What's new
By:
Advanced search…
Club Scuderia

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Please take a minute to read this thread about our recent server issues and forum platform Switch

348/355 HVAC air route

Nosevi

Nosevi

Administrator
Staff member
Morning all.

Wonder if someone can give me a hand and save me taking up the front boot compartment on my car to help me answer this. I'm looking to establish the route the air takes which goes through the cabin blowers and into the the cabin. My understanding is this but I've not checked so really don't know:

The air goes in through black 'slot' just below the windscreen. The opening low down in the front bumper on the driver's side (on a RHD car) is for cooling and heat exchange, it's not the air you end up with in the cabin:

1.jpg

The air then goes down through the air box under the front bonet and is diverted to either cool it or heat it depending on the settings on the HVAC:

f348_trunk.jpg

This would all make sense to me but I've not really looked into it.

Many thanks.
 
Last edited:
Pete,

You are correct. :thumbsup:

On the 348 the bumper air scoop is for the A/C radiator. On the 355s the bumper front scoops, hidden behind the grill left and right are for the brake ducts, the a/c radiator is I believe at the back on the left hand side.

The cabin air comes through the vent on the bonnet and through the airbox as controlled via the hvac system.

Why the question?
 
Cheers Adrian.

Question is because I suffer from Hay Fever. It’s normally ok but went for a drive the day before yesterday and crossed the fens and car came back with a yellow/green tinge from the amount of pollen and having had the ac blowing at me I had streaming eyes and nose and a really itchy throat the next day.

Bit of research and there’s no pollen filter in there so was wondering if I can rig something either under the bonnet grill or on the top of the HAVAC airbox to stop or at least limit pollen going through. You can get ‘pollen screens’ for windows, sort of a very fine strong mesh so was wondering if I could use that.
 
Firstly; you drove your car????? :shocked: :drive::worthy. Think you need to start a new thread!!!

Pollen is very high this year; I suffer a fair amount with grass pollen, do not great at the moment! Worst was having sneezing fits on the bike doing “some” miles an hour on the motorway!!!!

You could try an old t shirt across the air box? Probably as good as anything else you can rig up; just dont expect great hvac as it will restrict the air flow a fair amount. Or perhaps get a pollen filter from eurocarparts that would “fit” on top? (They always have a sale so shouldn’t be expensive.

Ahh just remembered, a set of tights! Should be fine enough mesh but not restrict the flow too much? Yours or the misss, we itt to her should be fine :laugh:
 
A348W said:
Firstly; you drove your car????? :shocked: :drive::worthy. Think you need to start a new thread!!!

Pollen is very high this year; I suffer a fair amount with grass pollen, do not great at the moment! Worst was having sneezing fits on the bike doing “some” miles an hour on the motorway!!!!

You could try an old t shirt across the air box? Probably as good as anything else you can rig up; just dont expect great hvac as it will restrict the air flow a fair amount. Or perhaps get a pollen filter from eurocarparts that would “fit” on top? (They always have a sale so shouldn’t be expensive.

Ahh just remembered, a set of tights! Should be fine enough mesh but not restrict the flow too much? Yours or the misss, we itt to her should be fine :laugh:
Click to expand...

:laugh: I do drive her every now and then!

Looking at using some of this, just held over the airbox with some elastic. Nothing particularly fancy but hopefully just stop most of the pollen and be easy to remove to clean off.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/tesa-Polle...cphy=1006876&hvtargid=pla-1157851183808&psc=1
 
Looking at the air box / inlet for the HVAC I could perhaps just cut it bigger than this, maybe put the edge trim screw through it to hold it roughly in place, and I think the foam around the inlet 'seals' against the bonnet lid and so it should work fairly well as a temporary 'pollen filter'.

12939878.jpg

You'll know if it hasn't if the next thread is 'How do I open the HVAC in order to remove a mesh screen?'..........
 
Suffered chronically with Hayfever as a kid to the degree that it seriously hampered every day life.

Found out through lots of different tests and medications inc. injections every season that my problem was two fold.

They believe that Hayfever comes from an ancient mechanism to trigger migration - if I go on holiday it almost always disappears.

Second I used to take tablets to 'treat' the hay fever - working with a pharmaceutical company that makes them I learned that will not work for me.

I need to start taking them before the season starts - two or three weeks before and then take them daily until the season is done - for me this is April to October as my allergy tests showed late summer tree fungus is a big issue.

Moving across the country and to the city helped but the antihistamine regime works like a charm. Just too bad I didn't find this out whilst I used to suffer through 'exam' season as a kid.

Boots own brand in packs of 30
 
I didn’t really get it as a kid, started late teens and since then it’s been a pain.

Weird thing was until 2 days ago I hadn’t had a single smidge of it this year which was the first time in 30 odd years. When I say not a smidge I mean nothing and considering we have a small wildflower meadow which I’ve been cutting it really was amazing. Only difference this year compared to others - having ‘long covid’ and for some reason it seemed to have some sort of effect to the point I hadn’t even had a tablet whereas I’d normally have been having them from March.

Went out in the car driving along roads lined with ‘cow parsley’ past fields of oil seed rape and long grasses with the low nose of the 348 funnelling pollen through the vent and as it turns out with no pollen filter directly into my eyes, nose and throat and my body suddenly remembered it suffered from Hay Fever.

Anyway, hopefully I can rig some of this pollen screen across the intake and it should help. Maybe a bit of a gash ‘fix’ but should do the job.
 
irarref said:
Do you mean something like this...???

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/f355-cabin-air-filter.540852/

Not sure I would be 100% comfortable about doing though. Lot easier to just shut or redirect the vents away from your face.

Alternatively why not make some supports so you can drive round with the car still in its air chamber?! ;-')
Click to expand...

Morning Jeff.

I'm afraid with hayfever and the amount of pollen around me at the moment out here with field after field of crops kicking it out just directing the air away from your face will have some but very little effect - you'll still be blowing it into the cabin. I could just shut off the air but on a hot day it'll be fairly uncomfortable after a while.

I'd seen that thread and like you I'd be reticent to shove something too far down into the box although it does look like a neat solution and at the end of the day I’ve really got to do something. A pollen screen over the top should work almost as well while being much less restrictive and easy to remove once the pollen levels drop later in the year. It souldn't massively effect air fow particularly when driving as there must be an over pressure coming through the bonnet vent when compared to standing still.

Re driving around in the bubble, it does inflate off the car battery if the 240 supply fails and filters the air going in so maybe it's an option :hmmm: :laugh:
 
Last edited:
Slightly bizarrely looking inside the top of the airbox there is a significant lip that an air filter would sit on and which the flap below isn’t long enough to reach. It’s almost as if it was designed to take a filter but there’s none in there and I’ve never seen one in a 348. :hmmm:

Caked with pollen in there as well…..

510F2B94-0A8C-4498-A451-9987FB81A203.jpg
 
Gross error check - if the flap below can’t touch this and the filter was exactly this size (175mm x 100mm) and so can’t fit past the lip it’s sitting on (and if it’s a cabin air filter designed to let air through but take out pollen and not a piece of card) why wouldn’t this work?

As I say, looks like it’s designed to have one as the big lip on both sides of the intake which is high enough to be clear of the directing flap below serves no other purpose……

46ABDFB3-8DBA-45CE-AEA7-E3AE24A54869.jpg

F8D3797C-F031-409D-B48D-A5127C288F9D.jpg
 
Last edited:
I think in your position I'd just butcher a cheap new pollen filter from EuroCarParts and bodge it in there for a short term fix. Of course, I wouldn't know if restricting the airflow would have any negative effect.

Nosevi said:
Re driving around in the bubble, it does inflate off the car battery if the 240 supply fails and filters the air going in so maybe it's an option :hmmm: :laugh:
Click to expand...
Why don't you try to inflate it inside the car? That way you could do away with the suggested supports and we could do with a laugh.
 
Last edited:
irarref said:
If you look at a 430 its sort of in the position your imagining it should go...

https://www.eurospares.co.uk/parts/ferrari/430-challenge-2006/bodywork-lighting/ventilation-42739
Click to expand...

Yep, that would seem the obvious place to put it and as I say, with a lip inside the airbox which serves no other purpose it seems designed to accept a filter but I can’t for the life of me find a filter exactly that size.

Kyodo said:
I think in your position I'd just butcher a cheap new pollen filter from EuroCarParts and bodge it in there for a short term fix. Of course, I wouldn't know if restricting the airflow would have any negative effect.
Click to expand...

I’m certain a slight restriction on cabin air flow won’t - modern pollen filters are extremely unrestrictive, the air isn’t really cooling anything (other than me) so you can just run the fan 1 notch higher (blasts air out so never use it close to max) and when driving there’ll be so much over pressure going through that top vent the difference between being stopped and going 70mph will be many times the difference of air going through a filter.

I think if I just cut down a paper filter it’ll possibly buckle and end up going down the shoot so what I’m looking at is asking my mate who has a 3D printer to knock me up this out of black plastic:

12EFAA08-6316-4E80-8397-C846D6340FAD.jpg

To essentially fit here:

D6EEAF42-D004-4AF6-9AE1-F4481E1F025A.jpg

Then I can cut down a paper cabin pollen filter to sit on top in the summer and perhaps remove it in the winter. If the ‘frame’ is held in place and the filter is slightly oversized to wedged in a bit with airflow from top to bottom and the bonnet stopping it rise anyway, it could possibly be a neat solution.

If the ledges inside the airbox inlet aren’t for a filter I’m really struggling to work out what they are for ?!?!?!
 
Garvin said:
Why use a 3D printer? Get some flat sheet ABS plastic and simply cut to shape.
Click to expand...

Yep, could go down that route although my mate just messaged me back and said he could easily and quickly fabricate it from Aluminium sheet. He has a motorbike workshop and makes some parts himself so has quite a few tools. Useful mate to have. He’s away doing repairs/tyres/tuning etc at a race day but said that’d be the quickest, easiest and maybe better option than using plastic.
 
Last edited:
Was just thinking short term I can simply select recycle air on the HVAC so I’m taking air from the cabin, cooling it and blowing it back into the cabin. It was then I found the problem I didn’t know I had and no one else spotted from the photos.

The flap that should shut off air going in the top is at the bottom under the blue arrow, the upper edge should be connected to a spindle at the red arrow, it was just lying at the bottom of the air box:

4A2494AC-7F19-430B-A2EA-8515ECE8DBC4.jpg

At some point, no idea when, the spindle which appears to be plastic has snapped:

FA88AE6D-E260-4DC0-A34F-303FBC9EA72A.jpg

Motor works when I select between outside air and recycled, I can see the broken end turning, there’s just nothing attached to it.

Obviously a short term fix it to just blank off the top of the airbox if I want recycled air and not pollen and open a window for fresh air :) Longer term I feel this is very much a winter job as it’ll hopefully involve taking out the boot liner to gain full access and probably be a faff but could involve removal of the whole unit to get good enough access to fix it.

So actually I did have an issue, it just wasn’t the lack of a filter. Not sure how long it would have been before I noticed it had I not been trying to work out how to fit a pollen filter.
 
Last edited:
As an aside, those ledges inside that appear to serve no purpose? Their purpose is when the flap cycles up and hits them the motor stops. Assuming of course the flap is attached to the spindle and not lying in the bottom of the box.........
 
Top