Hi All, F430 is feeling floaty at speed - ~200km/h (120mph). Very little steering weight or feel, car doesn't feel at all planted on the road. Is this a common issue? What can be checked other than tyre pressure and wheel alignment? Seems as though the car is set up very soft, as the nose rises and falls dramatically under heavy acceleration and braking
You need to get your car corner balanced & high speed alignment. There is many different types of alignment. Street, Track, Semi-Track, High Speed.
As a general rule, will the dealer be willing to help? I've come across instances where even performance car dealers won't do anything to fix a problem that only occurs above the country's speed limit. What is involved in this high speed alignment? Little more toe-in?
How many miles are on the tires? Are they directional in the proper direction?! I had a similar issue with a 360 and it ended up being that the new tires were mounted backward in the front.
About 1500miles on the tyres (and the car itself). Not sure about the direction, but one would hope the factrory got it right.
Although difficult to figure out how to handle, it sounds like a downforce problem (the car is not "planted" at speed). If air is getting underneath you would feel "light". Alignment may be a solution but I doubt it and the same for tire pressure. Best
I'll bet serious money it's tire pressures that are too high for the speed. The tires heat up, become overinflated and there is less of a contact patch touching the road on each tire. The problem will be more obvious when cornering.
Cheers for the advice guys. Will have the tyre pressures checked. Next question is why on earth Ferrari made this car's supension so soft!!
mine is anything but soft. Put it on the slick road setting, nice ride for terrible Atlanta roads. Put it in Sport or Race....its super stiff...
Springs are too soft. Shocks are pretty good. I think it is a good compromise for the street with the shocks giving a good sensation of feel and the springs soft enough to keep the ride good. Not so great on the track though. Novitech does make stiffer springs though, or if you wanted you could always get some hypercoils. As to your problem,check the rake of your car in adition to what has already been said.
check the ride height front/rear my guess it's off. then do a corner balance and an alignment. i had a similar problem.
Thanks all, car is going into the dealer today. Next question is: should the dealer be covering the cost of this, given that the car only has 2000kms on it?
Also please accept my apologies for the brevity of my posts, I'm quickly banging these out in the 2 misn between meetings!
Not sure if there's a mileage limitation for this kind of thing. Ask the dealer. If you've had the problem all along tell them and see what he'll do. Anyway, this problem isn't normal.
Unless the car pulls to one side chances are they wont cover it. I suggest finding a performance shop that has a in shop alignment rack and can corner balance the car. I had that same problem at 150+ on my 360. I got a high speed alignment and fixed the problem. Only becuase I drove from NY to LA with it and was at high speed most of the time. But not sure if you want that all the time. The best I think is a semi-track alignment. It will not be has hard on the tires as a full track alignment but will give you much better grip then just the factory set up. Another question is the car lowered or not. Also does the steering feel light, or does the car seem light. Those are 2 differnent problems.
Where do you live. I got a great place in LA that can fix the problem for you. Lucent Motors in west LA. I know the owner Tom who can get the job done right.
+1 on the tire pressure maybe being off (too high). as far as why: rock hard suspension doesn't mean better handling in most cases. Shocks/springs are there to help the car absorb bumps in the road. If the spring rate and/or shock rate is too stiff, the tire can't move fast enough to absorb the bump, etc. Having rock solid springs tends to result in the car being launched over bumps, which causes the tire to lose grip. The less the tires come off the ground, but better you can corner, etc. I generally find my 360 handles better with sports mode off. Sports mode is good in some cases, but on your average, un-even road, a slightly softer sprung suspension will often times yield better results (aka absorb the bumps, don't fly over them and have the tire lose contact with the surface of the road). Ray
the tires should have an arrow on the side (showing the direction of rotation), if they are a directional design tire. Ray
Thanks all... I know I've sounded like a bit of a technically ninny in this thread, but I'm actually quite knowledgeable about most things to do with performance cars. Re: the nitrogen, if I can find someone locally (HK) who actually knows what they are doing (i.e. several purge cycles to make sure it's done properly) I'll definately look into that. Re: the suspension: I totally understand why the high speed damping would be softer, particularly on the spider, but there is no reason for the low speed damping to be as soft as it is... the car pitches fore and aft a hell of a lot under heavy longitudinal loads. But whatever... I have the car, now I'll deal with it, scary as it can be under heavy braking! I am a P-Car nut, so I guess I am used to the supreme braking stability that is inherent in a rear engined car. Mid-engined will take me a while to get used to. With respect to the F430 suspension, what is adjustable? Given that you guys are talking about corner balancing, I am assuming that there is some sort of adjustable spring perch system (ala traditional coilover). What is the range of adjustment? What is the range of adjustment for toe, camber, castor, ackerman (last 2 only for the front wheels) Re: the ride height, the car is at stock HK spec height. I would prefer not to perform any modifications to the car, as I will be selling it in 3 months to take delivery of another. One final thing, the car has a loud clunking in the front of the car, hence its current trip to the dealer. I'm hoping that the problems are related so it will be a quick (and cheap) fix on my part. Many thanks for the help.
Car is new to me, hence the questions here. If I'd had it for a few months I would have pulled it to pieces myself by now
