George and I took the engine out of my 348 last night. I'm completely useless with cars and engines, but even I could probably do it myself next time . I was suprised at how easy it actually is to do, although having a proper lift did help. Total time it took last night was 3.5 hours. That included taking out the engine/brake fluids, reading up on the manual and calling up the Stevew support line. We took the rear bumper, rear wheels, rear wheel arch linings, airbox and exhaust off last week. So say add an hour on for that and it took us 4.5 to 5 hours in total to remove the engine. Remember that's the first time either of us have ever done it, so second time around we could easily take an hour off that time. Don't know where the 22 hours that Ferrari says it takes comes from. As you can see from the pictures below, the engine in a bit of a state at the moment. Then again I did do a few track days and airfield days in the rain. One interesting point is that it appears the engine has not been taken out for a very long time. We did'nt check the condition of the cambelt but it was supposed to have been changed two years ago. I'll report back on that when we take off the covers. Fair amount of oil leaking from the cam seals and some of the breather pipes have heavy wear. Compression test was done last week and all cylinders are behaving themselves. In fact we were getting results better than expected. I used to prefer the engine out method before and I remember getting a roasting for it on a poll I did. Now however, I've actually done it and can confirm that I personally prefer the engine out method. I can now walk around it, measure clips, hoses etc, clean it and do what ever I want to it very easily. I might even take the engine out every two years just for funand if anything goes wrong with the engine in teh future, I'm more than happy to take it out in my garage using the 2 jack method. Another intersting point was that the oil was quite dark. So from now on, I'll be doing oil changes every 6 months. Now that the engine is out, we'll be doing the following work to it: - Replaces cam seals etc - Replace radaitors with new ones (from Dave at Scuderia) - Replace coolant hoses with silicon ones Iblue if i can't find black ones) - Replaces all other hoses - Paint cam covers - Do a big service on it using uprated parts - Install Koenig twin turbo system - Re-enamal suspension arms and associated parts - Replace suspension bushes with 355 suspension bushes (20% stiffer) - Replace suspension springs with 20% stiffer ones (from QV London) - Re-paint wheel liners - Only joking about the turbo system lol - AP racing fluid, NGK spark plugs, Shockproof tranny oil - Vlave clearance - Cam timing Plus other stuff I can't remmember..... Big thanks to George for doing most of the work and having the patience to answer some of of my dumber tech questions. The guys a genius with motors!!! Also thanks to Stevew for the tips last night and to the guys at QV London for looking after us, especially Phil for the parts. Top outfit and highly recommended by me.
Engine still in.... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
And out came the engine..... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Nice work! Great looking seats, too. (but you've bollocked your time est - two guys spending 5 hours to yank the motor means 10 man hours, plus you've got to count your time spent properly evacuating your AC gas and safely disposing of your drained fluids to compare your time to Ferrari's est)
Been there! Now I've got metal cam belt covers as those old black plastic ones disintegrated as the bolts came out (even after prepping each bolt with Liquid wrench first).
Sy - One more observation... your frame looks to exhibit the same rusting that I had. Yours is not as bad, but it certainly appears to be starting. My entire subframe was removed and sent for repair. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Shouldn't your OEM subframe have had some black rustproofing on it? Your rusted "before" pic looks suspiciously shiny.
The shine could be the oil splatter. That picture is how the frames come directly from the factory. I seen 'um wid my own eyes at the factory. They are as bare as a baby's butt. Are you referring to that gloopy thick undercoating stuff that dealerships sometimes try to upsell to new buyers? The real problem is the lack of a drain hole in those cross-members (drilled supports) and water just puddles there after a drive in the rain or washing the car.
OK. Makes sense. To my eye your "After" picture looks like a rustproof coated subframe, whereas your "before" picture looked like an uncoated subframe, but since you've seen the new units from Ferrari, I'll defer to your firsthand experience over my strained eyes looking at a computer pic.
ND - As I think about this... if dealers performed PDI-time application of a rustproofing, then perhaps my car's original owner simply declined it. Go take a snap of your frame, cuz' now I'm curious.
Here is mine Still looks as black as the ace of spades Must remember to check mine fully when I take the motor out too, thanks for the heads up Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Pap - I presume the climate in Mt. Isa is much drier than North Carolina. Where did you car originally get delivered? Prior geography makes a difference I suppose, as my car spent some of it's life in the Northeast U.S. (snow, rain, muck)
Thanks for the support guys. I got that from a local store. ferrari wanted over £50 for it and I managed to get that for just £14. Might end up changing all of them to blue now. Thanks for the tip. We'll be extra careful. I'm thinking of videotaping the taking off of that cover. A bit like the opening of the King Tut tomb I just helped out here and tehre and mainly watched. I'm not a mechanic. I think the engine can be taken out by one person in around 5 hours easily. Good eyes!!! I'll have a closer look. Thanks for the tip. I'm going to check everything and use anti-rust treatment on it. Then check again in a couple of years.
Glad to see you doing the work yourself! A gentleman does so! You may wish to consider changing the driver's side transmission bearings also-that seems to be the root of all 348 tranny failures, and easy to do now.
Here's a better pic of my driver side frame (earlier pic was passenger side). Sorry about the splashed mud. In this picture you can see that my black rustproofing on the subframe has a chip so that you can see red underneath. Image Unavailable, Please Login
