430 Exhaust tirade

I am relatively new with Ferrari, I cut my teeth driving BMW and Porsche for many years including a significant time on the track. I then decided to try Ferrari as I did not want to go to my grave and not have driven these fantastic cars. So I started with a 348, then soon I got the bug to try the next model and bought a gated 355, I loved the way this car sounded and drove. Of course soon after owning this car I noticed the problem with the headers, mine were cracked. I did replaced the OEM ones with Fabspeed and Tubi set up. I only bought the aftermarket ones due to all that I have read about the headers situation, and not because the sound these make. By now in the story, you know where I am going with this.Sold the 355 and moved to a 2008 F-430. Here to find out out that the headers remain a recurring problem with Ferrari. My fault for not reading up on this issue before the purchase, it was sort of impulsive on my part. Of course the headers were cracked, They needed replacing, but I like originality so decided to upgrade to the MK2 headers and leaving the OEM muffler. I thought that this would be the proper upgrade for my car and sticking with OEM parts from such a prestigious car company would take care of my problem. After reading on this forums many comments on the lower brackets for the exhaust, I decided to check mine. I found that the left bracket not only failed, but it was totally broken. I did not want to go to another set of headers so soon so something needed to be done.

I am a bit disappointed that after all the issues concerning the headers and the brackets and going back a significant number of years and models that Ferrari did not take this issue upon themselves and offered a proper repair. Capristo may be the answer for this, but I can't see paying close to $1000 for a simple bracket to repair something that it is a common failure with these cars. In closing, I have decided to remove them and go without the lower brackets and just use the banjo bracket for support. And just to feel better, I opened the engine compartment of my old Porsche and marveled at the way these cars were engineered. Love the F-430 but I depend on the Porsche for track events.Maybe after some time, I will develop more confidence on these F cars, but it will take a while. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Funny, I already did the upgrade. The tail lights are good to go.

 

Yes, that is exactly what I have done, but this bothers me. I would rather have Ferrari do a proper fix instead of me removing brackets. Just my two cents

 

Headers were replaced recently, so I have the newer version. Thanks for the feedback. Now I have to make sure that they don't get damaged again, so brackets are not going back on. I will reweld them just to have them fixed, but they are going to be stored.

 

I am not able to respond on the engine movement, I really don't know how to tell. Left bracket is broken, I agree with you on a bushing or some sort of spring. I don't want to re-engineer this, so I left them off the car. I saw pictures on this forum for the bracket modification, not sure if I can make these