Think I may be vaguely....I sort of recall registering but haven't participated there online (or in the real world where there are people and natural light and everything! )

It sort of is a bit i guess. Although unlike my old Honda S2k, there is no step change at any point (which was quite annoying to be fair!), it just builds and builds. I'm not entirely sure how Ferrari managed to get the epic rev limit with low end usefulness in the 355 without having the clever cams that the S2k has. I guess it's somethign to do with the 5 valves per cylinder thing as opposed to 4 for the Honda. Sound about right?

Actually, i meant looking at it the other way: they've both achieved that yet the Honda engine has the facncy cams and step change, but the Ferrari doesn't, so how does it do it? Is it all due to the 5 valves per cylinder?

My old S2 Exige was far quicker than a 355 on a run along the Route Napoleon a few years ago (up to around 120 on the long straights anyway).

I can't remember whether it was on here or on CS, but there was a v long thread about Ferrari massaging power figures for their cars. Based on the data posted there, it seemed that most of the 360 and earlier cars (no figures for modern cars if memory serves) possibly came out of the factory about 15% down on what they were quoted as having. One explanation was that Ferrari over-rev the cars to get the extra power figures. Incidentally, it was also noted that Porsche seem to significantly underquote the power on their cars, especially for the GT3 variants

That said, there seem to be a lot of road tests over the years that seem to verify the performance figures stated for the cars (happy to be corrected), in which case, does it really matter what the actual bhp figure is/was? And anyway, now that even the youngest 355 is 12 years old, one wouldn't really expect all the ponies to be there anyway. I guess that's the silver lining of having an engine rebuild...having come across several accounts the owners then seem to get a v pleasant surprise with the car pulling significantly harder then it did before they even started dropping cylinders.

General wear and tear on the engine. I could be wrong but I'm guessing that in order to achieve the power outputs on what is supposed to be a race-derived(ish) V8, tolerances and fit of the engine have to be very high. I guess I'm assuming that parts will start to wear/deteriorate after a time (which is obviously making the outrageous assumption that as an Fcar it's actually done a few miles ) which will reduce the efficiency of the engine.

I was once severely embarrassed by a four-up fully-loaded Audi RS2 - it just romped way on a wave of turbo torque, while I spent a few seconds stirring the gearbox to find a ratio that would give me some power.