Greetings all: As the subject says, this pertains to a 96 355. Heres the deal. The car was used for about an hour. It sat outside the garage for a couple of hours and at the end of the night I brought it inside and tucked in. A couple of weeks later I decided it was warm enough and had a car wash marathon. Daily driver, the 355, my bike and my wifes car (only after she came out and asked if hers was next. When I fired up the 355 it made a ping, pop, knock noise accompanied by a backfire. It idles fine without any misfire. I am talking smooth. However, when you rev it, it does so slowly as if it was not running on all 8. A drive around the block revealed a massive loss of power. It also sounds like it has an exhaust leak. This all happened before I washed it. (funny things happen when things get washed) I talked to a guy that works on F cars and told him the story and my theory. I am not all too familiar with these cars but I know MBs and BMWs have what they call a limp home mode that cuts or reduced power to the engine when somethings up. It happened to me in a C36 and a Z3 racecar. He said it could be possible and to check the fuses and relays for fuel pump and other things related. I have not done that yet but I wanted to rule out any mechanical issues first. I had done a compression test and got 190 to 200 psi. Just for kicks and giggles I repeated the test and got the same results except I got 160 on #2. It does not leak down but could it have a bent valve? Bad rings? Could 160 psi on one cylinder cause it to loose that much power? The check engine light did not has not come on. Does anybody have any ideas. I am very handy and have worked on all my suff including racercars and the like. Taking it to the dealer will mean Ricky-0, 355-1. Heck, I am even considering the in situ belt change although it would be fun to take the engine out and poke around in there inspect and do some housekeeping when the time comes. I would really appreciate any and all ideas on this subject. Many thanks in advance. Cheers! Ricky
Ricky Worth looking at the 348 power loss thread, the Cat ECU's are a notorious weak point on 355's as well and may well have shut down a bank. there are two one for each bank, worth swapping to see if the problem moves. l/h one is mounted just below the top of the damper mount, r/h one is on the panel in hte rear wheel arch below the air pump and next to the vacuum tank. (might be reversed as I'm quoting from a rhd car) Not sure about your compression problem though?
When you did you compression test did you disable the fuel pumps? If not that could be the reason for the low compression reading the second time around. Reason being is the fuel could have washed down the cylinder causing the rings not to seal propperly against the cylinder wall. Nothing major, but a common mistake. Also I assumed you did the compression test when the engine was cold. If so then your reading will not be 100% accurate. A compression or a leak down test should be performed with the engine warm. As far as the power loss...Did you notice any "slow down" lights start to flash or turn on during the drive?
Tom: The engine was cold when I did the comp test. I did it to "rule out" mechanical issues. Was not really looking for accurate comp readings, just comparative. The slow down light did not flash or came on. I understand some of these cars have two of them relating to either cyl bank. This one has only one. I will try the O2 ecu swap that was suggested. I read in the suggested 328 thread that these car run fine w/out them connected. I will try that and see what happens. I just have a gut feeling about it being a mechanical issue. With the engine being a 5 valve engine. Do you think that it would hold enough compression when doing a test but not run right? From what I have experineced a 30-40 psi drop in one Cyl won't rob you of that much power. Cheers! Ricky
Greetings: Eureka! Found the problem! Broken or cracked driver side header. Asyou know, these are "tube type" exhaust manifolds withh a sheet metal cover on them. There's a couple of bung bosses with bolts on them. There's also some form of packing in there. Sort of like that asbestos header wrap. Well some of it is sneaking out and that tells me that something in there is broken and not holding combustion gases. I'll be taking it out for inspection in the next couple of days. Thanks to all for your replies and suggestions. Does anybody have one of these headers laying around they'd want to sell? I found one on ebay or maybe some other classifieds but it was the pass side. Regards, Ricky
Ricky renowned failure point and very expensive from Ferrari, also if you fit one of theirs it will only fail again in time. Many including myself have exchanged them for ones supplied by QV London in the UK, they are made of a better grade of tubing and todate (7 years I'm told) they've not seen one failure. btw of interest is that at least one of the UK official dealers now fits these instead of Ferrari originals! I think the price is around $1,000 shipped to the US, not sure if this is an exchange price though Worth contacting them on +44 1344 622011
I thought emissions warraty was for 10 years, I used to have a Corvette, fuel injectors went bad when it was 5 years old and they covered it under the emissions law.
As we're on the subject of emmissions related warranties ... does anyone know exactly what is, and what is not covered. Much of this warranty stuff seems to be at the discretion of the dealer .... e.g. are O2 sensors covered ... they're part of the emmissions system. I had an old Ford once and the flexible joint in the exhaust pipe went @ 83k ... garage said it'd been covered if less than 80k. It would be good to harden up the facts ... could save some of us a lot of $ if we had some hard evidence. Could anyone source the actual legal text relating to this topic? Pete
If you have a peek at the warrenty book for the 355 it tells you that the emissions warrenty is 8 years. This includes cats, manifolds(or should) and pretty much any part of the emissions equipment on the car. This does not include 02 senors as they are a regular wear item. Same goes with spark plugs and the like. On this site, a couple of fellows have had the manifold replaced under this warrenty.
FNA told me it is based on either the state where the car was sold or the Fed law, which ever is the greatest. Ricky - I thought I saw a header (stock) for sale on FerrariAds on this web site...but you risk it happening again. If your funds allow it, change them both to aftermarket, Tubi, Cap, QV London as they all have been reported to be trouble free.
Thanks to all whoo replied. I will check fro the emissions waranty issue in the book. However, that will only lead to the same prone-to-fail-part being installed. I did not know that tubi, et. al. made exhaust manifolds. I thought these were "cat back" systems. I'm all for aftermarket performance. There's probably minimal difference in price between stock and af/mkt parts. As I mentioned I am new and green with this marque. Being this the first "major work I've attempted on the car, let me say that these are this has been the easiest car to work on. Once you take a few cover pieces, fender well and ancilliaries there's easy access to everything. I tookout the manifold last night in about two hours by myself and not in a hurry. Again, thanks to all of you for your insights and suggestions. Regards, Ricky
Greetings: Upon close examination of the exhaust manifold I pulled out I noticed some "hot spots" on the shielding. This is caracterized by "blueing" on the already heated up (golden color) stainless steel shielding. I only took the broken culprit out but visually inspected the other side. There are some blue spots starting to develop on that side as well. I guess that side will come out as well and will look into a full Tubi, Capristo or Sterbro system. I guess for you guys it would be convenient to inspect these periodically and look for the hot spots or blueing in yours. That way you can be alert to the imminet failure of these pieces. I will take pictures of both once I get the other side out of the car for reference. BTW: these spots do not appear on the top side of the manifold. They can be seen on the underside of the manifold. Another clue that something is going awry is the presence of some funny "fibery-glittery" dust starting to appear in the engine compartment. It is heavily collected on the cam covers. It being the "asbestos" packing inside the shielding it attached itself to the crinckle finish red paint. I hope this helps somebody else as much as it did for me. Cheers! Ricky
O yeah I forgot. Does anybody know of a good, reliable and economical source for these full systems. I am also guessing the "which is better" subject has been beaten to death. Can someone point me to an archive on this? Many thanks in advance. Cheers! Ricky
