White Smoke in F430 Engine Bay

Very Bizarre?

 

I recently had my 430 taken in for service via flatbed transporter. The driver told me never to have the engine running while the ramp is steeply inclined because the angle is so extreme it causes something to steam and trips sensors that shut off the engine.

 

Was it a metallic smell, sweet aroma smell or rubber smell ?

 

i had smoke from my engine bay with burning smell when driving from first to second, the bearing of the release wheel for teh clutch had seized, was under warranty

 

Wow that sucks.

 

a burnt clutch has a very distinctive smell.. it's hard to miss Usually white smoke is oil of some type or another however. Not much else gives off that blue-white smoke. Usually when oil burns, it smells just like oil though. You can smell it a mile away typically.

Ray

 

That is not normal, have it checked.

 

Tarek, accelerator and brake at the same time on an F1 car = continuously slipping clutch, especially when the car is on a ramp. This, in many instances, results in white smoke in the engine bay. All F1 360s and 430s are like this.

If you do a search for cutch white smoke, you’ll get some threads talking about this topic. Here is one:

http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=97503&highlight=clutch+white+smoke

You have probably worn your clutch in those maneuvers by a few months' worth of normal driving, but that is probably the extent of it. If the car drives normally, then I'd say you're probably alright.

To be sure, hook it up to an SD3 and check for "Clutch Wear", it is a recorded data point on all F1 cars. There is no rule regarding a "normal" reading because that will depend on your driving style over time. But with a new car like yours, you should still have 85-90% of your clutch. People here look to change clutches when wear gets to 10-15%.

 

Tarek,

I'll bet the transporter was not official Ferrari but rather in independent?

I don't think a Ferrari dealer transporter driver( especially a good one) would allow you to drive the car up the ramp. He should have winched it up to avoid damage or undue stress to the F1 clutch.

Until the car is full warmed up to operating temp, the clutch slippage is considerable, which is why they advise slightly aggressive take-offs, not slow low rev starts.

Have the dealer check the clutch wear on the SD2, and I'm sorry to suggest that you will have caused a considerable amount of clutch wear/loss by driving in up that ramp.

Do not volunteer that information to them re: driving it up the ramp, as they may possibly use it against you if the need arises for a claim under warranty.

Please post the outcome.

 

That sounds about right. You can smoke the clutch on any car, but my guess is that with the F1 stuff Ferrari uses it could compound the problem (I'm not expert on F1 equipped cars however) and make it easier to do.

The best way to on load / off load a ferrari (or any car) is with a truck that has that tail gate lift thing. That way the car just rolls on level ground back to the lift, the lift goes down to street level, then the car rolls off. That's generally the best setup. Just be sure the nose of the car doesn't catch the edge of the truck when the lift goes down I had a real close call once with that!

Anyway, hope your car is okay.

Ray

 

The big potential problem when you slip a clutch like that is if it burns the face of the clutch to the point where it's slippery. When I was much younger, I developed the bad habit of slipping the clutch on hills in order to avoid using the brake. The kid who taught me how to drive stick used to do it and so we would both balance the clutch and the gas on hills in order to keep the car from rolling back or going forward.

So all that was cool until one day on the freeway I noticed when I pushed on the gas, the only thing that moved was the needle on the RPM gauge! Rrrr, Rrrr.. the tach would show the engine going faster, but I would keep going the same speed along the road - wth? Then I realized what was going wrong.. the clutch was slipping!

Finally I got around to replacing the clutch (what a job on a front wheel drive car, let me tell ya). When I took the old clutch out, the face was totally black and shiny! No wonder it didn't grab. It looked like someone had put it in a fire until it turned black, then spun it around on the side walk until it was polished on the concrete. The net result was that it was smooth as glass and slid right between the face of the flywheel and pressure plate.

So the issue you probably need to be most concerned about is whether the clutch burned to the point where it will now start to slip or not. If you are lucky, it will still grab and you may even wear down past any burn marks. If not, then it could tend to get worse as it slips more and more (the more it slips, the more it will burn/polish the face). If it only smoked for a second, then you may be okay. Time will tell. I don't think taking a reading on the SD3 will really tell the full story. Like I say, if the face has been burnt black, it could start slipping. My gut feeling is that if it only happened for a few seconds, you are probably okay and it may wear past any burned areas on the face.

Not sure if that is helpful, but that's my take on it. I personally would drive the car for a while and see if you can feel the clutch slip or not. If not, then drive it and don't worry about it - and hope it wears down past any minor damage that might have occurred.

Ray

 

Interesting explanation Ray. I didn't know about this burning problem. I always thought that wear was wear, but now I understand this much better. Thanks.

 

Tarek,

The percentage wear shown by the SD2 is not an 'physical' figure, but is a general figure, computed by the TCU (transmission Control Unit) and the SD2 and is based on the changing distance of travel(over time) which the clutch acutator and throwout/thrust bearing, has to make, to meet the 'fingers' of the pressure plate, and consequently more travel would indicate a thinning of the clutch driven, or disc, as it is also called.

It's more a of 'guestimate' of clutch wear, and a low figure doesn't necesssarily mean that the clutch is actually gone, but that it's days are counting down, if you get my meaning.

I believe that on the 360 you can remove the rear underfloor tray, and through an inspection hole can(with difficulty) physically measure the disc, and pressure plate thickness, so I would assume you can also do it on the F430 since they are very similar.

 

Tarek,

Actually I think I should have that 'less' travel between the throwout/thrust bearing would indicate a thinning of the clutch disc.

Good luck with outcome.

 

In my case (on the car where I used to slip the clutch at signals, etc), it was an extreme example of clutch abuse. I was young and had no idea what was happening. It was the first time I had driven a car with a clutch and like I say, my friend Chris and taught me incorrectly (I was 18 or 19 and he was maybe 16 or 17).

When I first took the clutch disc out, it took me a minute to figure out what in the heck had produced such a strange result. Then it dawned on me... every time I came to a signal and slipped the clutch for 30 to 45 seconds to balance the car without touching the brakes (thinking that was very cool), I was burning/polishing the surface of the disc against the flywheel. Frankly, I'm lucky I didn't warp the flywheel also. I can't remember, but I believe I did remove the flywheel and have it re-surfaced. I vaguely remember the car having a slight vibration problem at high RPM's and deciding that it was because the flywheel and clutch assembly was no longer balanced properly. I can't recall for sure.. but I do know one thing, from then on I used the brakes when at a stop light/hill.

I don't know much about the F1 system, but I have read on ferrarichat, and heard from people, that it will slip if you back up on a hill or something along those lines. If the system has a habit of slipping the clutch, I would be careful to try to avoid those situations. Like I say, slipping the clutch for an extended period of time will tend to burn the face and if you do too much of that, it can start to feed on itself.

As far as your situation, it's difficult to say whether it burnt the clutch face enough to have any long term impact. However, if there was a lot of smoke, I would think something got very hot in there. That clutch takes a lot of abuse when you drive, so anything that made it hot enough to smoke might have burnt the face also.

I believe there is an inspection plate down there, but I don't know if you can see the disc itself (or the surface of the disc). I know you can see the starter ring, screws and the pressure plate, etc., but I am not sure if there is a way to inspect the face of the clutch or not.

Ray

 

I was told that the Glazing on the clutch is similar to the glazing on brake pads.