jerbear27's F430 journey

IIRC those are called kick plates
Its called crossmember cover in the parts catalog.

 

Yep that's what I thought.

 

Lorenzo,

What about the scud kick plate/cross member doesn’t work with the f430?

 

Well there is no carpet in a scud so when you go to put those parts on a 430 that has carpet they don't fit right. I got lucky and found the proper ones for a 430

 

Thank you! Good to know!

 

Potentiometer Replacement

Car was running like a top. Parked it in the garage and a few days later got in to go for a ride. Car had itself in 2nd gear and the gearbox light was on. Hooked up the launch and saw fault P1741 Engagement Potentiometer.

Next step was obvious, ping @flash32 for some guidance. I figured the potentiometer was starting to go, but wanted to make sure I got all I needed to fix this in one shot. We performed a gearbox relearn and it seemed to be better, but the issue still occurred the next time I started the car.

Ordered part 248095 from Maranello Classic Parts. Arrived within a few days. Also ordered some CAF4 per the workshop manual so I could refit the actuator after replacing the sensors. i know there's a variety of things you can use here, but the CAF4 was easy enough to get, so I went that direction. Ferrari part number for the CAF4 is 206273.

Then I began to disassemble. Took rear diffuser off, took off the under tray and then removed the heat shield covering the actuator. Getting this heat shield off was probably the most difficult part of the job as the cat is right there in the way. I would think if you have the stock cats, you can expect to remove the passenger side cat to get this shield out. I'm going to look to replace that heat shield this winter as it's pretty beat up.

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Next I moved on to removing the 8 small nuts that secure the actuator to the gear box as well as the two, larger 13mm nuts on the brackets that hold the actuator to the gearbox (rear end). I also unbolted the retaining bar at the top of the bracket that holds the hydraulic lines in place. This gave me some more room when it came to take the actuator off. I've highlighted the 2 x 13mm nuts that need to be removed below

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Here are the locations of the 8 x 7mm nuts holding the rest of the actuator on. You'll have to push the hoses out of the way a bit to get to the bottom most nut.

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Now time to remove the actuator. I used some wire to hang it from the exhaust to I could keep it out of the way and keep stress off the hoses.

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Here's the view of the gearbox after the actuator had been removed.

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I then unplugged the potentiometers from the harness and unbolted and removed them from the plate.

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You'll notice I removed 2 of the screws from the mounting plate. As others have mentioned, you have to "spin" these sensors in to their slots so they line up correctly. Once I removed the old sensors, I tried refitting them a few times to see if I could better understand how to get them lined up correctly. Make note of which sensor is the "Gear" and which sensor is the "Shift." I then cleaned up the mounting surfaces of the actuator, gearbox and the plate where the potentiometers install. One thing flash32 walked me through was checking the shift and gear potentiometer values via the Launch x431. I actually manually manipulated the sensors and verified they were reading correctly and I didn't have an issue somewhere else in the wiring for the sensors.

Next it was on to fitting the new sensors. I fitted the gear sensor first. This one made the most sense to me as it has a "hook" on it that positions itself at the end of the rod in the actuator. You'll see here why you need to remove a few of the screws on the mounting plate. You have to put the "gear" sensor in at 90 degrees and then rotate it clockwise until the screw holes line up. As others have said, you'll feel a little "spring pressure" when you do this. Once you're aligned, tighten up the screws.

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Next it was on to the "Shift" sensor. This one made a little less sense to me, but eventually I got it. It's also the one that is a little more forgiving as you don't necessarily have to worry about this one breaking as easily. The sensor has to ride on the flat portion of the rod in the actuator. I found the best way to get this one to align was to start it 90 degrees and then rotate counter-clockwise until the screws lined up.

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Once we got to this point, I bolted the actuator back to the gearbox without sealing it up and we ran through a gearbox relearn. Once that was complete, we used the launch to start selecting gears. Everything was working just fine. Flash32 then walked me through plotting a new grid for my gears (forgot to mention we had a baseline grid in place before I started doing this work).

Then I went on to bleed the clutch and the e-diff, using fresh Mobil 1 ATF. Procedures went just fine. Checked fluid in the F1 reservoir and confirmed we were back at the correct level.

I then removed the actuator and put on the CAF4. Then I sealed it all together, bolted it back up and tightened it down to 7.5nm.

Did another gearbox relearn, check all of the values and then buttoned up the car - heat shield, diffuser and under tray.

Took the car for a ride. No lights, no codes, no issues. Went over some additional timings with Flash32 and he cleared the F1 system with a clean bill of health.

All-in-all, not a bad job. I took my time with it, but having done it once, it would be a 1/2 day job at most if I were to do it again.

Special thanks to @flash32 - truly is a guru of these systems and is super generous with his time. Can't thank you enough!

If anyone has better ideas on how to get the sensors in, please share, I'm just sharing my experience and what appears to have worked fo rme.

 

Nice write up ! - glad that it is all sorted and glad I could help

My pleasure - you are welcome !

You made it easy - you are great a mentee

 

going to be doing this over the weekend so nice work on the write up

 

fantastic write-up! excellent work.

 

Just completed the latest project. Been looking to change up the seats in my car from the electric Daytonas. Ton of information on the forums on what fits, what doesn’t, COPD sensors and the like.

Searched for quite a while for a set of seats. Finding a set of OEM seats in beige/tan seemed pretty much impossible. So I went another direction. Found a set of seats on eBay.
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They shipped in a crate from Latvia. Packed well and arrived without issue.


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Seats are out of a RHD 458 and are in Crema.

Found a local shop that helped install the COPD sensor in the passenger seat as my car is an MY08. I asked him what it would be to re-trim the seats and it was $7k. Decided I’d give something else a try.

Ordered a leather color change kit from Auto Leather Dye. Ordered the RFR20 which is for Ferrari Beige. The kit comes with a cleaner, scuff pad, adhesion promoter, dye, top coat and a leather conditioner. Figured for $250 or so, I’d give this a try and see how it works and how it long it lasts. Worst case, I’d bite the bullet and get them re-trimmed (I’ll eventually go this route anyway). I also ordered some Rosso fabric dye as well to try and save the red horse from becoming the same color as the seat. I knew there was no way to save the red stitching, but figured the red center stripe would still look good.

I took the seats apart. Start with the rails, then the brackets that hook to the sides. There’s a cable here for the backrest release. Just undo the bolts for the bracket and turn the bracket to release the cable.

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I then taped off the center stripes, and all of the carbon pieces. First step was to clean the seat with the cleaner and the scuff pad. Then wipe with a clean microfiber.

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Then it was on the adhesion promoter. Bought a $120 paint gun at Harbor Freight and got to spraying. Adhesion promoter went on a little thick, but we adjusted the spray gun and dialed it in.

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We used a heat gun to help dry the adhesion promoter.

Then it was on to color. We put down 3 coats of color. You’re better off going with light coats. If you are spraying the product I’d suggest you order more than recommended. I imagine if you used the supplied sponge in the kit, you’d lose much less product to the air.

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After the 3rd coat of dye we were happy with the result. We removed the tape from the center stripe and applied 2 coats of top coat.

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We repeated the same process for the top half of the seat. In between each coat of dye, I took those small paint touch up brushed and some water and cleaned off the beige dye off the red horse.

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Before we put down the top coat on the top half of the seat, I used some of the red fabric dye on the horse to brighten it up. It worked well. (In this picture the dye isn’t dry).

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I left the seat overnight and the next day, removed the masking and put it back together. Here are the two seats next to each other.

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Repeated the process for the other seat with the same results. I did have to switch the backs of the seats and the orientation of the backrest recliner handle to work in my LHD car.

Next, was on to the install.

 

The rails didn’t completely line up with what was in the car. I had to drill an extra hole in the rail on rear section to get everything lined up.

The stock bolts didn’t fit so I ordered the Scud bolts. They ended up being too long for the drivers seat so I ordered some shorter bolts from McMaster car which had the high level of tensile strength.

The passenger side has the riser blocks on them which are riveted to the rails. I drilled out the rivets on the back risers and lined them up with the new holes.

Then bolted everything in. Connected the COPD sensor. The seat belts didn’t plug in so I just tied them up under the seat. No lights, no issues.

Here’s the final result:

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For $250 and a few hours in labor (4-5 hours a seat), I think it came out just fine. The seats feel exactly as they did before I dyed them, they are just a different color. Finish looks pretty close if not the same as factory. I’ll eventually get the re-trimmed, but I got to learn something and keep a few bucks in my pocket for now. We will see how it wears.

Love the way they look and how others have said, you sit IN these seats vs ON the Daytonas.

Special thanks to @colorfull and @LorenzoR for answering some questions for me along the way. Thanks to @veilstylez for having a COPD sensor on hand that he was kind enough to sell to me.

On to the next project!

 

These came out unbelievably good! They look amazing!

Thank you for the detailed info on the process.

 

Wow! That came out fantastic! I always loved these seats and have a perpetual eBay search for them but they’re never cheap. Great score.

 

Looks great! Ferrari bucket seats are hard to get a hold of, and when you do find them, they are pricey AF

 

I had the same thing going regarding the eBay search. Noticed there were fewer and fewer seats coming on the market lately so I decided to act.

 

Thank you!

 

WOW these came out really nice man! Amazing job! Now the seats are worth double with this color.
I would have never thought of this or have the guts for this ,crazy crazy!
Man, I cant get over how nice these look

 

Loved reading through this.

I am going through some similar mods on a scud. I have changed the oem deck to an oem-ish pioneer fold out one with wireless android auto/carplay. Done the speakers. Laid reverse cam wiring through but not installed the camera yet (will probably go for a licence plate mount). I have the exhaust valves connected in oem mode to cut out the drone but am thinking about a similar switch mod and valve controller.

All 4 switch positions are already taken in my rhd scud however, so I would have to remove a function to do it.

Sorry for my ted talk on your build thread. But when you selected that controller over the capristo one, did you notice that the vendor notes say that it is not waterproof and will corrode with any water ingress? Other than that, it seems like a great product. But when I took my bay panels off and had a good poke around it was obvious that some water had been flicked up / gotten behind there over the years.

https://i.imgur.com/3E7zCeh.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/v9wBzYB.jpeg

 

Thank you! We will see how they wear. Sensor worked out great! Thanks again!

 

Lots of folks running this controller and I haven’t heard of any issues nor have I experience any myself in the 3 years I’ve been running it. Support was great as well when I had a few questions on wiring the switch up.

 

Looks awesome! Good job!!

 

Hello, @jerbear27 wondering how the color on seats are holding up ?

 

Holding up very well. Look as good as the day I first sprayed them. No issues whatsoever with wear or transfer. You’d think they came this way from the factory.

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