Pepsi Can Head Gasket?

Steve Markowski said,

“Sometimes we see the craziest things here at our shop (RPM in Vergennes, Vermont). We bought a 330 GTC last spring that had gone to a number of shops to correct some of the issues that plagued this car.

It was sold to us as having a recent valve job and was a sorted and good running car but we found this not to be the case. When I first drove the car I realized that the cam timing was off because after dialing in the ignition timing the engine still “spark knocked” at low speed. Many shops set the cam timing improperly but it is usually only off 4-6 degrees. The way this engine ran I knew that we were talking about close valve to piston clearances due to the cam timing being way off.

The engine also leaked lots of oil but I was not worried because we were going to remedy the leaks once we remove the cam covers for a valve adjustment and cam timing check. After removing the covers we found that the roller followers were beyond serviceable and the valve adjust screws were shot.

We buttoned up the engine and started to tune the ignition and carburetors only to find the pesky oil leak continued and the radiator seemed to boil over at low temperatures. Nate put the combustion gas tester on the radiator and we realized that the head gaskets were leaking so we decided to bite the bullet and pull the engine from the chassis.

Nate pulled the heads only to find a mushed up Pepsi can between the head and timing case and we noticed the problematic ELRING head gaskets uses. He inspected all of the valves and combustion chambers and put the engine back together in no time. Nate is fast becoming the 330 GT cam timing master!

I hear that's an approved Ferrari factory fix. :rolleyes:

Curt That trick used to work on My old Bultaco's and Honda Cr race bikes back in the 70's:cool: . It made for higher compression and a cheeper fix than a brass head gasket. Of course that was before they went with water cooling:rolleyes: . Those were the days of lots of fun and big brusies.
Wild Bill:D