599 Conversion to 6 Spd MT

Yes! what are this GTO upgrades?

 

Hi Trev,
I've been following Bill's build. How can I reach out to you?
Cheers

Feel free to add me on Whatsapp +61404881309 (In Australia)
Leon

 

Perfect spec as well....love the Nero with Rosso interior!

 

Guess there’s nothing worth reporting?

 

Great timing. The car is booked for xpel Monday. Haven’t driven it this Spring given the messy roads up here. Driver log to begin next week once the armor is on!

 

Film time.
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Cant wait to see the video!

 

Further up in the thread someone asked about an EAG console for the 599 conversion. In a Youtube video posted April 10, 2022, Normal Guy Supercar Dan gives an update on the 599 that EAG is using to prototype the parts. Included was a look at a carbon fiber console of which they've commissioned "a couple" examples. Here's a screen cap of that part of the video:

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Here's the full video:

 

Dan is mistaken in his characterization that the EAG console uses the Ferrari pattern (or he just passed along incorrect info from Art). It’s substantially different than the OEM design.

The EAG CF section pictured above is designed to sit in the existing F1 center lower console/tunnel, which is very different in MT configuration; the OEM design requires substantially more diligence and work to be done correctly. There’s a ton of geometry underneath the console with regard to sitting correctly in the lower console and aligning the shift linkage.

 

More EAG news: In an auction thread on the Bring A Trailer site (of an '09 F430 gated six that went for $408,430!!!) EAG Art suggested in several posts yesterday that he is thinking hard about getting out of the customer car conversion business entirely and switching to converting and rehabbing EAG owned cars for retail sale. Meaning that the EAG option will no longer be available to us 612 and 599 owners.

 

Yeah, I texted Art today when I saw that. There will be a transition, but looks like they're moving away from conversions to focus on making the kits themselves.

 

A kit would be great. I would rather DIY my 612 in my humble one-car garage than contract it out. Art also wrote something about a cable linkage that he described as making our cars shift as smoothly as the F430. Art was on a recent episode of Normal Guy Supercar where he stated that the 599 torque tube is so big that it contacts the shifter rod, causing an undesirable clanking.

 

For all people who believe Ferrari invested a lot of time to develop the manual 599, think again. The 599 GTB was never really designed from the outset to be a gated car and it was only for the fact that a group of their High Net Worth (or Tier 1 customers) got together to twist their arm with pre-paid deposits that they even exist at all. It wasn't a sure thing. Not to mention it helped that the engineers in Ferrari wanted to do it too (against the tide of companies powerful marketing dept). Furthermore the low production volumes and comparatively insignificant price differential when new meant it was never going to be a money earner for them either so it was very low in their priorities list.

As a result of this backdrop the project was hurried along very hastily indeed and mistakes where made which is normal. In my humble opinion the factory calibration was done rather haphazard and therefore you don't get very good rev match characteristics between gears (that is the revs fall too quickly between gears so the car bogs down) and the linkages produced where more of an after thought too and a bit more convoluted than they should be. In other words they don't drive anywhere near as majestically as they could or indeed should straight out of the box.

Can it be improved upon? Yes it sure can. In fact it can be significantly improved upon to make a good car into breathtaking must-have-in-garage one. Part of this is re-engineering mechanical things to be better and part is software too. It's therefore entirely within the realms of aftermarket specialists to improve the 599 here beyond all recognition.

 

And yet the irony will persist, that the factory-built gated six 599s and 612s will go for two or three times the money as their smooth-shifting scienced-out aftermarket counterparts. Just let that F430 $408,430 hammer price ($413,430 with the BaT buyer's premium) sink in. Classic.com reports that the average price for 67 sales of F1 equipped F430 spiders over the past five years is $124,712, one-third as much as the gated six BaT car.

 

Bill- Funny, too, since they built around 2000 3 pedal F430s at the factory and over 4500 3 pedal 360s.

 

Mine did this at first. Trust me though when I say that there is a MUCH easier solution than the complex cable operated conversion that Art has done (impressive though it is). The closest the shift bar gets to the torque tube is in 6th gear. When in 6th, you can see that the rearmost bolts on the vibration damper blocks (which join the two sections of the shift bar together) can touch the torque tube. I just shaved those bolts down and replaced the nuts with half height nuts. Et voila, problem solved. Never had a peep out of it since.

My view is that the solid shift bar with tight ball joints at either end results in zero play. Add to that it’s inherent stiffness, and it’s as good as you’ll get for a positive connection. It’s also as mechanically simple as you could ask for.


Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat

 

In fairness most who have tried haven't really experienced insurmountable issues to correctly calibrate gated Ferrari's running on cables (like 360's, F430's and so on). Thousands of models from many manufacturers over the decades have proven them to be a tried and tested way to achieve H-gate pattern shifting without much in the way of compromise. They are not without their faults of course, as cables can rust (or you can sleeve and grease them like you find on a bicycle to mitigate this) and they can sometimes stretch too (meaning they need replacement or adjustment, again this can often be mitigated by going up in size, more threads). As long as the cables aren't stretched they are a pretty good inexpensive way to transfer gear shift momentum with low weight and low cost.

Use of rigid bars sounds in principle like a nicer engineering idea but unfortunately they can also be heavier, bulkier and more prone to transmit NVH (noise, vibration and harshness). Yes of course they can be engineered to work, just like cables and yes the weight can be offset (e.g. use of carbon fiber bars for example) and even the pivot points can be made of titanium but as you go further down this road of mitigation the costs grow enormously, sometimes applying KISS (keep things simple) is better and therefore going back to simple cables may be easier after all, lower cost if something does eventually go wrong and easier to both source and repair in the longer term. I like keeping things simple as a general principal of good engineering as thing like this inherently get complicated enough as it is.

Is one better than another? Depends on how well refined either solution is on how fit for purpose it is but I guess the takeaway from this is given enough effort and time either solution can achieve a desired outcome.

 

In the best interests of keeping it simple, you stick with the shift bar.

I get zero vibration, and zero play.

In terms of lightness, I will be astounded if the complex linkage that makes the cables work can be lighter than the aluminium shift bar that Ferrari used.

I'd say its 3-0 to the shift bar.

 

Well your not convincing me. I'm not sure I follow your scoring either!
Of course it really depends on application and how much effort was originally put into the engineering. Its like saying which is better, jam or honey? There are many different jams and many different honey's, not to mention preferences...

If your car never came fitted from factory with a shift bar would you retrofit one? My personal Ferrari never came with one from factory but don't think I'm sitting here at night working on a mastermind plan to convert my 360 to rigid bar..

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't make any real noticeable difference to the quality of the shifting mechanism like for like if both where readily available, working, calibrated correctly and both well engineered. Out of interest anyone know if the best or most famous shifting cars where gated vs bar?
e.g.;

1. Honda NSX (arguably one of the best gated shifters ever)
2. McLaren F1
3. Ferrari F40

Genuinely interested..

I know for certain if I was in 15 years from now trying to fix a shift mechanism that had broken I'd vastly prefer it was simple cables.. Just so easy to repair and source generic parts for. I'd say that's the real reason why cables won the bar vs cable debate on the vast majority of gated cars ever made, that and the automotive industries favorite thing, cost...

 

Those are all mid engined cars.There's kinda another reason that they don't use a shift bar.

The only manual mid-engine car I can think of that uses a solid shift linkage is the GT40, which you'll remember has the gearstick on the outside of the cockpit next to the door.

I'm not saying that you can't get a good shift feel with cables - clearly you can - I'm just saying that the process of converting to cables is at best unnecessary, and easily argued as a retrograde step.

 

This entire thread is about a retrograde step! I'm still not sure the 599 is right for a manual transmission. First of all the car is huge which for me makes the F1 more desirable. Second, this engine was designed for an F1 transmission. Everything I have read about the manuals on the 599 say there is something not natural about the feel of the driving experience. While I love a three pedal car, maybe the 575 is the ultimate?

 

Well the 599 is a GT car, so depending on whether you err towards the sporty side or the touring side, you can debate as to whether an auto or manual would be more appropriate. For me, there is something fun and novel about changing gears on a manual v12. Aint nothing else like it.

As for the 599 not being a great car as a manual, as Trev alluded to, the implementation by Ferrari was half arsed at best. Due to the similarities in the software and hardware used on the earlier V12 cars, it's now entirely possible to make the manual 599 work just as well as a manual 575.

 

Well, I think a manual 599 is great fun.

 

The 599 V12 engine is highly suitable to any transmission type that you'd care to throw at it. It could work even with a dual clutch and arguably one could argue that that's exactly what Ferrari did with later revisions of it.

In your comments you refer to it as a "retrograde step" but that's essentially like saying you think "Red" is the best color and everyone else is an idiot. Some people like Cheese, some like Ham, some like Fine food, some like Fast food. Variety and the differences we like is what makes life interesting! Gearbox chose is nothing different. Some like Gated, some AMT's (automated [robotized] manual transmissions) and some prefer seamless shifting you get with dual clutch application's. All have their own personality. Why just because a manufacturer (in this case Ferrari) didn't make enough gated transmissions of a given model to go around should individuals be lambasted about their preference?

Sure, the application of the gated shifting done by the factory was indeed sub-optimal because as already mentioned it was primarily at the point where Ferrari had "chosen" to begin using F1 as both a marketing and a cost reduction exercise. Cost reduction in terms of less different variants to produce of a given car configuration being required (only F1) and marketing with the idea it was somehow related to Formula 1 (which makes me cringe a bit... ).

The unnatural feeling is entirely down to lack-luster calibration and hardware tuning, IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY!. The factory adaption was done in a rush for very low volume production so very little testing and development was done on it. Can it be improved, you betcha! Dramatically improved. If you factor in that you can also improve responses and performance, a gated converted 599 car can actually be considerably faster than a stock AMT (and that's not to say anything about the extra engagement/fun you get too... but lets just save that for the endless threads on F1 vs Gated done to ad-nausium on here already).

 

I think I'd like to drive one before I put the cash down and tore my car apart.