355 Has anyone used David Lee’s manual conversion kit?

This has got to be a fake FB profile. None of those details are correct. David went to USC.

 

An off-the-shelve manual conversion kit for the 355 F1 would be a dream came true for 355 owners. I still don't know why there are so many options for the 360&430 and nothing for the 355. I am aware that the potential customer base is smaller (the 355 F1 sales were much more smaller than the 360 or 430 F1) but once you develop the kit for the 360&430, it must be easy to further develop it for the 355. Apparently, I guess.

 

This guy just sent me a facebook friend request. I had posted in 360 threads looking for manual conversion parts mostly the gear actuation assembly. I have a feeling the page is a scam account. BEWARE

 

Definitely a scam. The real David Lee would not be interested in selling 355 manual conversions.

 

so you're saying its not David Lee the ferrari collector, but his photo and everything is of David Lee the Ferrari collector...obviously a scam!

 

Dumbest attempt at a scam I’ve ever seen. These FB scammers have super low IQ.

 

Most of the breakers will sell you a manual conversion kit for the 355, it is one of the most profitable elements of parting out an original 355 manual. They tend to have waiting lists already though, so best contact them and get in the line up.

 

What are the most expensive parts of the conversion?

I've watched a few videos of people stepping through it, and there are only a few items that you can see, and yes I can see why you would want those to be genuine items, but, a lof of the components are hidden, so should be something you could replicate and significantly drop down the cost.

I'm looking at doing my own F355 build, and it may be that a logical direction is to take a much cheaper F1 and convert that, over getting a reasonably priced gated shifter as the base.

 

It's more hard to find than expensive - pedal box is the one I think most have the hardest time finding. The rest is usually findable via parts breakers but I think it's specific to the abs system used in the car, teves vs. bosch.

 

Bosch manual pedal box is the hardest to find item, as far fewer of the later cars were manual than the earlier Teves version, although the extra pedal can be made and added to an F1 Bosch version, there is a thread on here all about it,

Next is the shifter/tower and linkage assembly, less rare, as the Teves one will work on a Bosch version.

The gearboxes are the same but the linkage connection shaft is different and needs modifying on an F1 box to take the manual link, and the clutch fluid and o rings need to be changed out to accept brake fluid rather than hydraulic fluid.

 

I wonder if the "real" David Lee knows about this. I should probably let him know.

 

I have all of the tooling done for F355 conversion parts (cast aluminum shifter tower, shifter, polymer ball joint socket, buttons panel, shifter gate, knob, clutch pedal, bushings, linkages, dampers, data bus module to prevent check engine light and DTCs, etc). Custom oil temp gauge and oil pressure relocation parts are almost done being designed but may be released as an add-on. Just need to tweak the manufacturing process before starting full speed production. I've assumed 5% of all F1 owners will buy this but if enough additional people want it after the first batch is sold, the tooling is done and a second production run can be made with some effort. It uses low viscosity ATF (custom master cylinder with return stroke bypass valve, custom Buna-N seals, custom reservoir to fit between the brake booster and brake reservoir) so the slave cylinder / clutch won't need to be touched. A full set of EPDM seals will be provided for people who want to convert to DOT3. The design is generally based on the more plentiful Teves version (to retain compatibility for use as service parts) but clutch pedal is modified to work with the F1 pedal box - a template will be provided to cut the excess brake pedal shaft to make room for the clutch pedal shaft.

 

Manual conversion kits for the 355 are already available off the shelf- you can follow along with with Adam’s manual swap project (plus intense whilst your in there syndrome ) in his thread here:

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/f355-manual-conversion-diy.709469/