355 Ferrari F355 Challenge Steering rack

Should be. It’s the same unit you already have, but reflashed by Ferrari (or whoever they use) with a new label slapped on top.



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Thanks.
If you plug that FHP ECU into my regular car, what would it do ?

 

We will soon find out. I purchased the last one they had on the shelf. Will be able to test back to back on my 1995 car, as will Ken. I changed to the fiorano spec springs as well so it should be a noticeable difference and compliment the upgrade. I also want to try the fiorano ecu on my friends stock 98.

 

That’s the million dollar question . It has a whole new map for how to adjust your dampers based on the situation your car is in. Your current ECU does as well, but I’m going to assume the FHP ECU has a more finely tuned map (from more years of experience with the 355) that will adjust the damper settings to where they need to be for higher performance. Much like an engine management ECU. There’s a standard baseline one for the masses that perhaps leaves some performance on the table… and there’s the after-market route, which squeezes a bit more performance out of the engine. The difference with a shock ecu is you’re not concerned about blowing up your shocks .

Obviously, the FHP ECU mapping is designed with stiffer FHP springs and roll bars in mind. Expect more aggressive settings when the car is turning up. Even with current springs/roll bars you have now. Not too sure about low speed driving.

The Bilstein shocks on our cars are very capable assuming the shocks still have good oil in them and isn’t leaking. It has all the range of softness and hardness you need. The fact the ECU settings never puts them at full hard or full soft in any scenario confirms that. The only thing it doesn’t do is adjust rebound and bump (compression) settings independently, which is a feature of high-end shocks. The oil flow per damping setting is the same for the shock going up and down (per shock valve setting). BUT… with active damping, if mapped properly, could potentially provide better results than being able to adjust rebound/bump independently.

We have sensors in front of cars that monitor speed, braking, lateral speed, vertical speed etc…It knows when the car is cornering left or right and at what speeds, what road conditions etcc. There’s a damper setting for every situation. EACH damper (4 corners) can be adjusted separately in a given scenario. Can’t do that with non-active. It’s arguably cheating.

The obvious limitation here is there is only 1 map for the ECU and you can’t keep tuning it as you make certain changes to the car. The car… at least suspension and height-wise should be set close to the settings Ferrari used when developing a FHP map to get the most out of it. How good the map is depends on how much time Ferrari spent adjusting to find the best settings for various situations. I’m assuming they adjusted for more comfortability in normal driving settings and more grip and feel when turning up.

Having said all that, only way to truly know what is does is to install it and see what it does . You can consider everything I just wrote hype… for now.

 

Thanks Ken and Elliot for the feedback and what y’all are doing. I ran my 98 Berlinetta F1 up some long sweepers in the NC mountains yesterday at a fast clip trying to beat the rain. The car is a dream on throttle in the 6k+ rev range going uphill on these sweepers. The steering definitely loads up better in this scenario and gets progressively better.

Ive been wanting to do the work you’ve been describing.

parts needed ?

springs
ECU
Roll bars
Steering rack

 

…if only sourcing these parts were realistic.

 

2000 lb is correct. Were you thinking S1 Elise?

 

Actually. I have my numbers mixed up. I have 800 kgs in my head, but I keeping thinking that’s where I started instead of where I ended up. My car was around 800 ish kgs. Stock is about 875 kgs. There was a dry carbon hatch that weighed like 5-7 lbs I didn’t include in the sale. I also did shaving of the fiberglass claims along with carbon roof along with a bunch of other mods. Every modified piece was super light.

 

Unfortunately, my standard springs are already off the car, so I won't be able to try the FHP ECU with standard springs. I might try them with OE FHP springs, but that requires me to go through some experimenting I'm not sure I have time to go through. My initial goal was to try them with Delta Vee's Fiorano Handling Pack setup.

 

You took shaving weight literally, wow! But even with that and the carbon pieces, 75 kg is a massive reduction on a Lotus with full stock interior. Where did it all go? After exhaust and battery, most items just save a pound or two.

 

The front and rear clams are made of thick chopper gun fiberglass. You can knock down quite some weight shaving/sanding it thinner from the inside. Stock diffuser and mesh have some weight to it. Maybe 30 lbs. My dry carbon diffuser weighed like 5 lbs (maybe less). Stock wing weighs maybe 15 lbs. Benetec dry carbon wing weighed about 5 lbs. Stock hatch weighs about 35 lbs. MT Draco Dry Carbon hatch weighed about 5 lbs. Stock roof feels like it’s 40lbs. Carbon version was about 5 lbs. Light-weight wheels, titanium lug nuts, AP racing brakes with light-weight 2 piece rotors. Light-weight Ohlins TTX with Hypercos. ITG dry carbon intake. DRS 321 SS headers no cats. Titanium Arqray muffler. Light-weight battery. Light-weight carbon mirrors. Clutch/light-weight flywheel. Aluminum radiator. Carbon fiber front lip along with misc carbon body panels painted white.


I pretty much tried to model my car after the TiRacing Exige. Even went to Japan to go over the car with them. I also had a set of rare SSR wheels that were a few lbs lighter than the Toybox Hethels.

There’s not much in the interior to begin with. Airbag steering wheel is out. Inokinetic shifter. Outside of changing seats and windows to Lexan, there was nothing left for me to do.






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Never should’ve sold the car lol.
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I can see why you still take pride in this long after selling. Will PM to chat more.

 

… exactly why we need a quick steering rack .

 

The LAST quick challenge steering rack is still available to purchase in Japan. Should be about $6k shipped. It will probably need a rebuild as well.

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/m354701733


The best thing to do for all interested parties is to pitch in to buy the unit. Ship it to the U.S so we at least have it in our possession. Send it off to @yelcab to take apart. Send off the rack and pinion to a company qualified to re-produce them to exact specs. This way there is no second-guesssing what the challenge/fiorano specs are.


Once those are made, we can each purchase some of these used racks on Ebay for a few hundred bucks, have Mitch rebuild them and set them to the side when you’re ready to install.

We can also sell the original rack to whoever wants to buy it and reclaim some of the initial investment. I’m sure a properly rebuilt original Fiorano spec unit will command at least $4k.

Thoughts?

 

Wait, did I just get volunteered to do something ?

 

Of course . Might be a nice revenue stream for you, but of course, it's all up to you.

 

Tell you what, you spend $6K on that steering rack from Japan and I'll strip it down for you. And I will tell you right now, swapping a new rack into your 355 is not for the faint of heart. There may be five of us on here that have done it. The rest, they paid someone to do it.

 

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/f355-steering-rack-removal-and-replacement.397983/

“Challenge rack is quicker but still has somewhat vague feel. Lock to lock with the stock rack is @3.25 turns and Challenge is @2.75 lock to lock 15-20% quicker. I think you can find them but I don't know how readily available. Don't know how long it took, but it's a tight fit, many things have to be moved out of the way. He only works on Ferrari, Lambo etc and he said it was a major pain. Have not had it on a track since I installed it last summer so can't give a good evaluation of the upgrade. Notice some difference in streetdriving but not as much as you might have in a track situation. I wanted to add a adjustablevalve to vary the line pressure so steering has a better feel, but after installing rack, mechanic didn't want to deal with it at that time since all new lines had to be made and valve would have to be installed in front trunk etc.”

 

That's what I got ...

 

Doesn't putting a smaller diameter steering wheel on a car accomplish basically the same thing as a rack with fewer turns lock to lock? i.e. your hands have to travel less distance to steer the car.

 

It does indeed. But you get even more steering response with after-market steering wheel + quick steering . Most might not want an after-market steering wheel, but that is the quick solution.

It's certainly a ton of effort and money for what might be a small perceived gain. It's probably the last mod I'd do, but at the moment there's an opportunity to buy a quick steering rack already off a car. They come up for sale once every 5-10 years. I'd just want to do it to keep a unit on the side when I am ready versus trying to find the damn thing come time to do it. It's one of those things... when you want to do it, you'll never find it, hence you'll never end up doing it.

@Yassa ended up selling is NOS steering rack for $3k because he changed his mind about doing it a few years ago. NOW he wants to do it. Guess what? No parts to buy.

 

I'm sure I'll find a rack at some point, till then the stock rack is just fine for my needs tbh. Although letting go of that at 3k was a steal.. What was I thinking lol