360 The AutoCar Modena, looking back.

Each time a post with spatial seperation between paragraphs larger than 1mm will makes me think that my China internet has blocked graphic contents in between

and um.... yea, I'd really like to know what's the setup of that modena.

As tested, my Modena's quarter mile = 14.9 seconds. And it is a euro car, lighter than the US version

 

As I've posted in a number of different threads now, not all 360's are built "equal" and the best blue printed engines, best cam timed, lowest weight examples are quite significantly different in performance.

The weight of options are often overlooked but it makes a significant impact to performance. Get the lowest weight options spec'd and that included a large number of the options that eventually became fitted as standard to the CS, so carbon engine bay panels, carbon air box lids (similar to those fitted to CS but with a fitment to allow regular sized AFM's), sports exhaust, carbon race seats, etc. etc. Its the equivalent of adding hp but at every point in the rev range. So get the right option's spec'd and you'll have a better performing car to begin with. Its also worth noting that some market segments didn't require or in fact have any "cats" fitted back in '99, no main or header cats, nothing! Literally no emissions kit whatsoever. Was it a "non-cat" version tested!? That would also increase hp by around 25-30hp and also lower weight.

Step forward cars which where destined for UAE. They had "hollow" cats, exactly like what was fitted to the 360 Challenge race car. So they sounded WAY louder than a normal car and where holomogated for normal road use, must have sounded insane on the roads back then. A stock Challenge car with a valveless free flowing backbox (not too dissimilar to a valved optional sports exhaust) officially made something in the region of 420hp. I'd expect a good spec'd UAE car with a "good" engine to be of similar performance to a CS.

And if you consider that a stock CS (data pulled from the official Ferrari workshop manual's) posted;

0 to 100 km/h: 4.1 sec (0-60 mph)
0 to 400 m: 12.1 sec (1/4 mile)

Then its absolutely possible yes...

Blame badly chosen specs (e.g. daytona electric seats, premium stereo, etc.) and legal regulations like noise and tailpipe emissions for blunting most cars performance.

Can you achieve better than CS performance today ? Absolutely yes...

 

... I also recall reading about a 430 Scuderia that was tested by a magazine (may have actually been Autocar too) and its tires where so "super sticky" that when they put it onto the rolling road it literally melted them into the dyno... lol.. obviously not stock tires so in years gone by some things where done to inflate (excuse the pun) the performance of their test reports

 

Well if you eliminate the weight thing from the equation, and if it sounded VERY loud then I consider that the car was probably one without cats, the catless core cats look identical. That's the only way you'd get such a hike in power and sound. A remap could make it louder at different rpm points and pedal positions but it would not make a stock Modena sound like a CS unless either the backbox had no sound-deading inside it (a prototype backbox perhaps?) or the car had no cats..

 

Were you carrying bowling balls in the frunk or something?

 

Ferrari press cars were often fitted with much lower than production gearing to improve acceleration times for road tests. These ringers had gear ratios nowhere near what came on production models. A well-documented example is the early California Road and Track tested and for which they published all the gear ratios. Here is the test and you can compare it to what was actually produced. Needless to say, stock Californias did not accelerate this quickly.


From the OM:
1 = 2.822
2 = 2.053
3 = 1.379
4 = 1.091
5 = 0.966
6 = 0.788
7 = 0.651
R = 2.368
4.444 rear axle

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no. and I weigh 174 lbs myself.

 

you actually inspired me.
if I want to sacrafice top speed for accleeration,
what kind of acceleration am I going to be looking at if my top speed is only 240km/h for the 360?
or, what best time can I achieve in 1/4 mile sprint if the only mod I can do is the final drive?

 

Preproduction Ferraris in the olden days were taken back to the factory, brought up to production standards, and sold through friends of the factory dealers in Italy. That is what happened to the three preproduction 575Ms (123761, 123764, and 123765), so something similar might have happened to the 360, too.

 

Something is very wrong with your car if it runs 14.9s in the 1/4 mile.

It's likely Ferrari did some weight savings and stuck a highly tuned engine (similar to Challenge / N-GT spec) in the car.

 

Two of those 575Ms were sold as used cars with accrued mileage from testing still on the odometer. The last one was fitted with a new engine and given a new assembly number before sale. Not sure what else was done to it.

 

Your brand new car had 1,900 miles on it? That's grounds for rejection, surely?

 

Note that on many occasions but not always, Autocar will quote "test" weight which includes driver, fuel and any test equipment.

From having driven and tested several of them....an American specification F430 is about 465 hp instead of the 490 quoted.
Interestingly, switching to decatted Capristo headers resulted in the as 490hp originally quoted by Ferrari for the stock car.

 

I'm quite sure that the US market cars have a different calibration resulting in less power - it was a byproduct of catering for more stringent emissions limits.