F430 F1 Issues-A Cure

Bear w/ me; 1st post. In late 2013, I upgraded to a 2006 F430 Spider from a Mondial Cab. In the PPI, it was noted that a rapid 3-2-1 downshift ( manual says to avoid) would cause the F1 slowdown warning, N lockout protection to occur. Car had just over 5K miles. With Spring driving more issues arose. First, when hot, it would give the warning and sometimes N lock-up on shift from R to 1, later on downshifting from 3 to 2 it would give warning and N lockup; then upshift from 1 to 2, it would give warning, pause and skip to 3. Also, would get intermittent F1 low pressure warnings. Luckily, my long-time mechanic, Dave Helms, Scuderia Rampante-Boulder, CO, undertook to tool up for F430 and later FCar models. They discovered and cured a bad wire in a wiring harness, a bad suspension ECU that terfered with paddles to F1 CAN line communication and an assembly/design defect that with time and miles driven allowed air to get in the F1 system and cause low pressure drop and my issues. Someone had been chasing these issues long in the past as instrument panel replaced early and all front wiring harnesses were a mess. All now cured. Based on my issues, Dave (and his crew--Jeff and Jenni) are also now going to attempt to design a fix for the F1 power unit to cure long-standing low pressure issues that they hope will make for better reliability and more longevity. SR feels a lot of these F1 issues can be cured without just throwing parts at them.

 

Noted as 40% in PPI; not sure what was when SR got it but only about 1K miles since PPI. Wiring harnesses had been taken out in instrument panel replacement or search for some wiring fault and put back in with globs of silicon to hold in, but not to factory assembly standards. It was likely done by dealer tech(s) as near as we can tell. SR found it to be quite a mess, and put them back in correctly.

 

You are close, but the actual bleed screws on the actuator itself apparently not the issue. Dave Helms/Jeffrey Stiner at SR can explain better (and I may have it wrong), but actuator on 430 was moved to the opposite side of the F1 trans from the 360. My understanding is that the 360 design bleed screw holes on the other side were left in the redesigned system and just plugged up, but apparently not permanently tight, so the plugs loosened with time, heat and distance and let air in the system. SR found the problem after hours of sleuthing and tightened up with locktite. It was the last in the series of cures for my issues that made everything work.

 

Bad ECU that had to be replaced, but whether it was possibly a loom issue, I don't know; I have no knowledge how they actually discovered it, but they did use a diagnostic tool in their search.