360 Stradale engine "tcu" for 360 modena

My 360 is currently in the shop getting a light bulb replaced, couple other things, and I had them look at my clutch. I've fried about 30% of it in 1300 miles. I'm completely aware that I was a crappy F1 driver at first, and a portion of this was learning curve. I was already planning on upgrading the TCU for performance reasons, but amazingly, Ferrari has doubled the price of the TCU from $1500 to $3000 this year. Can anyone guess why this might be(rhetorical)? Anyway, now in addition to performance, I'm also looking at this as a bit of an insurance policy for my clutch. Anyone have any educated opinions on what sort of life saving benefits the CS TCU would have for my clutch?

 

what year is your 360? if it already has the later 360 TCU type then a stradale TCU will offer no benefit in terms of clutch life or setup, it will simply shift more aggresively. these TCUs are the same, the stradale just has a slightly different map.
if you have an early car then upgrading to the later 360 modena TCU will vastly improve things including clutch life and shifting and this can be done for a great deal less than the stradale unit.
the only reason to go to stradale TCU over the later modena TCU is if you want the more aggressive shift.

 

Thanks. My spider is a 2002. Where does this put me?

 

If I am not mistaken, the TCU updates were done for the 2002MY

 

So this being the case, the CS TCU isn't going to do much for me in the way of clutch savings?

In addition to being an F1 idiot when I bought the car in March, I've been driving it short distances changing gears when I didn't really need to, like to the clubhouse and back, which I can do in 1st. Need to change my driving habits. But really looking for ways of saving the clutch.

Does the (say it ain't so) auto button take some of the dumbass out of my driving and treat the clutch a little better? I haven't pushed that button once since buying the car, but if it's gonna save me money when I'm on autopilot around town, f it.

 

Most people aren't interested in upgrading the TCU to the CS one for clutch life reasons.
Moreover they do it for the extra performance of the shift speed.

I have posted the dates of the TCU revisions before but there where around 4 different software releases and from ~2002 they made the tcu remote upgradeable via the CAN bus so it could be done using the OBD-II rather than replacing the unit itself. Earlier models didn't have a software upgrade so the only option was to desolder the chip...

Worth noting that the title of this thread is misleading, engine "tcu" for 360 Modena doesn't make any sense. The Transmission Control Unit is just that, for controlling the hydraulically actuated manual transmission gearbox. The Engine uses seperate (pair of) ignition computers.

 

What do you mean by 'crappy'? How were you driving it? I ask because I've got similar wear in 1000 miles but I feel I've been driving mine (2001 360 with 'old' TCU) 'normally' (or at least trying).

There's something wrong with mine which I'm getting sorted this weekend - I was just curious to what you meant.

 

Seriously, you thought I was confusing that? I cut and pasted the title of another thread and was in a hurry and didn't notice "engine" in the title. You're right and 1000 apologies. Thanks for the info.

 

I'm "assuming" I'm doing something wrong. HTF do you lose a clutch every 4-6k miles without doing something wrong? Something's got to be wrong. But when I say crappy, truly, the first few weeks with the car was a learning experience. I'm used to automatics, floor it and it downshifts automatically. So I had trouble getting used to exactly what touch to drop two gears and floor it when I wanted that passing gear. Also screwed around a lot shifting through accelleration rather than backing off momentarily, and I'm still unclear as to which is better, have heard both sides of the arguement. My thinking at this point, the reason for the thread, was that the stiffer shift might make this less of an issue, that no matter where I shift or how, the CS TCU would just slam the gear and not cause much clutch wear. So by "crappy" I really meant "learning", I guess.

 

sorry to say but depending on the type of driving you do, ie lots of stop start driving, lots of traffic, lots of bumper to bumper, lots of racing between lights, lots of slow speed manouvers, reversing etc then you could burn through a clutch in that spell easily.
the F1 system works great but with that low grade type driving it highlights its inherent weaknesses and your clutch goes quickly. that is if everything is setup well and working properly.

for info, i had a maladjsuted clutch, then a suspension ecu issue that misinformed sensors and caused jerky low gear driving, then a clutch sensor fail and cause pick up issues as it went out. all over a year and this killed a brand new clutch completely in about 800 miles.
not a typical story but these are the things that can happen and my car is looked after fanatically.

auto mode doesnt wear anything any more than regular mode but it is specatularly underwhelming. the button is there, just use it and see what it does for you.

if you really feel like your lack of experience with manual gearchanges is hurting you then perhaps you could buy the cheapest crappiest manual car you can find locally, get out and drive it around until you get a feel for it then sell it on . you could pick up a beater for less than $1k easily and that wont even get you a clutch on the 360.

whats your experience driving cars that rely on revs for performance too? if you say you are dropping two gears to overtake then it sounds like you are perhaps not used to driving this type of engine and perhaps often in the wrong gear, or using more gears and shifts than is needed. it may be that theres so many learning curves going on at once that your clutch is taking the brunt of it all.

ive never seen anything definative on whether regular or sports mode makes any difference to clutch wear so would add this out to say the stradale TCU wont make any difference either. it will change with a more aggressive pattern, so if you want this then that would be the reason for a change out.
the regular stradale mode is similar to sports in the regular cars in terms of shift if that gives you any indication of what to expect.
if you are having learning issues, id expect having the stradale TCU may put a bigger strain on components rather than aleviating them. maybe get used to the car and the F1 system before changing up

 

I think most of my learning is behind me, in that, I think I drive the car pretty well now and it's a marked change from first taking delivery. And I was, until buying this car, completely used to high torque, low revs, have always liked that kind of motor since my hotrod pontiac days, red line at 5500. There's a lot of shifting I can take out of the equation, and that will help. When I mention downshifting a couple gears, imagine cruising at 55 in 5th or even 6th and needing to get around four cars that just merged. Stomping on the gas at 2500 rpm doesn't do much on the 360, need to drop to 4th or even 3rd to get the revs up to 4500 or better and romp on it to get some decent accelleration. Make sense? I would have said that I could get used to just driving at 4000 rpm for stretches to avoid unnecessary shifts, but with the new exhaust, that's prohibitively loud now, or at least will take some getting used to. But yeah, when I first picked up the car, I sucked at driving it. At first I couldn't take a corner in first without the car gyrating, probably a better word for it, but you know what I'm talking about, when it just isn't sure what gear it's supposed to be in and starts jerking. I had no touch. I'm a smoother operator now, but just change gears more than necessary. Sounds like I'm lucky I only chewed 30% in 1300 miles and I'm doing okay.

 

i followed exactly what you were saying about the downshifts, what i was trying to say was that you may need a fundamental shift in approach to your gear selection with a different designed engine. i did when i changed to porsche and ferrari.
i know your example was illustrative so not an exact description, but if you take the situation where you are in 5th at 2kprm and then needing to get to third to skip past cars, you should be in 3rd at 4krpm or so instead anyways before they merged and thus would be able to deal with the overtake without dropping gears. this isnt to save the clutch but just to let the engine behave how it was intended.
these engines dont like being bogged down and will thank you from keeping them spinning a bit more. until the last few years i was always in turbo cars with bags of torque and no revs and a real different approach. it took a while to get used to driving along revving away but its much better for the car and the drive.
i never think about clutch wear, but i do concern myself with how the car is feeling and its always happier with some revs than chugging along in an extra gear.

 

Concur, and my driving habits have definitely been shifting that direction out of necessity and enjoying it. Need to get used to the exhaust being twice as loud now though. Love the sound, but it's wearing.

 

What exhaust are you running

 

Fabspeed. Just got it, love the sound, but it went straight into the shop for a few things, and after that it's going straight to the stereo shop for upgrades, so haven't really gotten used to it yet.

 

was just wondering since you said the noise was a bit wearing. ive not heard a fabspeed car in person yet.
i use earplugs on long journeys which helps alot, for the rest of the time i just open the windows and enjoy.
is that yours in your avatar? the spyder?
if so then i hope the stereo upgrade is a pair of headphones

 

Yeah, good idea. I'll drop by the airpark and pick some up.

Replacing everything, speakers, head unit, adding an amp, small sub.

Found out clutches don't cost as much a I was expecting for this car. Not freaking out so much anymore.

Yes, that's my car. Need to put up a better pic.