Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Photos by: Which Car HD: 1. https://d3lp4xedbqa8a5.cloudfront.net/s3/digital-cougar-assets/whichcar/2020/06/11/-1/Ferrari-surprise-main.jpg 2. https://d3lp4xedbqa8a5.cloudfront.net/s3/digital-cougar-assets/whichcar/2020/06/11/-1/Ferrari-surprise-7.jpg 3. https://d3lp4xedbqa8a5.cloudfront.net/s3/digital-cougar-assets/whichcar/2020/06/11/-1/Ferrari-surprise-3.jpg 4. https://d3lp4xedbqa8a5.cloudfront.net/s3/digital-cougar-assets/whichcar/2020/06/11/-1/Ferrari-surprise-4.jpg 5. https://d3lp4xedbqa8a5.cloudfront.net/s3/digital-cougar-assets/whichcar/2020/06/11/-1/Ferrari-surprise-2.jpg Surprise. Happy boy! https://www.whichcar.com.au/features/ferrari-f8-tributo-surprise
If you plan to change your Ferrari toy every 1-2-3 years, its probably best to avoid mods. Especially with potential of factory warranty issues..that may affect resale or trade in issues. I have doubts about dealers being able to calibrate the suspension to exact factory specs which may affect the TC system.. which may matter if you drive it hard. I would ask the dealer who does mods to certify In writing that said mods would not void warranty. I’m sure the cars OBC can pick up exhaust mods, changes in suspension settings..etc on your first maintenance service and it’s a slippery slope from there. We all want personalization of our F8 and I get that. Good luck.
Spoke with my dealer about whether aftermarket exhaust and/or lowering would nuke the factory warranty, and I was told if there are issues down the road, it could lead to “warranty nightmares.” That’s enough for me to keep it stock. Plus, I always lose my inertia to return modded cars to stock before sending them down the road. Question I have for members here, is whether there’s a way to lower the car some, just through adjustment to factory suspension?
So I’m not the best when it comes to terminology but apprantly the shocks are mounted on threads which can be threaded down. My dealer quoted me about $2500 to do it. I’m sure someone can describe it better than me.
This is what I did. My dealer did it for free before delivery (they said normally around 2k). No parts - just labor to lower and do alignment. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Ride height looks better, but visually the back wheels look too small vs the front and look inset - could be just the design of the wheel not being helpful too. This is where a change in wheel design becomes part of the equation along with a change in offset or use of spacers and even a larger Dia depending upon design.. The thinner the outer rim of the wheel is and the longer the spoke is to the hub center lessens the visual discrepancy. I think this is mainly why a larger diameter wheel is used when lowering the car as well....to offset the visual discrepancy when the wheel is moved closer to the top of the wheel arch and again why spacers then come into play to reset the wheel out more so the look all ties in properly. Desirably you wouldn't use spacers and instead have the offsets of the rims take up any slack there. Ive looked into lowering my Pista but giving consideration to all the requirements to get it to look 100% right it seems the easier way around it is to change the rims with more offset and that seems to help quite a bit using Gh's Pista with the HRE's as an example.
Check out this thread and especially the first video. All is explained in welcome detail. https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/pista-alignment-video-at-manthey-racing.619579/
Shadow, if he took the photo with a cell phone...like iPhone the camera lens on those will distort round images at an angle. I have seen this same effect on my quick cell phone photos too on various cars.
Part of the problem is that the arches are designed to be concentric circles with the wheels at the ride height that Ferrari sets as standard. Once you lower, the concentric circle fall out of sync and something just doesn't look right.
Totally agree. This is what makes it a dead give away the car has been lowered from the stock specs and the additional inset of the rims only draws more attention to that. Removing the wheel gap and having the wheels look proportionate incorporates a number of aspects inc the entire design of the car in the wheel arch area. Lowering a car only brings other visual problems into play if everything is not properly catered for. I find the viewing angle of the shot can also make quite a difference insofar as how good or bad the wheel gap can appear. But the rear wheel definitely looks a bit to small for the car - the front looks fine. I put it mainly down to the more closed in spoke design of that wheel. F8 definitely sits way too high stock so for me Id buy one with the stock rims and change them out after lowering down a bit. But offsets would also have to be dealt with or the wheels sit too far giving it the shopping trolley look.
This looks very balanced to me. How much lower is it than stock? Did you have any issues with scraping the underside on driveways?
Lowered 1.5”. More than I thought they could do but agree it looks right. Can’t use the soft suspension button but no issues on open road (500 miles so far and 160mph top speed). . Does not scrape on driveway (close) but have scraped a little on one speed bump and one big dip - I just have to remember to take those at an angle. Getting quote now to put skid plates on just in case
I expected to hear there would be significant compromises as I've heard the stories from my service tech from jobs they've done and had to reverse - at the customers expense. And there is always varying degrees of under body damages that often have to be dealt with - some very costly. As Gh reports some dealers are now simply not lowering anymore because they know exactly what will happen and it's got worse on these later model cars as the cost to repair the damages can be very significant. Not being able to use bumpy rd mode, scraping in sports and having to drive sideways over anything remotely resembling a speed hump is for the birds considering it's a street DD type car. I'd honestly put it straight back to where it was and just live with the stock ride height. It would be awful not being able to use the car properly and having to try and live with this level of compromise just for the sake of vanity. As Jo Sta7 says bumpy rd setting is THE most use setting in these cars.
There are threads in the coil over to adjust the ride height.. but it compresses the spring...the ride is probably harsher and the travel is limited. And no comfort /wet mode available. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Some would say the monster truck rear wheel fender gap of the F8 is visually much worse than the resulting lowering if done correctly. Some cars are just not right from the factory. The numbered LEs seem perfect though.
F8's rear fender gap looks even bigger than the front. It seems when the car gets lowered to get rid of the gap the rear has to come down more than the front. So the exercise becomes purely one to creating a visual improvement, introducing all sorts of compromises. Its not as if the exercise is doing anything to enhance the performance of the car in any way. Exactly. Compressing the spring to lower the car only takes the spring out of the sweet spot it was designed to operate in. The lower the body of the car is moved toward the bitumen the stiffer the spring needs to be to allow for the shortened suspension travel. To get everything right involves a lot more than just winding down the collars on the stock springs. There is the recalibration of the shock valving so the springs work correctly in unison as a matched pair. A while back my tech pointed out the first thing to suffer are the brake cooling ducts which get worn away. He showed me a 488 on the hoist which had been lowered and it'd been scraping all the place - a lot of impact damage - and all the directional fins directing the air to the brakes were all worn off very badly. I lost interest in the idea of lowering my 488 after seeing it - wasn't a pretty sight and this car had proper lowering springs in it. The problem with the 488 body is that it already sits so low to the ground underneath the car. The visual issue everyone complains of is a consequence of the fenders not being designed to reduce the visual gap, so reducing the gap by bringing the body even closer to the ground doesn't end well for underneath. When I look at Pistas wheel gap and the proximity of the central cooling fin for the rear brakes there is so little room to work with if lowering the car further. This fin would have to impact the road if it came down farther purely due to the suspension travel which as it is set would probably cause the odd light scrape on full compression. Move it another 10 to 20mm closer it would hit quite a bit. So to get rid of the larger rear gap to even it out with the front gap means lowering these fins even closer. I'm not sure if that's a smart thing to do.
Need a well designed fender flare to satisfy those who have a problem with the “gap”. So they dont have to mess with suspension. But small market not worth designing it?
It seems to me the US cars are set up higher as standard than the european ones (maybe 1" ?) - if so, going to the standard EU settings certainly does not prevent the use of bumpy mode.
I recall reading this on Porsche forum some time back where the same argument was put up and checking revealed they are all the exact same ride height. The F8's over here look visually to be the exact same height as do the Pista's. If you care to measure an F8 in EU USA Aus from the ground to the top of the wheel arch it will be the same.
All it is, is Ferrari have not catered for it in their overall design and don't seem too bothered to fix it. Bit like a lot of other things in the car. It's generally a great car but it's not a complete package as you would expect for this money. Even a much cheaper BMW M has a much tighter looking stance than either Pista or F8 which are very regular and pedestrian looking in the stance and wheel gap dept in comparison. It's a combination of lazy design and being cheap - maxing out profits as much as possible. And as no one really complains they keep dishing it up.
Maybe you travelled the world to make these measurements (which I confess I did not do) but looking at posts #4386 and #4388 I'm not convinced. Anyway I think whatever the case there is an accepted range for the set-up which allows for some (minor) lowering, I also read somewhere that press cars are sometimes lower than customer cars.
