Valve seals equals engine out and top end rebuild?

A neglected ferrari will absolutely turn into a money pit. A no history, blowing oil ferrari engine will be expensive to correct. As the decades have rolled on, getting parts and service items for classic Ferraris has only gotten more expensive and rare.
Not trying to dissuaded anyone from taking on a project, just go in with eyes wide open. It's nearly impossible to say it's going to cost X amount on any classic ferrari over the net to fix. Even in person there's going to be unknowns. Work from worst case. I'd est that setting aside $30k for an engine R&R and rebuild to be a good starting point. Could be more, could be a touch less. Really depends on who's doing the work, shop, yourself, etc...
We get inquiries fairly regularly on engine builds. I know what it takes to rebuild these engines. I though don't do std rebuilds. I preferred to specialize in restoration and performance builds, that type of build starts at ~$75k. Thing is, what we do, no shop in their right mind would do, far to labor intensive and massively custom.

Call me crazy, but I'm also of the mind that these are 40yr old on avg exotics... The 308 series has had a couple decades of deferred maintenance. If the engine/transaxle is getting pulled. Nows the best time to address, fuel tanks, all hoses, electrical, coolant, heater, A/C etc... And why not, they are not getting younger, time marches on.

Ferraris of this period have another issue, they literally rot and rust away sitting there. I'll say it, crap steel and zero rust proofing in the early yrs. It's unfortunate, beautiful body design, saddled with fundamental issues.

But that's just my 2 cents...

 

If you can pull the heads yourself, I can send you 16 solid 21-4N stainless valves and 16 viton stem seals for £200. Find a shop that has the 8mm K-line valve guide liners and it should cost about $150-200 for 16 guides.

 

Derek - I'm rebuilding 308 QV heads and need 32 valves. Can you supply them? Also any more details you can provide on the valve guide liners mentioned above and do you know if they would be the same for a QV? Thank you

 

Joe, I only have 2V valves. 4v were not sodium filled so should be fine to reuse unless they are bent or have worn stems, tips, seats. If you need new try Lee at SI valves or the usual suppliers like Superformance. I don’t know if the 4v guide holes were more concentric with the seats than the 2V— hopefully their machining was better by the QV. Someone else on here should know.

 

Thanks Derek - appreciate the response and read your engine rebuild thread and am in awe!

 

To echo what @derekw said, you don't need 32 new valves. I did the heads on my QV two years ago, just had the faces and seats dressed. You'll have to buy a bunch of new shims though, that'll be enough of an expense right there,

 

Is it this car you are looking at? On their site they show receipts that seem to show the engine being rebuilt 12 years ago at just under 40k miles. If it's the same car something sure doesn't seem right?!? Then again how is that possible for $3,800?!?!?

https://www.beverlyhillscarclub.com/1982-ferrari-308gtsi-c-13166.htm

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Lee is no longer at SI, SI has also 'lost' all the Ferrari data they once had.
Fun times... Fun times.

 

Derek - i spoke to a few machinists since posting and will remove the 32 valves this weekend and check all dimensions. The consensus among the machinists i spoke with is exactly your recommendation from yesterday e.g. re-use the valves with a minor clean up cut and do a clean up cut on valve seats in the heads.

I also found 7mm k-line valve guide liners per your recommendation. Some of the machine shops don't want to use them (others said they were fine) but at a cost of $89 for 100 of them versus $1100+ for new valve guides, I am inclined to go with the valve guide liners. I'll post pics next week of the valves but from an initial cursory inspection, nothing is bent, the intakes are very clean and the exhausts are caked with carbon but no visible issues.

Somewhere I read that you had a list of suppliers or alternate part #s for bearings and such - I would appreciate getting that if its still available. Thank you

 

Somewhere I have a list of gearbox bearings kindly provided by someone on here. The one useful discovery I remember off the top of my head is we can use Suzuki G16/17 big end bearings (Clevite and King bearings available for small money) for a 5 thou (or 15 thou) regrind. You’ll need to resize the rods a tiny amount (yours may be out of round like mine were so require machining anyway) and you’ll need to grind tab slots on the other side but you’ll get better bearings and only cut the crank 5 thou. If you switch to ARP rod bolts you’ll need to resize the rods anyway as the ARP bolts are a little tighter in the rods. Hindsight is 20/20 but the cost of refurbishing my rods was close to the cost of new H-beam rods.

 

I wonder if it was a bad rebuild on the heads then? It looks like all the parts were listed there.

 

That receipt is highly suspect, I'd call BS on it to be honest. Anyone who actually knows these engines and works on them would not have produced such a writeup.

Faked receipts are nothing new, buddy bought an old jag based on such, binder filled with pictures etc.. all BS. He got the car home and it lasted all of a month... Engine grenades. $20k later it's up and running again.

 

Weekend update: So, all the valves are out and the valve guides seem fine and the valves are not bent and can be cleaned and reused. I measured the valve stems, etc. and they are within spec. You can see the #7 intake valve I cleaned on the front head and I cleaned and oiled the guide and there is good suction when pulling the valve out of the head by the big end. Will have the machine shop clean up the seats and big end of valves...

However, there is small amounts of corrosion on the head near two cylinders. Hopefully it can be machined off...which leads me to the reason this engine had very low compression (I bought it non running)...The piston rings on a few of the cylinders are seized into the ring lands on the pistons and there is no way to get the rings out without damaging the piston, so I plan to buy new QV pistons from Superformance. Two of the barrels also have minor pitting - will send them to a Nikasil specialist who will re-plate them and size to 81mm...The interesting thing about the piston liners is that I removed two of them and do not see any sealing ring or o-ring under where the barrel meets the block...I will be getting the sealing rings, but what type of sealant is used on the barrel and the sealing ring, etc.? I am glad to have everything opened up and thank Derek and everyone here for the help and advice

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Unless you have already damaged the pistons trying to get the rings out try soaking them in penetrant and/or heating them in the oven and then tapping them all around with a plastic or wooden mallet. With patience they usually come out. I have lots of the viton liner rings and can send you 8 but they usually come in the gasket set. I sealed the tops of my sleeves with copper RTV but probably not needed and certainly not original. They do tend to seep into the head gaskets over time (hence they cause galvanic corrosion up the studs which makes the heads stick.) If the corrosion is not around the fire ring of the gasket, I would just fill with JB weld or similar high-metal epoxy. I would put a thin coat of high temp RTV on the head gaskets around the water passages, both sides.

 

Replace Pistons
Liners use an 'O' ring to seal, the step in the liner is obvious. If there's no 'O' ring on two liners, suspect that they all are missing, pull all liners to check.
There's no need for sealant at the top shoulder of the liner to the block. It's not really possible to stop water as the liners are siamesed and it's an open web.
Two options on head gaskets, oem-"ish" elring, they are no longer made as they once were. Or Cometic MLS, we worked with them to develop a qv/328 gasket that works on stock builds as well as boosted ones. I still coat the dang things in aviation sealant. Pressure testing holds for 24hrs. Call Nick if you want those. They've also added embossing on the stud holes to keep coolant out of those passages.

 

Thanks Derek - Helpful as always on all counts...I'll try to soak and/or bake the pistons but can rationalize purchasing new pistons as they are 999 pounds from Superformance with rings, pins an circlips - If you just buy rings, they are 299 pounds and I was going to buy them anyway...Does anyone think it's possible that the engine was originally built without a sealing ring or o-ring under where the barrel meets the block? - I know from the shop manual and FC that they are supposed to be there but this engine has never been apart before from what I can tell...

I have to be in the UK around the holidays so will be making a side trip to Superformance with an ever growing shopping list...