Broken Down

[highlander]

A breakdown is a breakdown. I blame the 32 suspension.

Are we going to have to rename you Benny mcbennyface now? Lol

 

[Contigo]

A breakdown is a breakdown. I blame the 32 suspension.

You could have driven on and got it out of there. If it were me I wouldn't park it in the motorway!

 

[outrun]

You could have driven on and got it out of there. If it were me I wouldn't park it in the motorway!

I wish I had an option, I aged about 10 years watching people cruise up to it and swerving at the last minute!

 

[GeoffCapes]

Just had an update from Matthew at Giallo.

It appears to be far worse than initially thought. After running the Maser diagnostics all bar cylinder 7 are misfiring.
He thinks that the cats have broken up and been ingested into the engine.
He will do a compression test next week to confirm.

 

[CatmanV2]

Oh dear. That would be surprising to say the least. Both cats would have had to break up. I'd also be very surprised that it ran OK at all when Felice had it. And when you drove it home.

I shall watch (and hope) with great interest that his take is wrong (although he is an expert!)

C

 

[Contigo]

Just had an update from Matthew at Giallo.

It appears to be far worse than initially thought. After running the Maser diagnostics all bar cylinder 7 are misfiring.
He thinks that the cats have broken up and been ingested into the engine.
He will do a compression test next week to confirm.

Exactly what I thought and said from the description! Good luck mate!

 

[highlander]

Fingers crossed Mathew is wrong Mark.......

 

[jayblue]

Oh no! I hope that's not the case and it can be fixed.

 

[whereskeith]

Just had an update from Matthew at Giallo.

It appears to be far worse than initially thought. After running the Maser diagnostics all bar cylinder 7 are misfiring.
He thinks that the cats have broken up and been ingested into the engine.
He will do a compression test next week to confirm.

Oh dear.... Feel for you on that....
Good luck on getting sorted

 

[philw696]

Sorry to read this down here but these engines are as close as you will come to a race engine that take hours to build up and set up right.
There's only a few of us on here who have gone right into them and it's time consuming and delicate work setting them up with dial guages and the Maserati Diagnosi when you have them running.
Hate to say it Mark but if she played up as soon as you picked her up you should have stopped.
I hope she can be sorted as what I have learnt down here has blown me away.

 

[whereskeith]

Can someone pls explain how u get pieces of cat sucked back into the engine when all the pressure is in the other direction?
I understand that a cat blockage can cause back pressure and make the engine run too hot and thus cause damage , but not the other way.
Thx

 

[Felonious Crud]

Shoite. Good luck, Mark. Fingers crossed.

 

[conaero]

Mark, I have a pair of heads of a 4200 with 36k miles on, yours if you need them. I was only going to make it into a coffee table. The engine suffered oil pump failure.

 

[BenjaminBraddock]

I wonder if the revving that you were doing last Saturday/other occasions (when the cat is cool) could have caused unburnt fuel to then ignite in the cats which eventually caused the ceramic material to melt/breakdown. It's a well known cause of for cat breakdown, and probably worth mentioning to Mathew.

When I spoke to Mathew about cat breakdown in the past he told me he had only ever seen this happen once or twice in all his years of servicing Maseratis.

It's just a thought, but I'm not convinced the hard revving you were doing is particularly good for the car especially when the cats are not at normal running temperature.

 

[conaero]

Can someone pls explain how u get pieces of cat sucked back into the engine when all the pressure is in the other direction?
I understand that a cat blockage can cause back pressure and make the engine run too hot and thus cause damage , but not the other way.
Thx

Design flaw. You put a Ferrari engine in a Maserati and Ferrari make you choke the engine as much as possible so it doesn't out perform the Ferrari cars. Stick a squash pipe and 2 cats close together so when the primary's break up, they can't get past the secondary cats and end up getting sucked back into the engine.

The cats are ceramic so basically break up into a sand. This sand mixes with the oil and you can work out what happens from this point.

This is why every 4200/GS I have had gets its secondary's chopped out so if the primary's do break up they get blown out the back.

From what I have seen 70k miles seems to be the point where this happens.

 

[Spartacus]

Trouble is they break up on the engine side . So a secondary cat delete won't help I'm afraid

 

[GeoffCapes]

At the end of the day. What has happened has happened.

No point crying over ifs buts and maybes. It's just a case of get the wallet out. Cough up the cash and move on.

On a positive note I'll have a nice coffee table!

 

[Wattie]

So for the thickies who tune in...like me..if it is cat damage to the engine are you looking at a
new engine or an
Engine rebuild
Plus a new exhaust system....
Seems an instant mod to the cat system is a must if you own or buy one to stop this happening.
Cheers Wattie

 

[GeoffCapes]

New engine.

 

[Wattie]

Right.
Can you claim on your insurance?
Feel for you.
Cheers Wattie