Nice! It's great to see you enjoying your Ferrari at speed.
Hi Pete, I have a 1995 F355 Challenge that never had the support modification. There were cracks like yours on the driver's side. There were no cracks on the passenger side. Currently my shop is welding the cracks and fabricating Challenge reinforcement plates. Barry Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Barry, The real problem is that the 355 is just too flexible. The challenge plates are really just a lame bandaid that kicks the can down the road. If you are purely tracking your 355 I would start with a proper cage. The 355C cage is quite a POS! Then you can stiffen the chassis with properly placed tubes that will support the front end of the chassis down to the shock mounts. You know it is done right when you take a first drive and find the car undrivable and you need to go back to square one on set-up.
We're starting with this right now, FBB. As you can see, the plates being fabricated are 3 mm thickness steel and differ a bit from the Challenge plates as illustrated in the Ferrari Challenge manual. They should yield stronger mounts when welded into place. My car has the Challenge springs it raced with in the 1995 and 1996 North American Challenge Series. The car was due for a four-wheel alignment and I asked my shop to go over the suspension carefully. That's how this hairline crack was picked up. My car was raced extensively from 1995 - 2002 and used in DE events for the past ten years. But we'll be looking for ways to stiffen and support the front end of the chassis as you suggest. What's being done now in a good, and necessary, start. Barry
I won't be racing, FBB. Just doing DE events. The car is street-legal so the inner door panels have been reinstalled. The original Challenge roll cage is still there which did its job well years ago when the car wound up on its roof. Please let me know some ideas you might have about stiffening the front end of the chassis. Barry Image Unavailable, Please Login
Looks good, did you cut the old supports out or did these plates get added to the existing supports? I plan to do similar if cracking appears again on mine.
The sides of the old supports were cut as specified in the 1996 Ferrari F355 Challenge Regulation Manual. You can see the cut-outs in these pictures of the driver's side mount. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Rather than weld the cracks, the section of cracked sheet metal was removed along the black outline (the cracks are indicated by the two heavy black lines), and a new piece was welded in prior to welding in the new supports. Again, you can see where the sides of the original supports were cut to allow for the addition of the new 3.0 mm support effectively making the support 4.5 mm thick in most areas. These are the 2200 lb front springs which were installed in 1995. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Do you think you could scan that portion and post it up - maybe in a new thread along with your fix? It might be useful to those with 348's and '95 355's if they have similar cracking issues.
Here's the information which appears in the 1996 manual... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Before and after... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
From above... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
