Blast from the past re: rear suspension

I thought the documentation I have seen had spring rates on the 360 and 430 road cars the same.

 

Guys the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Original road 360 used 182408 and 173851.

Road 430 used 190677.

Then, 190677 was listed as replacement for the 360 also meaning that the later 360 and subsequent replacements used 190677 the same as the 430.

I don't know the spring rates on these road cars.

On the Challenge cars the 430 used 181421 with a spring rate of 0,0424 mm/kg
The 360 CH used EITHER 181421 (0,0424 mm/kg) or 181422 (0,0344 mm/kg) as an alternative.

So I'm sure some of the 430 CH guys must have had a go at a set of 181422 to see what the difference was.

<interesting fact somewhat relevant - the 360 CS road car used the same shocks on the front as the 360 Modena but different rears.>

Summary - it appears to be the rear of the car where the tuning seems to have taken place.

 

Interesting post...
I remember when I first bought my car 12 years ago in brand new condition it felt unpredictable at the back... It had a tendency to oversteer with little or no signs and warnings... It made it a little scary to drive at the limit...
Over the years I got to know the car better...
But most important of all, I feel that the rear springs/shocks got softer and the car became more progressive, easier and more friendly to drive at the limit...
I rebuilt the front shocks because they were leaking and allowed the front feels to touch the front fenders...
I haven't done anything to the rear suspension, but I like the handling now much better...
Of course every time I get in the ASR is turned OFF

 

Also the ARBs. The early Modena's (up to 2000) used a different part so Ferrari we're still playing with the handling during the production run.
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The two cars are really similar to be honest - the chassis setup can be dialled to taste with caster, camber, damping and rebound and roll resistance to the extent that the car can be completely changed.

Non Ferrari related but related in principle I recently swapped my 991 GTS for a 991 GT3 for this very reason - the two cars share a platform, really, but the GTS has softer joints and rubber top mounts etc where the GT3 has spherical bearings. The GT3 can therefore run a ton more camber on the front which means you can run the Sport Cup 2's on there happily whereas on the GTS you're stuck with lesser rubber. Those little tiny changes completely alter the feel of the car from wooden and lifeless to an absolute diamond. Amazing how such little changes can literally transform a car. (And before you ask yes I did think about doing the mods to the GTS but with the 360 in pieces I decided I didn't need another spanner project!!!)

(Actually I made a bit of a nuisance of myself on the Rennlist forum about that - I don't think they liked me explaining why the GTS was a bit of a barge... ooooops. hehehehe)

 

There are actually varied and many reasons why the 360 was called 'tail happy' by some parts of the motoring press and privateers alike. When driven hard some cars really could slip into massive oversteer moments quicker than most people&#8217;s ability to catch the slide! There was a lot of compromises made in the suspension set up in a quest to try to please all of the people all of the time which is quite frankly a fool's errand in my mind.
I&#8217;ve done a lot of research and testing over the past decade on the F131 chassis of different geo settings, ride height rates and effect of different parts on how the 360 performs.

Here&#8217;s my top reasons&#8230;

&#8216;Millennium&#8217; Era Tires
By today's standards millennium spec tires are way below par. Couple that with rather thin section tires with often with poor inflation rates [no tyre pressure monitoring back then] and very old (wooden feeling) tyres being used from cold, you have many of the ingredients for a big slide, especially with less electronical nannies that used to be fitted. The breakaway point is faster on old tires from grip, grip, grip to nothing with less feeling than say with modern tires like Michelin Pilot Super Sports. This can easily be rectified by upgrading wheels/tires.


Suspension Spring Rates, Rollbars & Suspension Setup
As a compromise to ride comfort and noise, too softly sprung suspension all around, so when pushed hard it can unsettle the cars inherent balance and alter geo settings into an out of a corner (especially toe!) for unintended directional changes. Again spring rates can be altered by changing springs (which is exactly what Ferrari did for the CS edition).
Lack of negative camber dialled into the factory geometry settings. The more negative camber the better the cornering grip (to a point) but the worse tire wear is in the inner edges, a decision that favoured longer tire wear rates and less road noise played a more important role here vs outright performance.
Rear anti roll bar rate was too soft in proportion to the front rate. This was a major factor in the polar movement and how the car behaved on the ragged edges. This was to try to let people know how much/hard they where pushing the car but all it did was make the car more unruly on the limit. If you want to resolve a lot of the tendancy to snap oversteer on the 360 you need to pay strong attention to the rear toe settings (see the excel suspension setup sheet I published a few yeara ago)


Corner Weighting that just didn&#8217;t happen
If you take away all the electrical nannies from a modern car (I.e. turn them off assuming you can) then the ability for the car to be controlled confidently around corners at high rates of speed all comes from the natural chassis setup and weight balance. A lot of this poor weight balance of a car can be tuned if you can adjust this at design time (by moving heavy components like batteries to the best positions for weight transfer and ideally not at extremities of the wheelbase).
When we look at the 360, too high a ride height coupled with the fact that both the dealers and Ferrari basically didn't just bother to use the equipment to setup ride height and geo out of the door for the majority of cars. Hardly surprising since most customers simply didn&#8217;t complain or drive the cars hard enough or frequent the tracks but they would complain if they couldn&#8217;t navigate a speed hump or steep driveway.. Technically they could have done setup balance for every car to account for the weight of the options selected on a per car basis to make the handling better but they just didn&#8217;t have customers demanding it.


Ride Height and Performance Vs Comfort
When adjusting ride height and corner weighting balance the rake of the suspension also plays quite a leading role too, especially for hard corner braking. The perception was most people didn't take them to the track so dealers didn't care and neither did Ferrari. Any case that would be done in due course by the FHP (Fiorino Handling Pack) upgrade which actually ended up morphing into the Challenge Stradale as we now know it.
The Very softly suspended engine mounts, gearbox mounts and flanbloc rubber bushing for a less harsh ride and less engine vibration entering the cockpit. This was to make the 360 feel more luxurious at the cost of cornering and handling feel. Even the CS didn&#8217;t get all of those upgrades, some like the gearbox upgraded mount only found themselves present on either the Challenge cars or 430 Scuderia.


Electronic Safety Nets
Most of the modern electronics safety nets to keep people safe from themselves are present on the F430 and onwards but less so on the 360 era cars. The 360 did not have ESP (it ONLY missed a cheap steering angle sensor!) and had to make do with only estimation and Anti-Slip Reduction (a crude form of traction control) using a pair of electronic gyroscopes to estimate steering angle. I always questioned WHY they didn&#8217;t put a steering angle sensor in the 360, since Bosch offered it back then already, guess they wanted to hold something back for the facelift [F430&#8230;] or Bosch charged too much!
Of course the F430 also had a E-Diff vs 360 with a mechanical differential. This helped to pull the car out of the corners with the more torque laden engine of the 430.

Summary
Almost ALL of this was actually deliberate to appeal to the new car buyers tastes (apart from item 1), Enzo would have hated all of this!!!
In the end it was a combination of product market target customers, costs/time, ride quality, practicality, dealer prep vs peoples intended use that conspired to make it how it feels out of the gate.
The fact the car was designed and developed in the 90's before electronics played a more prominent role in saving people from themselves isn&#8217;t actually the problem, it&#8217;s the Frankenstein apposing roles the car tried to play (e.g. press photos from the day showing it could fit golf clubs behind the seats&#8230; whhhat&#8230 and the fact that people like Britney Spears owned one!
The great thing for 360 owners is that Ferrari actually corrected all of these wrongs in the Challenge Stradale setup, it&#8217;s the perfect blueprint to making the car feel better and drive better on the road. I&#8217;ve written reams about how to improve the handling on the 360 so I won&#8217;t repeat the actual details here again.

 

Trev re the engine and box mounts im drawing a blank finding a difference between the cars on the large upper gearbox bush 186698 and smaller lower one. Got the engine mounts covered but I can't find the data on the box ones? Can you help? ThanKs J