355 F355 Major Service Thread + Ownership Experience

I’ve been quietly busy throughout 2019 and 2020 doing the major service on my F355, a project that has been in strong competition with my day job for scraps of available time. I’ve really pulled great amounts of information from FChat, so I wanted to share some experiences and images back with you all.

I’ve taken hundreds, if not thousands, of photographs, so I created a website to contain all the information, the website is here:

https://www.andrewlove.space/play

Here are a few teaser photos, as no thread on FChat is worth anything without pictures!

As you can see for from the photos, this was not a quick belt change, it was a complete and meticulous restoration of the entire power unit. On the website, I’ve broken the major service into subcategories, where you will find details of what I did, as well as a parts list (where applicable) at the bottom of the page.

As I continue to populate the website with additional subcategories of the project, I’ll update this thread simultaneously.

I hope you enjoy it, and that you find the information useful! (or at least find the pictures enjoyable)


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As a preface to the project, here is the introduction, which gives a bit of background to me and my approach to the car and the major service.

https://www.andrewlove.space/introduction

If someone is considering purchasing a F355 (perhaps for the first time) this is where you will find the real ownership experience. Spoiler alert, it is very positive.

 

And now into the Major Service itself

https://www.andrewlove.space/projects/2019-major-service

Here you will find detail of the Timing Belts, Cam Timing, Exhaust System, Alternator, Transmission and Diff, and Subframe, with more to come as I get time for the updates.


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Thanks, this major service project and the car itself actually were the driver for me buy a DSLR camera again, instead of always leaning on my iPhone. The shape of the car looks much better through a lens that is not wide angle.

 

Need to make a special thanks to you Elliott, you have no idea how much "extra cleaning" I did after looking at your work and posts! The bar you set is very high.

 

Ohhh, about 50,000 pictures or so I'll admit I've got the Alfa bug pretty bad, so if there is anything you need to know, fire away

I've got several photos of my gtv on my instagram account @jet7neutrino

 

good point, I've heard it can be done, but just a bit awkward. I'll add that detail though as someone might appreciate it if they are looking for the answer from what I've written. Thanks

 

Hey Chris, so glad that you appreciate the work! I was really hoping that you would take a look. You will note that I gave you a shout out in the introduction as the "honest, straightup guy"
You have mentioned a few times that this was a very quick F355, and this really peaked my curiosity about these early cylinder heads and engine config.
It was pretty much the perfect car for me - all the right features, but needed a bit of attention to detail. I planned on going through everything anyway, so this was not a problem, and fortunately there were no bad surprises. The car is super tight now, runs like a top, and seems very "happy". It has actually been getting alot of use lately on nice weekend road trips throughout the backroads of SoCal.
Did you sell your yellow 355 (you used the past tense)?

 

Will gladly shoot a few over, PM with the ones that you want

 

The dial indicator itself is a standard Mitutoyo product, but I needed to make the adapter to fit into the sparkplug hole. I did a quick internet search but didn't find anything suitable / available, so I just made it from one of the sparkplugs that I removed (they were being replaced with the service anyway). Not that hard to piece together, and a useful adapter to have on hand.

 

I sincerely hope that it does !