Poll which is better looking F8 Tributo or F8 Spider

It’s a trade off, but I rarely notice the performance gap and with the spiders you have a choice so I always go for the spider. I feel the look is better as well in the F8 sans top.
Plus I live in S FL and there are a lot of days to enjoy the open air.

 

Coupes rear end is significantly better looking

 

Interesting. I think Caterham will disagree...

 

By far a bigger fan of the Spider. With the 458, it was the Italia, with the 488, it's a toss-up. With the Pista it's the coupé. With the F8 the rear just works so much better in the Spider version.

 

And yet the man always bought drop tops for himself.

 

Good point. And as we all know, J. Clarkson isn't exactly a supermodel type.

 

All of these cars were lined up next to each other at the beautiful Celebration Exotics event in Orlando. In the earlier models, the coupe flows better from the back. The F8 rear end has really changed the spider look for the better. And sans top there’s no comparison, engine peek-boo or not. Subjective? Guess I’ll be nice here and agree everyone here (as many are owners) have a right to their own opinion.

Another thing I noticed is all of these cars (collectively) look far, far better with lower profile 21/22s than the stock wheel sets. Better then lowering with the car on the 20s.

There’s a company retailing full carbon fiber rims out of South Africa at $4k per wheel, and I think I’ll upgrade to these in lieu of the rear diffuser which is purely cosmetic and not overly visible anyway. It’s a tradeoff price wise anyway.

I’d love to hear from anyone who’s upgraded to larger wheel sets on their Fcars and how it impacts performance.

 

Definitely....



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There's a lot of threads about how the big wheels affect performance. In short.

It adds understeer
It makes the ride harsher
It makes the car slower

If you go that route, do it because you want that look and value it over performance gains.

I know some wheel vendors claim otherwise, but remember they are in it to sell wheels.

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But they look so much better with +1 wheels!

 

That obviously depends on taste. I think a Pista looks great on 19" as it sits there ready for the track. To put it bluntly. For me the stock 20's wheels and 19's are all business, and thus really cool. The chariot sized wheels are all show with no "go", especially the 21/22 setup or 21's in the rear with silly looking 355 section tyres.

It's all about what you want and like.

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Spider all the way ... took a test drive in a 458 Italia yesterday but even windows down missed the open top.

He's more of a before model type

 

Mmmmmm...yeah, I get it, but I'd like a bit of both.

Maybe 20's, lowered a tad (20mm) and 11 -15 mm spacers as a compromise. That 4x4 look is driving me nuts on the 458, and F did nothing to improve it on the F8.

Like others have said here better than me (Mandalay?) I can't 'unsee' it.

 

I get the harsher ride, but not the slower nor the increased understeer. There is little diameter and weight difference between a 20" 235/35 stocker from F and a 21" CF 235/20 lower profile tire. The 'rotational mass' can't be that much different. A 22", maybe.

I'm not seeing it...........

 

Depends on the colour

 

11 mm spacers in the front and 15 mm in the back is about as wide as you would want to go. More than that, and you are getting into rubbing territory, especially if you lower the car.
If you do the 20/21 combo, there are ways of doing it so the drawbacks will be minimal and still get the larger rear rims.
On a 458 for example you can do 245/35R20 and 305/30R21. That will actually run very well if you use a set of Goodyear Eagle F1 Assymetric 3. What's even better, they are available in a full matched Porsche N spec pair.
There's also the possibility of using 255/35R20 and 315/30R21 with MPS4S, Goodyear Supersport R or Cup 2.
With 21/22 you are pretty much stuck with the mismatch.

 

What kills the speed is two things. If we are talking about the 458, we are already talking about a car that is not the most torque strong car, so a little difference makes a significant difference. You are increasing rear diameter from 28.1" to 28.7". That actually is something that matters.
As for weight, forget the fronts. What kills you is the rears. Those 335/25R22 tyres are much heavier than stocks - about 8-9 lbs a piece. Now that might not seem like much, just adding a measly 16-18 lbs? Well, you are not only adding that weight to an unsprung part of the car, you are adding it to the rotating mass. On top of that, you are adding all that weight to the most outer part of the wheel where it does the most damage. It's a really big deal. Screw the titanium bolts, those are in the centre, but adding that much weight there is like adding 8-10 times that to the car itself AT LEAST. It will affect the breaking, it will affect the acceleration and the cornering. On top of that, it will also affect the suspension which was not set up for the added wheel weight.

The understeer is very simple. If you add a lot of rear tyre width without adding something to the front, you do two things. You add grip to the rear which in itself will create more "push", and the rear grip gets stronger and decreases the cars ability to rotate on its own axis. But on top of that, a wider rear tyre also is less able to rotate around its own vertical axis. The 458, 488 and F8 already has quite a bit of understeer dialed in front the factory so the average starlet won't climb sign posts on Rodeo Drive, so understeer is the last thing these cars need. On a car that is already understeer biased, you need to add more grip biased towards the front compared to what you add to the rear to just keep it balanced.

Lastly, there's the wheel weight itself. If you have two wheels which weight the same, one is a 20" and the other a 21", there's a difference between how that weight is spread out across the wheel. The main thing here being the barrel of the wheel which may weight the same or maybe only 1-2 lbs more, but again, like with the tyre, it is at the most outer part of the diameter where weight matters the most. So two wheels that both weight say 23 lbs, are not affecting the car the same way. A 20 lbs 19" wheel will not has the same effect on the car as a 20" 20 lbs wheel.

That's just how it is. HRE, Vossen, Novitec and the like cannot change the laws of physics. There's a reason why race cars are not on 22" wheels.

 

Thanks for the advice, liking your ideas.

The 20/21 combo with Michelin PS4S and small spacers sounds like a winner.

 

Brilliant. Thanks.
(btw....I think you have a typo in your ‘location.’)

 

You're welcome.

If you order a set of wheels like that, you can just get the offset you need and not need spacers.

Are you doing this on an F8?

 

Whoops, nice catch

 

. Yes, that is the plan. I’m working with FOCF on the exhaust upgrade, and see if they’ll do the wheels too. I plan to keep the car awhile, so I see no reason to take delivery with stock exhaust and wheels, only to swap them out and have them collecting dust and taking up space.

I like experimenting a bit, and put a Kline exhaust and cats on the 458, along with a Mase tune. I can’t honestly say the tune did much, perhaps calmed the jerkiness, or maybe I’m a bit better at finessing it now.

The F8 (both coupe and spider) is, IMO, a major refinement of the 458, and it’s different enough to consider keeping both.

 

@II Co-Pilota - in my younger days I could work out all the physics, but your explanation makes complete sense. I’ve studied engineering statics and dynamics pretty extensively, and could do all these calculations, but I’m too lazy now.

I’d like to think I could deal with a bit more understeer, as I feel it in the lowly 458 on spirited drives (the car with the wooden brakes and lack of low end grunt). Lol, you won’t hurt my feelings, ‘cause I still like the 458 even though it’s not perfect.

 

Excellent explanation! I just attended the Porsche driving school and they explained understeer and oversteer and demonstrated it. Understeer dramatically reduces speed and cornering. Both under and over are important concepts to understand. Also explained how braking and throttling affected them as well. Awesome course. I highly recommend it.

 

From a styling perspective the design is more fluid and true to its original vision as a coupe. I would say the balance of form and tension is perfect in the F8, truly beautiful. this combined with the addition of the vented Lexan rear deck just makes this car super special. The spider is nice and very well done, but the coupe is perfect with no sacrifices from a design standpoint IMHO. Wow, I am actually using my degree in automobile design for something now...

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