575M - F1 to Gated 6 Manual Conversion

Hi Dan, welcome to F-chat and congratulations on your purchase! I got my first Ferrari just last month, a 550, and in that short time have been grateful to receive tons of support and advice from members on here.

I was in a similar situation as you, my 550 had some service records but nothing documented for belts since 2013. I negotiated and purchased it with the assumption to immediately need a minimum $5k service. I ended up getting very lucky and found out the car actually had an extensive major belt service just 3 years ago and was only driven 100 miles since I got it. So all I needed was a simple annual service to refresh fluids and was ready to go.

I don't think there's any reason to be afraid of cars with questionable service history as long as you've done the research and understand the potential costs if things go bad.

I would suggest for the service records to look through the previous registered locations of the car, maybe on carfax, and try calling the local ferrari dealerships if they have anything?

Look forward to following your experiences.
Lastly, we need pics or it didn't happen!

 

I’m EXTREMELY excited for you and to hear about the process.

Regarding maintenance history....They always say buy the best documented car but for one with “driver” miles (say over 20k) I’m of the mind it doesn’t matter....just have EAG or your mechanic tackle all the “normal” stuff (timing belt/water pump) and the while you are in there’s while you do the conversion and then if you do ever sell you will have a monster invoice proving out your maintenance baseline investment.

One thing that you might consider as you start out and I don’t think is too expensive is the “never droop” visor tweak/upgrade that Dave @ferraridriver does. He has done a bunch and it sounds like that’s one thing that breaks for everyone eventually.

Since you got a 575 you shouldn’t have many of the “evolutionary” needs that the 550 can benefit from.

I also don’t recall if you told us what area you are in (I’m from Iowa originally) and when my wife went back to school and we were back home I ran NASA races (in my turbo ‘00 Miata) at Road America, Blackhawk, Mid-America, Autobahn country club and others...the Midwest really spoils us @NE550

Thanks so much for sharing your adventure with us.

For those that hadnt followed the other threads this is the car Dan bought....maybe as good a deal as that which @SteveVT got during the last year....both sexy black cars.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2003-ferrari-575-maranello-19/

 

We might not have curvy roads in the Midwest but within a few hours of Chi-town, so many great race tracks!

 

Love the wheels and daytona seats!

 

Dan- Great stuff! Congrats on taking the plunge on the F1 conversion - definitely excited to learn more!

Like you, I purchased a nero 575m F1 on BaT with pretty limited service records. I did some digging was not able to reconstruct too much. The F-car dealer where the car was purchased was not super forthcoming, but I was able to get some info out of one of the shops. I also tracked down the previous owner, but he was not super helpful either.

I bought my car knowing full well that it would need a major - very much priced in to the purchase. In addition, when the car arrived, my mechanic spotted a few additional that needed to be addressed. In my car's case, we needed to replace the lower control arm bushings, a couple of ball joints and the front shock absorber mount. I am hoping to get the car back in the next two weeks and will share more soon.

 

Congrats on the new car!

If you're going through all the major maintenance and converting to manual I HIGHLY suggest swapping out the 575M exhaust manifolds for 550. Your shop should be able to add the o2 bungs to the manifolds and post-cats. Will pick up a significant amount of power (50hp+) and allow easy access to replace the engine mounts.

 

You must not be looking in the right place. WI and MN have many options. St. Croix and Mississippi river valleys - just to name a few areas...

 

Yeah, that's it.

Here's the 550/575M comparo with heat shields on:

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I grew up in central iowa (Ames) which has next to nothing “fun road wise”.....I left the Midwest in 1999 and came to NorCal in 2001 and will readily admit I’m very spoiled for public roads within 15 miles of my place in the Santa Cruz mountains.....and then I’m a little closer to Laguna Seca Vs Sears Point... so it’s hard to complain.....

many of the Midwestern tracks have very generous runoff which also saved my bacon on more than one instance (had some good spin/offs at Blackhawk and Mid-America).

 

Good luck sleeping the next few days!

 

Congrats on your new 575, looks amazing! I have the exact same Cuoio w/ black inserts Daytona seats in my 550. They really set off the interior.

Were it mine, think I'd leave the F1 intact for awhile, see how I like it. As @whiteout says, a properly serviced/calibrated F1, once you learn how to properly drive it, has its own charms and advantages and is no problem (contrary to a lot prevailing negative opinions on the F1 system). I'd spend the money of a full Fabio F. exhaust system, which would gain you at least +80 HP and, when combined with the F1 gearbox, the acceleration is fricking brutal, with lightning fast hard upshifts. Having ridden in Fabio's personal F1 575 with this setup, it is really something to experience. Near-599 performance by my butt dyno.

Anyway, good luck with the manual conversion, congrats and enjoy!

 

Absolutely beautiful car and I'm looking forward to hearing how the conversion goes. Seems like they're getting the process quite dialed in at the moment and I know it's going to be a fun ride!

 

I love how the performance increase estimates for fabio’s 6-1 headers keep going up! 80 bhp sounds a little fanciful. They sure sound amazing though- worth the price of admission on its own.


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I don't doubt it at all. The 550 manifolds are an easy 50hp+ over 575M manifolds. My car dropped a half second 60-130mph after the 550 manifolds, that is a massive power gain.

 

Hi Dan, congratulations!
Just as an additional data point to add to this informative thread, did you consider Wil and Sandy De Groot's (@SandydeG) shop in NJ? If I am not mistaken they have done a successful 575 conversion and now a 599 conversion as well (@Qksilver). They seem to have good customer reviews.

 

Exoticars have done two 575 conversions now. You'd have to go far to find a more stand-up guy to deal with than Wil as well.

 

Note there may be some misunderstanding on Fabio's headers and cold starts. Cold start is smooth and normal. Later in the warm-up, there is a little hunting as she finalizes the fuel-air mixture, but that only lasts a few seconds and then she smooths out again. Nothing to worry about.

 

I currently have the cold start 'hunt' for 10-20 seconds as I put the primary o2 sensors in a single runner. I am going to move the primary o2 to the collectors and see if that makes a difference.
No tune.