612 performance Upgrade

Mechanicals are easy peasy- any garage could do it. The ecu side is proven now in terms of it works, but I would say the fueling needs a little tickle before it’s bang on. Exoticars USA isn’t that far from you and they could easily do the lot. Tom there has done a few cars with Trevor, so he could easily hook you up.


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Alas no. Been travelling recently. Still need to get the last getting of the fuel map done too. Good nudge!


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The 599 airboxes are based on the same type used on later 612's, hence why they fit.

They are needed though as the later 612's still use the same MAF's as early 612's, so don't have the right fitment to connect to the larger MAF's. Clearly it was a cost saving measure by Ferrari to use the molded plastic ones on later cars (and share tooling with 599's) compared with the fabricated metal ones on the early cars. Honestly the metal ones seem a lot nicer to me, as well as having the Ferrari script on them.

I really can't see any reason why later 612's are more powerful than early cars - we've interrogated loads of ecu's, including the latest OTO's, and the fueling is the same as on the early cars. If they're anything like 430's then the later cars tend to get less powerful as they load on more emissions crap.

Oh - I finally have a dragy now, so should be able to get some performance figures shortly.

 

I would have them, but alas its been snowing here recently. Might not be the most representative.

 

Hi Ryan, great timing! So you'll remember from the above that the first pass tune was functional, and indeed fast, but it wasn't quite there with the driveability. Various things got in the way for getting it updated until recently, though this wasn't entirely a bad thing, as over the last few months Trevor has done a whole load of tuning on 575's, with nearly all of the work transferable to 612. So in the last few weeks, we finally got down to updating the flash, but it was much more than a tweak to the fuelling. Apparently over 30 parameters have been adjusted now, with things like the instant torque patch doing more than just removing the latency between the throttle pedal and the throttle plates, but also changing the way the engine brings in the torque upon request. The only thing we didn't do was the switchable fuel maps on the sport button, but only because Trev wanted to see that everything else was working fine first with so many other changes having been made.

So, how does it feel now? Well, here in the north east of Scotland, conditions aren't exactly ideal right now, but I have put a few hundred miles under its wheels since the update. First thing is that the jerkiness is essentially all gone now. Before the fuelling was such that there was the slightest hesitation going from steady state low throttle openings to pinning it wide open, just due to the fuelling not being able to keep up. Trying this now, the hesitation is still there... but only because the traction control ****s itself! Trying it with TC off the other night saw the michelins breaking traction at speed in 3rd gear. So that's all good.

So with these conditions, it's impossible to make hard and fast conclusions about peak power etc, but one thing did shine through, which was the character of the engine seemed surprisingly different. Before, I would always have described the 612 as having the turbine like torque delivery - just a seamless linear wave of torque that builds from nothing to peak revs. With the current tune, its a much more aggressive power delivery, feeling not just more urgent, but also with a step in torque around 5500 rpm where the revs seems to build in a much more manic fashion.

For a fun driving car to go at it on twisty roads, its definitely a lot more of an exciting ride now. Gone is the soft cruiser feel, replaced with more of a muscle car vibe. Its still super easy to drive round at low speed, but in the upper rev range, its quite a different beast.

Many thanks as always @360trev .

 

So I need to get my ass in gear and head along to a dyno!

 

The best person to answer would of course be @360trev , but I would say there is. To some extent it depends on whether you want the aggressive character or not. I really like it, but I would forgive those who would keep their 612 as a more relaxed cruiser.