355 Owners - What’s Your Valve Guides and Manifolds Story?

Always thought I had a sticky lifter, loud tick tick noise on cold start. Turned out it was a cracked manifold. Have 38,000km on my 1997.

Replaced last November with Tubi Manifolds, swapped out the exhaust to a capristo stage 1, and added the capristo valve to get rid of that bloody rattle, it was driving me nuts.

So far, seems to be no valve guide issues.



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I have 17,300 miles on mine (95 GTB) with stock valve guides and manifolds. The dealer said they were both fine when I had it in for service this past January.

Still, while not in the market, I am softly looking for the Tubi headers. However the price is simply insane.

 

I am glad. Boght mine 12 years ago. They were cheaper.

 

PO receipts show that my car had all valves, and all guides replaced with the above Ferrari part numbers. done at Ferrari dealership, heads were subbed out to a reputable machine shop. receipt says: "remove and install bronze valve guides and installed sintered valve guides" not sure I understand what is meant? I thought the original guides were copper alloy? the writing suggests they removed bronze guides, but perhaps the proper interpretation is that they installed bronze guides?

can I be confident that the guides Ferrari currently supplies are upgrades, and not the inferior ones from the 90's?

 

Just acquired a six speed 1995 Spyder (rosso corsa / tan). Around 44K miles, has a Capristo stage III exhaust system. Valve guides were replaced at 36K miles in 2011. New cats at 42K miles, looks like manifolds were repaired by Ricambi (not sure exactly what) in 2010 (36K miles or so).
For the next engine out (next year) I would consider replacing the manifolds as recommended above likely with Fabspeed (not sure I can swing the Tube but will depend on total bill).

 

Bronze is an alloy consisting partially of copper. The proper interpretation is exactly as you read.


Doing a valve job right now on a 95 with 14k miles. Had one cylinder with 34% leakage from the exhaust valves.

 

does that mean the sintered guides are the "better" upgraded ones? Receipt shows 95% leakage in cylinder 7 prior to valve job!

 

Sintered iron was their answer to the valve guide problem.

I would have had to do the leak test myself to believe 95%. I think it could do better with the piston rings laying on the work bench.

 

Ok. thanks for the schooling. Is this the end of the story and I sleep like a baby? I see that some companies are offering a manganese copper guide as an upgrade? in 2019, which is the best or better solution?

 

Sintered iron is a quality material. I am just not crazy about the cost or quality.

 

‘98 GTS
Headers failed around 20k mi. Replaced w fabspeeds. Valve guides non-issue on my car according to the “pro” wrench I use who knows my car.


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Rifleman,
thanks for the information regarding guides. you baited me with your last reply about guides....lol.

you mention you don't like sintered because of cost (I can live with that, I didn't pay for them..) but then you mention quality. as mentioned, PO had all valves and guides replaced 10 years ago, and less than 9k miles. done at authorized ferrari dealer, and used Ferrari parts. looking for some sugar that I can put the guides in my rear view mirror and start shopping for new tires. would like to hear your thoughts, since its obvious you have been around the block (wow, that sounds bad..) my first modern Ferrari and trying to plan ahead.
thanks​

 

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Wrong cowboy, Leo. You're talking to...


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lol....thanks
I meant rifledriver….Chuck Connors is the original rifleman. i'll bet he owned a Ferrari

 

Yuuup my car has both



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I've got a 95 B with 15,000 miles on it. Just did the major earlier this year. Leakdown and compression numbers were great, so no need to pull the heads. I did replace the headers with Tubi's as well as tubi cat bypass pipes, fabspeed secondary bypass and fabspeed muffler. Sounds great.

 

95 with 27k. Valve guides with new valves done at 19k as part of purchase agreement. Original headers at this time, smoked tested last spring and they are good. May put Tubis on next spring as a preventative measure and be done with it. Other wise, headers will wait until next major.

 

I’ve got 99 355 undergoing it’s major service at 36k. The headers were repaired by previous owner at 30k, passed the smoke test. I’m going to take a better look once the mechanic drops it. He says there’s no reason to replace them, as this was a late build and they had used better headers at that time. I’m torn. I don’t want to spend $4k on tubis and hear you lose that F1 sound with the fabspeed. But I’m also a buy once cry once mentality.


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Better yes but still problematic. I have replaced many of them. Header replacement isn't difficult with engine in place. I see no compelling reason not to wait until they are symptomatic.

 

I never thought of that.

 

Lee Marvin was one of my favorite actors.

 

Thanks for chiming in on this Rifledriver.

‘97 Spider, 28000 miles, 2nd set of stock headers, original valve guides.

 

Good to hear. Everyone keeps saying to do it now while the engines out.


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No not every one. It's just when some mention doing them with the engine in, some of the righteous on here start being critical. It's just a thing on here
Were as they would not dare do this to rifle driver, hes the man that carries weight around here, like a sheriff with two tin stars

Oh and when you said " I don’t want to spend $4k on tubis", there are some who would say your ferrari will be a less maintained car because you might not be as frivolous with your money as they are

 

I could be wrong, but I haven’t seen anyone being criticized for replacing the headers when the engine is in the car, some might feel it is just easier to do when the engine is out. The threads that have had controversy or differing opinions is doing major services in vs out of the car.