430 First Ferrari - 06 F430 - Impressions and DIY Thread

Hi all,

After years of dreaming about one I finally picked up my first Ferrari, an 06 F430 coupe last weekend. The F430 has always been the Ferrari for me. Love the looks, the performance, the sound, the rawness and experience of the car. Also huge plus was possibility of a manual trans. I can appreciate just about all Ferrari's, but the F430 for me is just the perfect balance between modern but raw and feels fast, but also still useable on typical public roads and fun at most speeds.

Beyond driving, I also love working on my cars and usually look for cars that need a bit of love and enjoy restoring them. I've had several M3s or 911s and most have been sold in better shape then when I got them. I recently finished an M3 wagon conversion and started thinking that now might be a good time to start looking for an F430. Up to now I stuck with M3s or 911s as my kids were smaller and I really wanted to include them in the sports car experience. Now that they older, that isn't really an issue any more.

I had to travel to the bay area from orange county, so thought I would see what was available locally. Turned out there was an F430 that matched nearly exactly to what I was looking for. Rosso Corsa on tan, daytona seats, black dash with yellow tach, shields and challenge wheels. Also had been consistently driven throughout it's life (now at 55k miles) and consistently services. It has red piping on the seats, which I could do without, but now that I have it I really don't mind it that much. It is an F1 car, but I specifically wanted that for 2 reasons. The first was although I was fairly certain I wanted to ultimately have a manual F430, I still wanted to experience the F1 system for a while. The second was the idea of doing the manual conversion myself sounded like a really fun project.

Although well serviced, the car is certainly not perfect. It has front clip ppf, but there are a few spots where it has taken hits and the ppf is damaged. There are also some paint chips in various areas. Interior is in ok shape, but more than anything the car overall just needs a really good deep cleaning.

Aside from the initial inspection and drive home from the bay area, I've had very little time with it. Only a couple items I will address right away. Left front air vent is broken (retaining tabs were broken off) and I found a replacement for it. The suspension joints all feel very tight except for the rear tie rods, so ordered replacements for them. Also the car had an older aftermarket head unit in it, so I'm going to replace it with the power acoustic unit so that I have android auto in the car with a relatively clean overall look.

Here are a few quite pictures of the car. I figured I'd start this thread and will use it to document any upcoming work on it as well as other observations.

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Thanks all. I agree I will definitely be driving often.

Just looking through the maintenance that was done over the last 6 years I can see why some are wary of super car ownership. The thing is the ratio has been 80-90% in labor costs vs parts costs. Especially what labor rates are now very unlikely I would have purchased this car if I couldn't do the work myself.

That said it seems like a lot of the more common service items have all been done relatively recently. Clutch, throw out, rear main seal, valve covers, exhaust manifolds, front and rear brakes, spark plugs, sway bar end links, motor/trans mounts, battery, tires, oil/water pump.

I don't have record of last brake fluid change, so will test the fluid and likely just replace soon.

I don't have a scan tool yet that will work with the Ferrari, so will be looking for one.

 

I was looking at the X431 as well. At this point I have a variety of different tools for BMW or Porsche and would ideally like to move to something that can expand to more models in a single platform.

The motiv I love. Been using one for 15+ years. I recently had to replace the hoses on it as they finally disintegrated.

 

I appreciate all the warm welcomes.

The car certainly provides an awful lot of joy just sitting there. So many cool visual details all over the car. Not a single bad angle anywhere.

Regarding the F1 trans, so far it seems to work well. Going right into a 400 mile drive home gave me a good amount of time to get a feel for it. I've only used it in manual mode so far. Usually briefly letting up on the throttle when shifting during more relaxed driving results in very smooth shifts. Not unlike one would do with a traditional manual. During harder acceleration it is certainly pretty forceful on shifts, but that contributes to the overall experience as well. May not be for everyone, but ultimately it is about experiencing as many different things as you can and repeating those you love most.

Also on the drive home I went through some pretty hot (100+) dessert temps. Both cruising, I'm traffic or even just idling the car kept cool and temps barely rose at all. Oil didn't at all and water just slightly at most 10 degrees. AC blew cold without issues. It is a big jump from the highest fan setting to just one below, which I guess if nit-picking could be better. Likely not a person on earth where this is a deal breaker.

I'm relatively good about not sweating little things, but still was slightly nervous leaving the car parked in a busy area when we stopped for lunch. I take good care of my cars, but ultimately they are cars first, for driving and things will happen. It also helps that the car has it's share of small paint chips in common spots already.

 

Yeah have not tried auto mode yet. Figure I'll try it just to make sure it works, but have no plans to actually use it beyond that. I need to go through the different modes altogether. I tried them all momentarily when first checking out the car to make sure they all selected without issues, but that's been the extent of it. Drove it home in sport the whole way.

 

Earlier in the week I got the power acoustic head unit and was going to install it. Removed the old unit and figured I'd take care of the stickiness on the window switches. As I was inspecting them I noticed the buttons along with the entire carbon frame would press in and out some and didn't appear to be well mounted. I removed the metal housing the old head unit slid out of and then saw that the metal frame that supports the head unit as well as the carbon trim to the dash structure was broken into multiple pieces. So I paused there and first thought I'd try to repair it, but then looked to see what was available for sale to get a new one. Found a used one on eBay for $29. Was in Canada, but it arrived in 2 days.

I got back in town this afternoon and finished reinstalling everything and cleaned off the remaining stickiness.

What a cool little head unit this is. Fits great and doesn't really look that out of place. Gives all the modern functions with carplay/android auto (I use the latter and connected wirelessly with no issues). Despite the small screen it is still surprising functional.

Here is the new frame next to the old one in bits. Not sure what someone did to break the old frame.

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Everything out.

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I made a quick Ferrari boot logo to use in place of the generic one. Looks decent for now and I may create something better in the future. Nice clean look overall though with this unit.

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I had also ordered new Hill Engineering rear tie rods and they arrived late last week, so I installed them as well this afternoon. Very simple install. Single outer bolt and the 3 inners. Once loose was easy to twist the wheel carrier enough to remove the tie rods. For now I just measured the old ones and set the new ones to the same length. I'll do an alignment soon as well. While the wheels were off I took advantage and cleaned up the wheel wells a bit as well as the wheels themselves. One of the wheel center caps was damaged and I was surprised a new set of 4 was just $100, so I replaced them as well. Nice easy install, rear suspension is nice and tight now and looks much better as well.

Here are the originals next to the new.

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Old vs new caps. Yellow has certainly faded on the old and the overall size/design is slightly different on the new ones as well.

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New links installed.

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Wheel wells / calipers cleaned up.

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Not sure if it is a thing with Ferrari like it is with Porsche where the shields are always installed in a manner so that the shield is pointing to the air valve. I did similar with the cavallino aligned with the valves.

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