348 - How to diagnose Oil or Coolant overfill? | FerrariChat

348 How to diagnose Oil or Coolant overfill?

Discussion in '348/355' started by Swallowtail, Mar 31, 2021.

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  1. Swallowtail

    Swallowtail Rookie

    Dec 7, 2020
    6
    #1 Swallowtail, Mar 31, 2021
    Hi, I have a problem with my 348 and hope you guys&gals can help me figuring out what went wrong. I suspect that some oil or coolant got into my intake by the fact that the car produced smoke for awhile and the engine sound developed a certain rough „gurgling“ aspect. I'm not even sure it fires on all cylinders. The smoke looked more like water than oil to me but I am no expert.

    First thing I did was check the air filter housing and intake hoses → All dry
    In front of the throttle valves there was a little bit of oil residue, maybe this is normal.

    - Is there a way for coolant to enter the intake system?
    - Is there a way to look into the Intake without removing the valve cover?

    Thanks!
     
  2. Swallowtail

    Swallowtail Rookie

    Dec 7, 2020
    6
    #2 Swallowtail, Mar 31, 2021
    One thing I forgot to mention: I removed the rubber cap from the shaft in the middle of the intake manifold. There was some kind of white grease all over it. Is this normal?


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  3. A348W

    A348W Formula 3

    Jun 28, 2017
    1,749
    North Wiltshire, UK
    #3 A348W, Mar 31, 2021
    The white grease is normal.

    If you have water in the engine you have big problems as the only way that can get in is via a component failure of some description. Typical symptom is milky film in the oil, but a little is normal due to condensation in the o tank so if there is a bit don’t panic.

    Oil on the other hand can and does get in through the breather system. It’s not unheard off for somebody to overfill the oil not realising it’s a dry dump and can only be checked when the engines has been running for a bit.

    Can you give some more details; does it start ok? Does it run rough all the time? How much “smoke”? (It’s not just a bit of condensation from the exhaust is it). Obviously be careful not to damage the engine and if in doubt just get it to a decent garage if your not confident to sort it.
     
  4. Swallowtail

    Swallowtail Rookie

    Dec 7, 2020
    6
    #4 Swallowtail, Mar 31, 2021
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2021
    Thanks for your input.

    It was smoking a lot for maybe 10 minutes. After that the smoking stopped completely. Engine starts and runs basically fine. Just the sound is very “off”.

    The problems started after I had the car tilted pretty steeply. I jacked up the front and back separately to clean the under-body.

    By the way: In my original post I wrote "valve cover" by mistake. I meant to say inlet manifold cover.
     

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