F430 New owner diary inc. maintenance & upgrades

Yes - the 16M has shorter brackets under the rear hood to provide more clearance above the air boxes, and part of the metal is scalloped to add clearance. Without this there will be contact.


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Awesome work, Trev!

 

Capristo Exhaust Valve Controller
This controller will enable me to switch between an override mode with the valves to permanently open, or the standard ECU controlled setting. The kit is very well made and the mode setting switches are operated by using a small supplied magnet over the top of the case rather than with micro switches which could be a weak point for moisture ingress. Neat touch.

My only criticism is that part of the wiring loom isn't taped.
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I chose to mount the unit at the rear of the right hand wheel-arch, away from heat of the exhaust but within reach from inside the engine bay if the rearmost trim panel is removed.
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I ran the earth cable across to one of two existing earth points underneath the F1 pump assembly.
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I had to file out the ring terminal on the loom from M6 size to M8 which easy to do as the fitting is zinc plated brass.
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I taped up any exposed wires and made sure the connectors were secured with cable ties to prevent undue stress on the terminals.
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The loom was an absolutely perfect fit for the F430; I ran it behind the rear bumper underneath the cross member.
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Scuderia Rear Undertray
The Scuderia version is made of a lightweight composite material and has two NACA ducts towards the rear that direct air over the exhaust. The ribs along the underside also match up with the Scuderia diffuser, which is different to the F430 part.
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Steering Wheel Paddles - Module v2
I've been driving around for a year with OEM and steering wheel paddles in place - the former being left in whilst I tested the v1 module. I found that sometimes the modulated resistance output was not close enough to the factory values and hence the TCU threw an error. I have redesigned the module to use Panasonic TQ high speed signalling relays which is a much simpler, elegant solution that removes the need for a micro controller and regulated power supply, and enabled me to match the factory resistor values to within 0.05%.
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I've used butyl on the connections to prevent 'creep'.
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Rear Marker Lights
The reflectors on the rear of the car are the same type of unit that is used as a rear or side marker (lens is amber) light on other Ferraris. For the small amount of effort involved I decided to convert mine to illuminate with the side lights.
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I'm using 0.5mm thinwall cable to match the OEM colours, W4W sidelight bulb holders, AMP Junior Timer Housings, red incandescent bulbs, and an LED I'll try to see if it looks OK - it may be too bright.
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More on this another time.

16M Sound System
I've been analysing the sound system which per side features a tweeter with an inline filter fed from a 100mm Midrange, and a 165mm midbass driver. JBL have been pretty clever in their design to keep weight to a minimum as the midbass features a DVC type driver which enables a smaller magnet to be used whilst maintaining power output. Also, the amplifier is a class D which means smaller power wires, reduced footprint, and less weight at the slight expense of ultimate sound quality, which isn't really a concern in this particular car - anything is going to be better than the standard head unit.
The amp has six channels: two powering the midbass coils, and one for the midrange & tweeter.
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This is all a bit of a concession to luxury rather than weight saving but given the summer roads trips we go on where often we'll spending several hours in the car per day, it's a worthwhile compromise.

16M Door Cards
The inner door handles and handle mechanisms weigh nearly as much as one door card! I'm having the handles remade in carbon, and I've picked up some aluminium stock to remake parts of the handle mechanism. I can save enough weight to offset the midbass speakers.
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I've made a start on fitting the new door cards. I knew from looking at photos of used doors and the Ferrari parts system that I needed to add seven top hat shaped brackets to each door, which is otherwise the same as the F430.
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Whilst my Dad held the door panel in place I used the depth measuring blade on some digital calipers to determine distance from the mounting hole to the door behind; I could then draw up a mount for each of the seven holes. The first door will take quite a bit more time than the second, but it's enjoyable work.
I'm using aluminium strip and stainless rivets/fastenings.
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Three down, 11 to go. Once completed I will etch prime and paint to match whatever colour is behind the bracket (Ferrari doors are a mix of body colour and black paint).
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Rear Marker Lights - Complete
There are a few different types of the same light unit; all have the built in lens/diffuser for a bulb, even if they are intended solely as a reflector, but some types have a blanked off stanchion on the back that would otherwise take a bulb holder, and others - like mine - don't have anything at all. I had a spare set of Ford side repeaters from an older model that would be sacrificed for the W5W stanchion.
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Dremel used to liberate the stanchion.
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Dremel again used to open out the back of the Ferrari reflectors to accept a bulb. Photo also shows the stanchions removed from the Ford side repeaters.
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I made the small loom using trunking, boots, and waterproof AMP housings. Colour coding is yellow/black (positive) and black (earth) for the LH light, and yellow (positive) and black (earth) for the RH light.
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Stanchions epoxied in to place and sprayed in grey plastic paint. W5W holders twisted in - these seal with an O ring.
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Photo to show an installed light viewed from behind the bumper.
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I noticed some witness marks around the rear lights so I've applied black felt to prevent this. I've isolated the rear lights on rubber pads to stop the usual cracks from chassis-borne vibrations.
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Lights on.
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If anyone is interested I may start to produce the above as a kit with an interface loom between the rear lights and car loom to make it completely plug and play.

 

Thank you. Your new car looks great! I'd be interested to hear how it compares to the Performante.

 

Thank you. The engine bay panels save ~1kg so I still haven't made up my mind if I will fit them. I think if I did pick up a set I'd have them sprayed grey, because there's quite a bit of carbon in the engine bay now as it is.

 

Yes - they are a bolt on part, however it is well worth fitting the two additional heat shields that were installed on 2009 onwards Scuderia and 16Ms; they fasten either side of the rear silencer and protect the rearmost engine bay panels from heat. I think the part numbers are 80696800 and 80696900 - I have them fitted.

 

I've finished all but two brackets.
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I've gone for a factory look but neatened by using epoxy with masking tape removed once semi-set in order to leave neat lines (factory - top, mine - bottom)
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Weight saving (100kg and over)
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As far as I’m aware they were 16M and late Scuderia only, and yes – you’re right: they are to prevent the carbon panels from yellowing due to heat. I got them as part of a bulk order of Scuderia parts

 

The door card brackets are complete. The factory doors are painted in body colour then the lower and leading edges are painted in stain black, so I've matched the brackets to whatever paint was underneath them.
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My Dad made templates for the moisture barrier and cut them from closed cell Polyethylene foam. This worked out at around £10 for both sides.
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16M Door Cards - Complete
Inside each door a plastic sheet is used to keep water away from the window motor and mechanism, and on my car the adhesive had failed and the sheets were flapping around inside, which isn't good given some of the window mechanism is exposed. To remedy this I removed the sheets from both sides, de-greased them, and then refitted with better adhesive.
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The Scuderia uses the 360 CS inner door mechanisms which are mounted to the door itself rather than the door card. They re-use the cable mounting bracket from the back of the F430 door cards so I had to swap those across and rivet them to the door. I have also fitted Neoprene washers to the door card mounting points to cut down on vibrations.
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Home-made moisture barriers fitted.
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I've fitted the 16M reflectors (left) in place of the original marker lights (right). The reason for this was explained in a previous post.
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The inner window scraper trims on my car were finished with some kind of trim paint over the base rubber which over time had started to lift (top). My Dad sanded these for me and painted them with black vinyl and rubber paint. The result was much better than I imagined possible - they are as-new (bottom).
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I sprayed an additional layer of black paint on the 16M speaker grilles to freshen them up; the original black paint doesn't have a primer coat underneath so isn't particularly resilient.
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All Scuderia door cars had dark grey Alcantara pads lining the bottom of the storage areas which don't tie-in with anything in my interior, so I commissioned a set in the same red Nappa leather as my steering wheel etc. Also, the stitching on the storage nets was always just black so at the same time I had those re-done in red stitching to match that in my interior.
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I used spray carpet adhesive to fit the new leather pads.
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Door cards complete!
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16M Amplifier
The 16M uses a JBL amplifier which is used in quite a few cars including the Toyota Prius and Ferrari California, but having read reviews of its performance I decided I didn't want to fit it. What likely doesn't help is that, for whatever reason, the line-out (connector 'C' on the ISO connections) wasn't used and instead the JBL is fed speaker-level inputs - this is never the way to go to make the most of a head unit and amplifier pairing.
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Given the above I decided to make two changes: 1) find an amplifier tested with a better level of performance that is no heavier than the original, and 2) to improve SQ use line level outputs from the Becker head unit to amplifier. I settled on the Apline MRV-F300 amp which is a Class D therefore lighter and cooler running than an equivalent (heavier) Class A or A/B.
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For (relative!) comfort I've opted to retain the sound deadening and vibration material in my car, so in order to mount the amplifier in the factory location I cut a neat square under the passenger seat to allow the amplifier to sit low enough to provide clearance for the left seat. The vibration damping material is bitumen based and stuck to the floor pan; it can be removed with a heat gun and plastic scraper. I removed the adhesive residue with petrol. The sound deadening material lays loosely over the top and was simply cut as required then lifted out.
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The 175mm x 210mm area of vibration damping & sound attenuation material came in at 0.665kg, which must put the full complement at around 8kg. The removed part offset the amplifier to mean the total weight added was only just over 1kg - for me that is an acceptable compromise given the benefit. Out of interest at some point in the future I may conduct some tests with a sound level meter with the removable sound deadening material fitted then removed.
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In terms of wiring the neat thing about adding an amplifier is that all cars are pre-wired with a junction point connector to support an one; it's a GT series connector that has speaker wires, power wires, and remote turn-on, so all I had to do was add the additional speaker wires to the door loom multi-plug and add make use of the junction point connector using OEM pins. I've used factory colours throughout and made twisted pairs for reduced interference. The only change I made was to step up the woofer speaker wires by 0.5mm for better SQ.
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F430, Scuderia, and 16M Door Panel and HiFi Weight Analysis
Door card and stero system weight anlayis
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Misc
The electric window switches in my car had suffered the usual sticky problem, so given at the same time I had the HVAC control unit in pieces to paint the knobs black (Scuderia has matt black knobs - F430 has satin metallic grey) it made sense to de-sticky everything at the same time. I found that the HVAC temperature display was very resiliant but I had to use extreme care with the window switches because the paint was very fragile.
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I used Tamiya paint for the black knobs and their 'Flatt Matt' lacquer to seal the de-stickied parts. It turned out looking OEM but without the risk of further sticky issues.
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Another titivation job: a strip of aluminium lines either side of the Spider hood tray and on my car the original satin black paint had weathered due to a lack of primer underneath. To restore them the trims were rubbed down, etch primed, and then re-finished in satin black.
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I'm going to refresh the suspension flamblocs and bearings at some point soon so rather than work on my arms I'm piecing together a spare set that can be sent for vapour blasting and build-up off the the car. Fitting them becomes a simple swap-over
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My X-Pipe exhaust has gone because I'm ready for a change.
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I also picked up the OEM paint template/jig for the 16M stripe. The stripe on my car is currently a decal which does let down the car, so I'm going to have it painted on.
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Weight Saving (Items Over The 100kg Mark)
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The goal of this project is creation of a light weight, high performance, road-based Spider. One of the requirements I set to help meet that is a weight saving target of 150kg without detriment to on-road manners or civility, and this dictates that I continue to develop parts to compliment the off-the-shelf OEM offerings.

A new round of bespoke light weight carbon parts are in production and here's a first look at the next body panel to be made to my specification; I'm particularly pleased with the mix of carbon fabrics that blend strength with a cosmetic match to the OEM fabric in the areas that will remain visible.

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Ahh, yes! Hello Chris. I have a few parts on the go at the moment; one in Italy, one in the UK, and one in China.

Hello Seong,
No, these are a full set of original 16M door panels that I picked up with the speakers etc. I need to find some time to finish the Scuderia panels then I'l advertise them as a package with a set of speakers and the door wiring looms.

Mark