430 GogglesPisano's F430 Ownership Journey

Starting this as a placeholder for some future projects and to update along with my ownership journey to keep from posting new threads every time I want to show some progress since I have a few goodies coming shortly

As a bit of refresher, this is my first Ferrari. It's a 2008 F1 Spider I purchased last September with 27k miles on the clock and with me as the third owner. Serviced only by Ferrari of Atlanta its entire life aside from an aftermarket stereo being installed by a local audio shop.

I didn't know the original owners, but I got the feeling that they were mostly "hands off" when it came to doing repairs, or updates as everything from rock chips and sticky buttons were requested to be addressed by the dealership.

I, on the other hand, am very much hands on. I've been a car nut since I was a kid and doing things myself is very rewarding. I also like to personalize things to my taste. I love my F430, but it looks like 99% of the other F430's out there and I'd hate to mistake it for another one at a local grocery store parking lot

I fully appreciate the history and the overall design of the car (which I love) so I'm not doing anything drastic or that wouldn't be reversible. I just want it to be an OEM+ look if that makes sense. Sort of a refresh with an eye to the original. It will be a long journey (especially since I change my mind a lot) so I figured starting a thread to keep it all organized would be fun.

Watch this space for future mods and excuse me while I throw in some items that I've already done, I want to keep some of the history of what I'm doing here in one place.
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Although the car was well looked after, it came with a to-do list right away. First order of business was replacing the completely obliterated reverse button.

I opted for the replacements from stickybuttonfix.com. It seemed like a good deal and I’m happy with the results. It’s a two shot mold with a rubber outer so it still has a softer feel.


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My steering column shroud was as nasty as they come. I originally had hopes of cleaning it from the sticky coating but the cheap plastic had other plans. The lower mounts completely disintegrated on me when dismounting it leaving me to buy a new one.

Just as well though, the old shroud looked like it had been attacked with a steak knife around the ignition cylinder.

Added the vin back with double sided tape.
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Yup, I think the first day of ownership was just going over everything with alcohol . I was surprised how easily everything cleaned up. The previous owner had replaced one vent with a new one, but the others were original and all sticky. I didn't manage to save the arrows, but it doesn't bother me as it's pretty intuitive without them. I attempted to clean the top of the column clamshell, but it was such a smeary mess, that I gave up, especially since the lower was ruined. I saved them both though as I can probably epoxy all the broken parts back together and throw them in a blaster with walnut shells or something maybe in the future. I'd like to do a manual conversion in the future and the old one will make a perfect candidate to modify and plug the paddle holes.

 

Yes, unfortunately the USA bound cars never received the launch control button.

 

In the pursuit of making my F430 slightly different than the rest (but still red ), I decided to get some new wheels to set it apart. I had a very particular design in mind that sort of called out to the five spoke designs of the past and some of the more modern ones that Ferrari is doing. My purse strings are a bit tighter than some of those here so BBS and ADV1's were off the table, but I did find a company doing forged wheels called RSR that were quite the bargain. I had to wait 12 weeks, but my wheels were made exactly to the spec I gave them.

The downside...The center caps were of a larger size than the OEM (as some of you have read in my other thread). Fortunately, the company was nice enough to share CAD files of their cap which I used to create a custom option that allowed for new Ferrari caps to be placed inside. Overall, I'm very pleased with the look. The finish is "brushed titanium."

I was bold enough to get the tires mounted before actually test fitting the wheels (it's been raining here for weeks and I don't have much room to maneuver in my garage). For a brief moment, I had a scare on the front wheel clearance to the caliper, but I just squeaked in once everything was tightened down.

 

Thanks! It's pushing 1.5-2mm which is pretty close. Was debating to have the backside turned to give me a bit more clearance, but don't really want to go through the hassle if nothing is affected. I've seen posts of people running stupid close clearances like this before so crossing my fingers that there is no issue down the road.

 

Agree, even 19” looks small these days with so many vehicles using 20 or higher. I decided not to go larger though because I value the ride comfort that the 19” has.

I had a 1988 E30 with factory 14” wheels that really looked small. I was basically forced to buy larger wheels just so I could find tires in the proper size. Hopefully I won’t be doing the same for these in the future

 

How I understand it is if the overall diameter is significantly different than the OEM size, then yes. However, the diameter for these is within a close tolerance of the original. There are others running these tires and wheel specs with zero issues which is why I felt comfortable going with these.

 

Decided to tackle my extremely bubbled heat shields since I just got back from a work trip and needed something to relax my mind.

my shields were pretty bad. I wasn’t going for anything super snazzy, just sanded them down to mostly bare metal, hit them with a coat of sandable primer to level them off and a quick coat of VHB chassis paint which seems to match and is an epoxy paint for longevity.

 

I'm not the original owner so I don't have a full history. The car came with the stock exhaust and the bubbles already there. The previous two owners were not "mod people" and didn't even do PPF without going through the dealership so I'm incline to believe it happened from the stock setup. I have seen others with the same problem.

In regards to the exhaust on there now, that's the factory sport exhaust. It's noticeably cooler running and was installed shortly after I bought the car last summer.