F430 Conversion F1 to manual successful

As the title reads. I have successfully converted a F430 from a F1 to a manual shift. Let me start with this. Some of the great techs around the country and across the pond are credited for helping me with information and support. I want to mention Mark>>MWSTEWART for all the emails and support. I wish Mark was in the states and had a shop near me. Great guy and very very knowledgeable. I want to thank Matt from Florida, Brian from Washington, Eddie in California, John from California and Randy from Texas. These cars are built from the factory to be a manual or F1. Everything is there to do a conversion and its straight forward once you have the parts. The only way to do this is to use Ferrari parts.Theres no other way. This has been done correctly and its documented. Total cost was app 9k. I found a parted out car in the UK and bought most parts from the ball/shifter/cables to the side cover/w linkage for the gearbox. The clutch cylinder and hydraulic lines i bought new. I still needed 2 major parts such as the power unit and a wiring harness for a manual car. I bought the power unit from a parts house and the wiring harness was purchased new from Ferrari. Its all straight foward as long as you know what to do. As alot of us know this has been done on quite a few 360,s but i dont think ever a f430 but i cant say that for certainty. The Electronic differential makes this alittle more complicated but not much and that is the area i needed the help. Most of the parts needed to convert is the same for both cars 360/430 except for 2 parts previously mentioned. One is the power unit for a manual shift car. Its the same looking power unit as the F1 has only its without the solonoids so its a different part number obviously. The other part is the left hand side engine wiring harness. As mentioned I purchased this new and it was about $500. The wiring harness is needed because in a manual car the Power unit, and the F1 pump, now called the Ediff pump is wired directly to the Ediff ECU whereas in a F1 car those items are wired to the TCU so this cant be done without the correct harness. The wiring harness is plug and play and not hard to swap out. Once you feed it thru the wall its just plugging it in. So once all the mechanics were in place and the wiring harness was installed it was time to tackle the electronics. I sent the Engine ECUS to get reprogrammed for a manual shift car to Mase Engineering in Jacksonville FLA. Then i sent the instrument cluster to FAI in California for reprogramming for a manual car. Once i got the Ecus and cluster back and installed there were codes that came up. I cleared all codes with a sd3 computer without a problem. Now we knew all the computers in the car were talking to one another.....I test drove the car for a half hour taking it slow and everything was good, no codes. I then drove the car for an hour for more test driving and all was still good, no codes. I drove her for a week running errands and such then i knew for certain all was good so then i changed out the throwout bearing which is needed due to the fact that now the throwout bearing would have brake fluid going to it for shifting instead of F1 fluid. The seals in a F1 throwout are for F1 fluid only and not compatable with brake fluid so changing the throwout is a must. ...After that i was all done....One week later i drove the car from Florida to Pittsburgh, 1,100 miles and had the ride of my life. Everything went perfect. Im up here in Pittsburgh now with the weather getting nice and i drive it almost everyday. Shes a great car and i just love driving her......Pics and some details to follow

 

The reason it was only 9k was because i did all the research, i bought all the parts and did all the labor. If you have to pay a shop to do this it would be twice that. I doubt seriously that a true manual car will drop in price. If it drops it will be due to the market not what i did. I know my car will never be valued high like the manuals that left the factory. That was NOT my goal. My goal was eliminating the F1 system and shifting myself as i like it.

 

Yea i just decided to post it up. And your correct. Its easy if you have the parts. But the 2 parts that i mentioned above which is the power unit and wire harness is critical to pulling this off. Those 2 parts are needed for the Ediff

 

Heres where i started. Sorry i have no pics of undertrays part but its self explanatory. Once you remove the undertrays of the car you can see where all the lines ( AC/STEERING/COOLANT) that go from the front of the car to the back. The is a rubber grommet that all the lines secure into. There is also a spot there for the clutch hydraulic line. So once the clutch line is installed you put it in its spot in the grommet to secure it. The car has to be on a lift or the front end up very high off the ground. You can wiggle the clutch hydraulic line in but its tough. That line has to bolted up to the clutch cylinder before you mount the cylinder or you will never get it on and tighten it. Once the clutch line is bolted up to the cylinder then you can mount the cylinder. There is a blank plate where the clutch slave cylinder would be installed. Just remove 2 bolts and the blank plate comes off then your ready to install the clutch cylinder. There are 2 pics here from something that Mark was working on. I couldnt find my 2 pics so since he was so helpfull to me i dont think he will mind if i use his. So these 2 pics are where the clutch line comes back to the gearbox. One pic is it bolted up and secured to the side of the frame and the other pic is it going to the block on the side of the gearbox. Thats it for the clutch hydraulics. I didnt tie into the brake cylinder reservoir till the end of the project.
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Next i did the pedals. There is a hollow rod that slides thru both pedals. (NOTE GREEN ARROW). In the red circle are 2 10mm bolt that are threaded into the rod which keeps the rod from sliding or moving. Remove them, then you can tap the rod, green arrow but on the right hand side so you can slide it to the left to remove the pedals. You can tap it enough to where you can grab onto it from the other side with a vice grips. Then you can wiggle it out and thru to the left. There are shims on each side of the pedals that must be put back. Slide rod to the left and remove brake pedal, then the holder for the switch, then the spacer which will be replaced by the clutch pedal. Then reinstall clutch pedal,switch holder and brake pedal with shims each side of the pedals. Then you can hook up the brake and clutch linkages and make the proper adjustments and install the brake and clutch switches. Theres just enough room to do this. This took me about 2 hours. So now the clutch master/hydraulic line and clutch and brake pedals are installed. NOTE: I wanted to mention in previous post that the Clutch slave cylinder(updated version) and hydraulic line have been purchased new from Ferrari
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Next i installed the shifter and cables. I took the passenger seat out to do this. Removing the seat is a 10 minute job. So as you can see in the pic theres a green arrow pointing to a rubber plug. This is where the shifter cables go thru. With the console removed the shifter is a bolt up 5 minute job. The 4 holes are there so just place the shifter housing in its spot and bolt it down. Then remove that rubber plug and feed the cables thru halfway to the rear of the car and let them hang. Now you can go to the shifter and hook up the cables to the shifter rod and this part is done. NOTE: There is a rubber grommet that slides over the cables to hold them in place and this grommet goes in the hole where the plug was.
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ID be happy to make up a list. But its a busy week for me and im headed for the Florida keys for a few days. I wanna try to get the rest of this project posted before i go. Send me pm in a week or so