My 328 Water Pump Experiance

My story begins with having my water pump rebuilt during a major service as a preventative maintenance task by a Ferrari dealer 8/19/2009. The pump wasn’t leaking at that time, I didn’t have any record of the water pump ever being rebuilt and I’ve owned the car for a little over 2 years myself so I agreed to go ahead and pay to have the water pump rebuilt. April 2, 2013 (almost 4 years and 1,000 miles latter) I noticed coolant on the garage floor. After checking it out I found coolant leaking from the water pump out of the weep hole.

I did a search on water pump rebuilds and found that many chatters had a lot of success with a fellow named Tony Coenardi his company name is The Flying Dutchman. So I gave Tony a call, shipped my water pump along with a check for $250.00. About 10 days later I had it installed. Tony told me it was one of the worst looking pumps he had ever seen, he said the shaft was terribly corroded and the bearings were in bad shape. He also told me I had a 308 small bearing pump. Makes me wonder what did the Ferrari dealer do? Replace the seal only, do a service exchange with a repair vendor? My car is a 1989 328GTS manufactured June 1989. I doubt it came from the factory with a 308 water pump but, who knows could have been the only thing they had on the shelf. It was near the end of the 328 production run. I did more research on water pump bearing sizes and found there is indeed a small bearing and 2 different size larger bearing pumps.

I made a 50 mile run with my Flying Dutchman rebuilt water pump all seemed OK until I got home and noticed it was leaking again. I called Tony and told him the pump was leaking again. I asked if maybe it needed to be run a few more times he said, “No, it needs to be rebuilt again it should not leak at all ever.” He apologized many times and told me he would refund my money or fix it again and pay the freight charges it was my choice. I would like to say that my experience was probably 1 in 100 pumps that Tony had issues with, he is a great guy and I would highly recommend him. He had my check to me within a few days. I really didn’t have a good feeling about putting the small bearing pump back in my car.


My options were to have it rebuilt again by Tony, buy a new pump from Ricambi, or try the Nick Forza water pump. I researched the Nick Forza pump to see what people thought of it. I didn’t find any bad comments, it seemed that the comment I found were folks in the process of installing the Forza pump. I really didn’t want to spend $700.00 for a pump that is way over engineered for a person like me that might drive 90 mph on the interstate once a year. I like to stay with OEM parts whenever possible. Rifledriver made a comment that the same pump is in a F40 and it does fine. But, after a lot of thought I decided to purchased Nick’s pump and give it a try. The Forza pump was larger than the one I had. Could be because I had the 308 small bearing pump not sure. The Forza pump including pulley weighs 3.3lbs pulley diameter is 4 1/8” versus the stock Ferrari 308 small bearing pump including pulley weighs 2.4lbs. pulley diameter 3 5/16”.

The only issue you will have is you have to change the water pump belt. The stock water pump belt on latter 308 and all 328 is a Gates 7M630 Polyflex which is a little too small due to the increase in pulley diameter of the Forza pump. You have 2 Gates Polyflex options. Gates 7M650 Polyflex is a snug fit about the same as the alternator belt, the tensioner is close to minimum but it works fine. Or you can use Gates 7M670 Polyflex the tensioner is close to maximum and will also work fine. It would be nice to have a Gates7M660 Polyflex that would be a perfect fit but, they only come in increments of 20mm. I chose to use the tight fitting Gates 7M650 Polyflex.

I really didn’t expect any difference in cooling performance. The car still heats up to 195 degrees in a few minutes and kicks on the fans. When cruising the water temp is on the first bar about 170 degrees as it always was. My goal is for a long life with the upgraded seals and bearings.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login