurance .......
So based on that, inevitable failure is probably not accurate.

 

Man relax the headers will make a “pop corn” noise way before it becomes an issue. It happened to me I actually posted a video a while ago but here it is again
Cold start noise

And the precat inside loose (as you can see the precat is almost perfect it becomes loose and makes the noise at cold start then it expands due to heat and the noise is gone)





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Please see my post above


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That’s along the lines of what I’ve heard from the shop I go to, they say the precats will all eventually have problems, but that you’ll start getting noises well before you start ingesting material into the engine.

 

Think we all agree, expansion/ contraction stress and preCAT failure are 2 completely separate issue, neither serious if addressed between annual servicing.
If it was a major issue Ferrari would be forced to recall F430 or have a queue down the road of F430’s at every dealer, not a good look when trying to sell the latest model.
It’s all so over egged it’s pathetic


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Thank you, Fernando. Very helpful!

 

Fernando: In your second video, how did you get access to the pre-cat? (Sorry if this is obvious, but I can't tell from the video.) I have heard others mention a boroscope, but you seem to be wiggling the precut with a pointer, so I assume you have used some other method.

Thanks!

 

Well that was actually AFTER removing the original headers from my car.
When I started having the “pop corn noise” the mechanic pinpointed to the headers so I just installed Fabspeed headers.
You could hollow the original headers too (instead of going the aftermarket route)


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