Project-Scuderia

Yes, I have already removed it.

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Here's the driver's floorboard and rubber pad, cleaned and treated, with new Titanium screws installed.

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Driver's floorboard installed with new Ti fasteners.

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More of the interior installed, with new Ti hardware on the floorboard, center consoles, and door sill.

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Ti fasteners can become addictive best upgrade you can do period ! I want to use these for carbon fiber engine bay covers, They only make 6mm thinking maybe have custom make in 5mm ?

 

More Ti fasteners on the passenger's floorboard, center consoles, and battery box cover.

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New Ti hardware on the pedal box cover panel.

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New Ti fasteners on the seats, including the trim covers, the cross bars, the height adjustments, and the floor bolts. Of all the OEM steel bolts removed from the interior, about half the total weight came out of the seats, because of the number of large M8 bolts used on the seats. Most of the remaining fasteners in the interior are small M5 bolts. In order to reach the bolts on the inboard side of each seat, the seats needed to come out of the car.

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Here's all the OEM steel hardware that came out of the cockpit. It weighed in at 0.620 kg/1.37 lb. The savings was 0.265 kg/0.58 lbs, which is 43%.

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That wraps up the Ti hardware upgrades for this cycle. All told, the weight savings was 2.420 kg/5.33 lb throughout the car. The total count was about 600 new Ti parts, which included some optional kits on top of the base kit. The total cost was $2500.00, which works out to a bit better than $500 per pound of savings. This was not the most cost efficient weight loss effort on Project Scuderia, but not the least either. The added benefits include far better corrosion resistance, and a higher quality finish on the hardware than the OEM fasteners.

Another nice thing about this upgrade, was that it was literally a "bolt-on" upgrade, suitable for any shadetree mechanic, although you'll want to keep a tap & die set handy when removing the OEM hardware; not all the bolts were installed with care. The professional installation labor cost was zero.

Speaking of shadetree mechanics, the next installment is definitely NOT for those not mechanically-inclined or faint of heart. Coming up: Composite Front Hood!

 

RBM you could consider removing those height adjustable seat bases and using the runners directly on the seat, or some standard runners. From memory those parts are heavy.

2.4kg from fastenings is impressive.

 

The next phase is to upgrade the OEM aluminum hood with a composite hood.

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Each time I pull the seats out, I look at that, because those seat brackets are heavy gauge aluminum, and definitely overbuilt. The problem is that not only are the driver and passenger brackets different, the seat bases are different too. The mounting points for the driver seat base are on the sides, while the mounting points for the passenger seat base are on the bottom. For some reason, Ferrari did not put mounting points in both locations, and make the seat base a dual-use part. So, there's no easy solution.

A couple of options are to: 1) fabricate a custom bracket for the driver's seat optimized by CAE for a lighter weight; or 2) for someone tall like me, buy a RHD market OEM passenger seat and OEM bracket. The passenger seat actually offers more headroom than the driver seat, because it is 'bottomed out' by design. This option sacrifices the option to add lift or rake to the seating position.

 

Unless you plan on crash testing the seat modifications, I recommend leaving the seats alone. Seat frames are an important safety item and are engineered to withstand the deceleration and impact forces with an occupant belted into them.
You might consider FIA approved racing seats if you are looking for weight savings.

 

I removed the hood to establish a baseline weight, and to have unrestricted access to all parts of the hood for measurements. I set the OEM and new hoods on side-by-side platforms so that I could easily compare and measure features.

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The OEM aluminum hood weighs 6.860 kg/15.13 lb. I stripped the hinges, latch, and hardware off the hood, but left the windshield washer nozzles and hoses in place.

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When I was looking for a CF F430 front hood, there was very little to choose from on the market. I sourced a composite hood with a CF laminate for a 360 Challenge from R-Tuned, a FerrariChat sponsor. There are three significant differences between an F430 Scuderia and a 360 Challenge, when it comes to the hood. The first is that the 360 Challenge hood has a NACA duct. I ordered the hood with the NACA duct deleted, but the vendor's interpretation of that came as a surprise to me upon delivery. The second difference is that the hood was designed for a RHD car, which affects the fresh air ducting in the hood. The third difference is the hood latch release, which changed from the 360 to the F430, and required two modifications to the underside of the hood, which can be seen in this photo.

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One of the easiest and most cost effective weight savings right here. I replaced my OEM Daytona seats with Sparco race seats. Total saving of just under 40kgs.


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If your path leads you to build a race car, then the easiest and most cost effective way is to sell your F430 and buy a F430 Challenge Car. You'll end up with money in your pocket, an F430 that is about as light as it can get, and it will already have a race seat.

 

I agree with the recommendation to use the OEM seats. They are as good as you can find for this application. The seat rails are another story. There's definitely room for improvement there, more so on the driver's side. Crash testing for a single component is overkill, especially for a component inside the passenger safety cell. In the twenty-first century, we (mechanical engineers) use computer modeling & simulation as part of the CAD/CAE process for automotive product development.

 

Except a challenge car is not road legal. I use my car for track days and tours so the best route is to take an F430 and, as Colin Chapman always said, “add lightness”.


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With the latch removed, the oval-shaped hole beneath the latch is visible. The squarish indentation to the left of the latch location is F430-specific, to allow clearance for the latch release lever actuation. The R-Tuned composite hod did not have either of these features.

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I had to modify the new composite hood to account for all the differences noted above. Here's the template for the hood latch indentation.

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who´s the manufacture on the hood?