355 Anyone know how many F355 came with the trifecta of carbon seats, FHP and rollbar?

The 348GTC is indeed the first of the special series, but it is essentially a light-weight 348 with nice wheels, an F40 inspired carbon kevlar seats.

To achieve it’s 2800 lbs weight, it had carbon-kevlar front and rear bumpers and probably with small crash support similar to 355 challenge bumpers, and carbon-kevlar doors. The hood, front fenders, and rear engine lid are still steel & aluminum. The doors and bumpers were definitely not going to meet U.S crash test requirements. I’ve seen the doors. There’s barely anything to it. They definitely couldn’t do this with the 355 if they wanted to market one to the U.S market. They probably figured if they couldn’t sell a special series to the U.S, it probably wasn’t worth the effort to develop one.

348GTC was limited to only 100 units, so it’s a fairly bespoke project compared to something like a Challenge Stradale.

 

My opinion is Ferrari already made all the parts needed for someone to put together a special 355 if one really wanted one in 1999. A fully loaded 1999 Berlinetta with carbon seats, fhp, or roll bar. Add challenge front and rear bumpers and you’ve got yourself a 355GTC and some.


Personally, I’m taking my car a step further. 95 Berlinetta, carbon seats, pre-airbag steering wheel, FHP, challenge front and rear composite bumpers + bespoke carbon embossed fenders, hood, engine lid, and full carbon (single piece) under tray for baby smooth underbody airflow .

@FerrariIcona when you’re done with your manual Serie Fiorano, we’ll go for a cruise .

 

It can be done, I have a 355 box mated to a 575 engine, you need to have a 20mm adapter machined up to mate the two surfaces together then another adapter bolted to the crank ( instead of the flywheel) to take the spline of the 355 propellor shaft, as well as to seal the hole it runs through at the mating face of the box.

Your issue though will probably be that the engine is slightly longer and the crossmember behind the fuel tank on the 355 may foul the front crank sensor and outlet of the water pump on the 458 engine. I simply replaced it, and strengthened that area by other means, but on a stock 355 you may not want to do that kind of surgery.

At some point I plan to do the same with a Maserati v8 engine which I believe has the same block/bolt pattern as the 458. Have access to most of the parts, but not the time to do it.

 

To late to edit, meant crank pulley not sensor

 

Where did you get the undertray? I'd be in for a copy, I'm starting to plan for a repaint on mine and will probably be replacing the front bumper and under tray.

 

Did you have the single-piece undertray? If not, are you willing to put a single piece undertray?



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Fchat has horrible resolution on uploads.

 

I don't, I think mine is one of the first to have a 2 piece (based on the build numbers), and yeah, I'm fine with a single piece.

 

I’ll let you know when they’re done building one for me. Should be seeing a complete set sometime in January.

 

Costs would have been horrendous for making one offs via a specialist so I did it myself. There are no off the shelf solutions I am aware of.

Measure and make will be your only option via an engineering shop. It is in a long term 355 based project


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Yes, the crank pulley of the v12 is now about in the same place as that on an F40 ie virtually at the passenger compartment firewall, so saddle tanks either side of the engine are required rather than the full length 355 one, and an aux tank in the frunk.

The weak point of the 355 box is the propeller shaft, with the nose snapping off due to poor heat treatment, aftermarket alternatives are now available that are bullet proof though.

 

Of course .

 

*correction. GTC limited to 50 units.