I swapped cars for a bit and drove my friend's F430 spider and he took the Stradale. OH .... MY ..... GAWD! I simply cannot believe that the sound comes from a stock exhaust ... it's insane ... totally intoxicating. Throttle response is superb... but that SOUND! Differences in performance between it and the Stradale are very minor... but the F430 does it without the "urgency" of the Stradale. The F430 is an incredible machine. I'm very much looking forward to "the call" when FoS *finally* gets the next allocation of a 6sp coupe......
Very curious. I have yet to drive a 430 but as I am on the list it would be nice to know what I am in for? Is it as tight as our Stradale's? Mike
It is not as tight, not as raw -- but seemingly just as capable (though I haven't taken either car to the track). Not a huge difference between the two. BIG difference between the stock 360 and F430 though. Like the 360, the F430 is a *****cat to drive, very comfortable and adept.
oh I disagree - they are very different animals - the F430 is insanely fast with such ease that it requires a lot of respect - the car accelerates with such smoothness compared to the CS ... - pushing the F430 engine in a legal range (sort of not to go to prison) on normal roads is almost impossible the problem is that the show with the F430 starts when you go through the gears and shift at red line - the gearbox somehow changes how it shifts under WOT at 8500rpm in race mode - hard to explain but the gear change is so fast that one does not feel any torque interruption but at the same time the car starts to go like stink again after the gear change - addictive I have my car lowered by 1" but it still shows too much body roll and body movement under braking / acceleration - natural reaction is to back off; so i the end I believe that I would be faster in a CS on a twisty track - push the F430 to the limit causes a little sweat on my forehead and slightly shaking hands; there is little to tell you how super fast you are going until you have to get rid of the speed or you glance in your rear view mirror and see an empty road the CS compared to the F430 is a precision tool - point and shoot - I simply wish they would have put the F430 engine and drive train into the CS package (well not the 10milse/gallon I get out of the F430 on average) - too many compromises in the F430 suspension and handling how would I compare the F430 vs CS .... you are dating the newest hotty in your neighborhood but you still remembering your old girlfriend you partied with all the time and she did some things nobody did before/again - the CS is a very special car; the F430 is refined to a point that it looses its identity having said that there is still that F430 exhaust ....
Im surprised to hear that the 430 exhaust is that much better.. When the CS opens up...its loud and wild! But I would think that the 430 would just be a great car for the torque. I did unplug the CS backpressure hoses from the CS exhaust. What this does is open up the bypass for the entire rev range. Its my cheap way of turning my CS into more of a beast
Thomas: Don't really disagree with anything you say. Although I do believe that the F430 has not lost its identity through too much refinement -- I think it represents the epitome of balance between a track car and something that you can live with and drive easily every day. I should point out that I was comparing an F1 to a 6sp, and a coupe to a spider. With the top down, obviously it's going to sound quite a bit better than the coupe -- how much, I don't know. The CS in "race" mode does awesome upshifts at WOT and yes, it uses a different "map" for many of the parameters concerned in a shift. It's down right scary holding WOT from a 2nd to 3rd upshift, because of the speeds that that shift then happens at, and then it's right in the power band to very quickly charge to 100mph and beyond. I think I'm probably much more conservative in the same scenario with my old 6sp-- backing off the throttle, changing and then squeezing the power back on. The F1 does it so much faster and more aggressively, minimizing any throttle down-time, that the difference is amazing -- with the F1 you just mash the throttle to the floor, click a paddle, and then hang-on for dear life!
Me too. I've been "next in line" at FoS for over 5 months now. I don't understand why the factory is allocating so few 6sp ... you'd think that they'd want to help out the enthusiasts... maybe we're just Luddites... I don't know whether my old 360 was just a poor example of a 6sp -- but 6sp in the F430 was a definite improvement. The 360's was fabulous, don't get me wrong .. but the F430 just changed smoother ... like the cogs were made of silk.
That's interesting...I'd have to say the gearchange in my '04 360 was identical to my F430. Both super slick. Gary
As I say, they could be identical from the factory point-of-view, and comparing one example to another is hardly gaining emperical data to support it, but there was a very noticable improvement from the one example to the other.
different engine and different firing order (determines how the exhaust pulses from each of the cylinder banks are combined) between CS and F430 - completely different sound they also changed the way the bypass works in the F430 - it basically opens when you accelerate, i.e. step on the throttle and it closes when the car stops accelerating or you go off the throttle (noise measurements for certification are done at constant speed passing a microphone )- with the CS the bypass opens above 3K RPM in race and 5K RPM in sport mode and somehow delayed net net in the F430 every time you step on the throttle the bypass is opened and the exhaust goes straight out - no muffler - very noisy besides that it makes sense disconnecting the bypass valves to keep them open sounds to "broken exhaust" to me
