GTC4Lusso DCT question

Requesting Neutral with the paddles does not get you neutral. The only way to get all the shift forks to a neutral position is opening the hood. Almost all the issues we see with the gearbox are electrical or leaks.

 

really? Is there a good place to read up?

 

The factory Shell oil ( sponsor ) eats the internal solinoid seals ……with time .

Eventually the g box will need dropping , opening up and the seals / solinoid s replacement.
This can now be done .
At first with power warranties Ferrari just replaced the whole unit . All this did is kick the issue into the long grass , further down the road .
A good Indy ( whose aware of the DCT killer ) won’t use Shell g box oil . Ferrari main dealers continue to use Shell .

 

Umm, there is no neutral in a Ferrari DCT gearbox ever. The box is always in two gears at the same time. This is how a DCT gearbox works, by releasing the clutch on one gear while applying the clutch on the next. When you are sitting still with the car and the display reads "N" or "P", the transmission is in 1st and reverse gears at the same time. When you select either one of these gears, the appropriate clutch (even or odd) is applied for that gear. Opening the hood makes no difference to the shift fork position.

 

Thank you very much. I should've read up on this. Interesting stuff.

 

Unfortunately, you are incorrect. We rebuild one of these a month or more and all shift forks revert to neutral if the hood switch is open. All shift fork position sensors will read 1200.
connect your scan tool and confirm it yourself. 1200 is neutral and 400 or 2000 is a gear engaged depending on the direction of the fork. Hood open and car running will result in all the forks going to the 1200 position for safety reasons.

 

Except the Shell Ferrari use .

 

You can select neutral by pulling both paddles

There's no reason to do this though as DCTs aren't built in the same way that the old SMGs (F1 boxes) which were actually a conventional manual transmission being actuated via electrohydraulic robotics and had a conventional clutch/throwout bearing etc.

THAT's the reason why it was better to put the car in neutral in the old F1 boxes, leaving it in gear when stopped ammounted to the same thing as keeping a manual car in 1st and holding the clutch open which added wear to the throwout bearing. What you're doing is saving that bearing, not the actual clutch/flywheel pair.

In an extreme scenario if you are just stopped with the engine running with the clutch depressed (whether it be in an F1 SMG or regular manual transmission) the thing that's wearing is the throwout bearing not the clutch.

In a DCT the clutches are hydraulically actuated so if there's no hydraulic pressure being sent to the clutch, then nothing is forcing the clutches together. Whether the shift forks actually have a gear selected or not doesn't really matter. The clutches in the DCT won't wear any more or less with you in gear or not and there's no throwout bearing to worry about.

It's not a bad idea to put the car into neutral in an F1 car when you get to a long stop or any time where you would put the car into neutral if you were driving an MT car. Even if you don't it's not the worse thing in the world either so long as you're not just sitting there for minutes and minutes. Hell... even if you do that the only thing you're hurting is the throwout bearing which isn't exactly a dfficult or expensive part to replace. In many cases it's something you would replace when you do your clutch anyways.

 

OK nevermind apparently the throwout bearing in the F1 boxes is a ~700 pound part so yeah, put the car in neutral and save it if you can.

 

That's crazy. I have rebuilt 10+ of these gearboxes and never knew that information. It is not in any of the Ferrari factory information that I received at the dealer level or at Ferrari training. How did you discover this? Was someone looking at fork position and had the hood open?

You learn something new everyday
Thanks!

 

This is also not true. When you put an F1 car into neutral at a stop, the clutch does not close, saving the throw-out bearing. It stays open. You can confirm this by looking at the clutch under the car through the inspection port at the bottom of the bell-housing. If you let the car sit running in neutral for a long time, I can't remember if it's 10 or 20 minute, then the clutch will finally close.

 

Motob you are correct

 

Affirmative, clutch is always open on an F1 Ferrari when stopped, regardless of what gear she is in, including neutral. Since the clutch is a constant contact type....

 

oh wow i didn't know that

That seems like such a terrible design

 

It was covered in the factory training I attended.