360 cs high speed instability

have been fortunate enough to run my 360cs regularly at high speed along stretches of highway- around 230kmh the car front seems to bounce pronouncedly. , i tried to drive thru it but at 250-270, the front felt even worse,like it was swaying uncontrollably. is this inherent to the car( someone told me the cs was simply not designed for out n out straight line highspeed vmaxing) or is it something to do with my suspension (too low)or tyres (alignment/balancing).are the shocks (which i believe are titanium) prone to weakening n need replacing? or is it just ..err ....driver limitations?

 

Are your floor pans (under the car) secure? If so, I'd start with the wheels and tires and and move on to the suspension from there.

 

i have had a 360 spider top down 160 on speedo i know its off a bit and it felt great of course on a closed track,i would have your car checked out

 

Very strange...

unless the road you are on is very choppy.... doesnt sound right.

the faster i drive my CS the more planted it feels...I can feel the car being pressed too the ground at 140 MPH much more than at 100 MPH..

but again suspension is tight...so if the road is very choppy i could see how it might effect the cars ride..

Have you experimented with Race on and off?? wonder if there is any difference...

 

I drove my CS at near max speeds and felt the car got tighter and generated more down force as the speed increased.

 

I've had the same experience at 160+. It's as straight as an arrow on a smooth road even with cross winds.

If your road has serious bumps or ruts, that's a different animal. Ferrari's have limits there, but I don't know what they are!

 

perhaps do a search for CS suspension knock. i had this problem and the dealer told me that my geometry was out by a lot. after they fixed the car it was a lot more stable

 

Not normal, get it checked out.

 

Likely to be a ride height issue at the front.

 

Thats what I was thinking. Also last time I was there, there was one alignment rack available for the entire production. Guess how well the average car gets aligned?

 

ok guys , thanks for all your useful pointers, will check the floor pans, ride height/shocks as well as alignment n revert. from all your feedback it really doesnt seem normal. i tried in both race n sport mode , not much difference.

 

The CS is a very twitcy car at high speeds much less than the standard 360 but twitchy none the less. The F430 is much better but other cars feel much more stale IMO. Porshe, Lambo, audi etc. That said I stlll prefer my 430 over my other cars

 

That's crazy. A proper alignment is so important for good handling. Ferrari designs a great suspension, then sends the car out with a crap alignment?! It should be near perfect when it leaves the factory. Figuring it was probably off, I had a dealer do an alignment (which was ridiculously expensive, IMO). According to the computer printout, my car's camber and toe were pretty far off spec.

Also disappointing, the steering wheel alignment was off from the factory, too (to the left). Even though the 'steer ahead' is now set to 0.00, it's still noticeably off (though a bit better). So, I assume Ferrari did not correctly align the steering wheel and/or the steering shaft. It's a little thing, but it shouldn't be off. I thought about fixing it myself, but I don't feel confident removing the airbag to adjust the steering wheel. Or, if I try adjusting the steering shaft under the dash or the tie rods, I'm thinking the steering sensor for the stability control might be affected.

The good news..the car does handle better now than it did before.

 

Steering wheel centering is usually done by adjusting the tie rods on the steering rack. That should have been done when the front toe was adjusted. And yes bad alignment can cause all kinds of handling problems.

 

Curious, did you happen to have only one of your windows down at high speed?

 

both windows fully open, tried with both closed as well, no appreciable difference