When bad things happen to good Ferrari parts

wow! at first glance I thought they were just rubber hoses

 

Me too. I thought that was a load of radiator hoses that got too hot. I'd like to see pics of bad cylinder liners. enginefxr, do you have any you can share?

 

If it wasn't for low quality, there'd be none.

 

I hope it looks good !

 

well...... found one bad header pipe on the right-hand manifold :-( Not pretty but not horrific looking either. Not sure how I'll proceed from here. I don't see any sign of leaking exhaust gas. The plan was to get the headers ceramic coated. I may leave it like this and get them coated regardless. Headers have 35,000 miles on them.

Arrow shows damaged area on pipe.

Quote:
Originally Posted by eulk328 View Post
I'm going to be "un-heatshielding" my right hand OEM header, with 35,000 miles on it, this weekend. I'm hoping it looks as nice as the left hand one did but....... who knows. I'll post photos - good or bad.
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.
different angle

fun fact: right-hand header weighed-in at 15 lbs. after removal of heat shielding it weighed 11 lbs.
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Why hasn't someone produced a decent pair of aftermarket headers for the 355?

 

They have. TubiStyle (if you have a spare 7 Grand).


Incidentally, I've had some different Ansa exahust parts on various Italian cars over the years and have always been under-whelmed by the quality. Guess who makes the 355 OEM headers? In Ansa's possible defense they may have constructed them just the way Ferrari spec'd it and told them to (metal type, thickness etc.). Don't know....

Not trying to offend any owners that have fitted Ansa parts to any of their cars. Just my feeling about the brand.

 

he says he went thru 7 sets before he found one that actually fit (with further persuasion from a hammer.) I would gladly spend 7 grand if they would fit.

 

To me thay look like vessels that need to be bypassed.

Thanks for posting the photos of the headers with the heat shields removed.

 

same here

 

How did you remove the heat sheilds? Are they bolted or welded on?

 

Mostly used a small angle grinder (with 4.5 inch disc). Messy, nasty, time-consuming job.

It seems they're crimped all the way around with a few spot welds here and there.

 

Back from ceramic coating. Don't look very pretty un-shielded but.....
Had the test pipes coated too.
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Huge improvement over the way they originally looked.
How was the preparation done?.....were they bead blasted before the ceramic coating?
What is the thermal rating of this coating?

 

Swain Tech did the coating. I'm sure they bead blasted before coating. I had asked them to coat my air boxes but after providing the thickness of the aluminum (4mm) they did not want to do it. They felt it was too thin for their surface preparation (abrasive blasting) and were concerned about deforming the metal.

Here are the specifics on the coating from Swain Tech:

http://www.swaintech.com/store.asp?pid=10969

I kind of liked the original look with heat shielding (Tubi headers look even nicer). If mine did not have the ugly gas test ports and air injection manifolds they would look much better. HOWEVER... those parts may come in handy one day and that's why I did not have them removed and the holes sealed.

 

The tubi headers do look great as they are wrapped in a header blanket........which tubi claims will provide all the heat protection required for the engine compartment.
I have not seen anyone on this site wrap their headers in a header blanket though.

 

I think header tape would be a difficult to install (certainly not impossible) and maybe a ceramic coating would provide a more uniform measure of insulation (not sure how important that is or not). Also, the header tape can hold moisture/water (if not "burned off" by running the engine) and cause early demise of steel headers. Not really an issue with ours as I believe they're S.S.

 

While the material the factory headers leave much to be desired the primary cause of failure is due to poorly running engines, particularly in a case such as what is pictured at the beginning of the thread. Prior to any catalyst or header replacement or particularly before letting a car go after such replacement a carefull check of the emissions, precat at the test ports, should be berformed. Ideally hc readings should be under 150PPM and CO at .7% +/- .5%. Maximum HC readings should be 300PPM and even then that will be rough on the headers and cats. We see header and cat failures in the 355 generally associated with valve guide wear causing high HC production or shortly after a timing belt replacement when the camshaft timing is not carefully set. The 5.2 Motronic will also start thowing catalyst efficiency codes and fuel trim codes.

 

Thanks for the info. Are you saying that valve guide wear might be/is causing header failure as opposed to header failure causing valve guide wear? Or they're not always associated?

What sort of probe fits into those test ports on the header pipes? Is it a standard size for test probes?

I've been toying with the idea of eliminating the secondary o2 sensors and fitting Wideband sensors in their place simply to operate A/F guages for each bank in the cockpit to keep a close eye on what's happening with mixtures. Comments or ideas on that? I realize it will cause a CEL.

 

You'd need to run that wideband before the cats, not after.

 

Sorry, should have mentioned that I'm using test pipes.

However, if using cats., aren't the first (closest to headers) o2 sensors for actual mixture adjustment and the second set simply to let the Motronic know if the cats. are efficient or not? My idea was to use an existing bung on each cat. as opposed to adding a third o2 sensor into the exhaust stream on each cat.

 

Ah, important detail. Sounds like a good plan then. I have standalone wideband that I use to tune my cars. It's a great tool.

 

I had the same problem with the original headers on my 95 355 (55,000 kms). When we cut the heat shields off there were blow holes and kinks forming on both sets. Apparently Ferrari makes the original ones out of thinner steel piping than normal headers. I had a new set make up using the original flanges and then had them ceramic coated (black) to avoid burning it to the ground. On testing the black satin coating reduces radiant heat by 85% and at 1" off the headers the temp was only 10 deg F above ambient and HP was also up a little. Brilliant!!!
If anyone wants a data sheet on this Black Satin coating email me on [email protected]
Old OEM Headers with Heat Shields removed


Rebuilt Headers before coating


Headers after Ceramic coating
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