430 GogglesPisano's F430 Ownership Journey

Thanks for the tip. I have a pair similar to those also, but prefer these Lisle clamp pliers as they have that center nub that keeps pressure on the middle flair point (or whatever it's called). Keeps it flat and prevents it from bubbling outwards as you squeeze so you get a cleaner appearance.

 

My favorite part of owning any car is planning for future mods. It’s usually things I think of and want to tackle later due to time constraints or I’m buying it in case it’s no longer available, or just because I’m bored and like planning. Not sure where this one falls in because I’m not taking my cluster apart in the near future, but you never know when the down time will present itself.

Anyway, one of the things that bug me now that I’ve done the manual conversion is the blank square on the gauge face. It’s like that blank button you don’t get the option for on the dash to me. Empty space that just screams you’re missing something. With all the various options and accessories Ferrari had, you’d figure a separate gauge face would be one of them. Unfortunately, it is not the case and I’m assuming they wanted to leave it up to me when I came along

This is purely experimental and I don’t know if there will be a dark square behind where the cutout would be, but I took it upon myself to contact one of the aftermarket gauge face companies and request a custom item. I basically wanted just the OEM setup but with the cavalino moved over the cutout to obfuscate it. Also, I felt the RPM location was weird so I moved that to someplace that made sense for me. The guy in charge was more than accommodating and set about mocking up what I described as a proof. I must admit, I was a little hasty on the details but a few things on the first ones were also off from their end so I ended up with three. The first one was the wrong shade of yellow with error lights too bright (and I forgot to add kph to the right side). The second one was the right shade but the font size on the kph was all over. The third one came out as I hoped for.

If anybody wants the first two to play around with, let me know. If so, I’d like to donate whatever you’re willing to pay for them to the guy that made these as I feel like I was a little more trouble than he bargained for

Thoughts? Side note, not sure what the backside of the stock ones look like. The backside of the first one of these is very different from the other two that were sent. Not sure how they’ll look once illuminated but I already have other ideas in mind that I’ll be trying eventually anyway.
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Ok, someone pointed out that there was a little CF shield for the plenum if you ordered the carbon engine package. I like the small detail over my cast one with just the very 2D cavalino. In a stroke of luck, I found what appears to be the last new one for sale for a price that was absolutely silly for something this small, but such is the cost of hard to find Ferrari parts. Imagine my disappointment when I realized the craftsmanship on this thing should have had it priced under $50. The chrome parts are actual metal as you would expect, but it looked like the cavalino had been in a battle. There was a very evident scratch across the CF which was also very poorly cut along the edges to make room for the shield outline. The clear had chipped all along the perimeter when they machined it down. It’s basically a 1x1 traditional weave sliver that is cut to fit within the shield. Then it’s pasted over the top of a more chunky (assuming cheaper as well) thicker plate of CF. However, instead of clearing the assembly, they cleared the top layer before cutting it, so the edges all chipped. Such was DQ back in our generation I guess. I don’t think this would fly these days.

Anyway, as it would personally keep me up at night to have this shoddy emblem in the center of the plenum, I decided to disassemble it and polish it out. The outside is held on with a thin film of gasket maker and the cavalino is just bolted on. It was pretty tightly pressed in and I didn’t want to take the chance that they glued that too, so I carefully razored both parts and pried them out carefully. Some light sanding with 600 through 3000, then a polish had the shield shining again. The chips were of course still there, but less noticeable as I filed them down slightly. I was able to also lightly sand the cavalino and polish him back up to a shine. The cavalino was bolted back while the shield border was epoxied on.

So, in typical fashion, I finish all this up and didn’t once bother to research if this would even fit I found another thread where someone was trying to do the same thing and the consensus was that this was only intended to go with the CF plenum cover and nothing else. Someone had mentioned the cast shield just pried off so I did the same. Sure enough, a small screwdriver in the edge popped it out. It’s actually held on with RTV and nothing else. I cleaned up the mount point and test fit the carbon one. Surprisingly, it was a perfect fit and the center triangle area slotted right in with zero wiggle. I coated the backside with fresh RTV and pressed it in one final time. Should play off my carbon intake nicely once that arrives


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Welp, wife came home and I was excited to show her. She took one look at it and said it looked like it came from Pep Boys. That it was too much bling for an engine bay that had nothing else chrome. I can’t unsee it now and agreed after it was presented that way so back out it came. To feel like I at least accomplished something today, I sanded the edges of the stock one to have more aluminum showing and I feel like that’s a better balance.

Anybody want to buy a CF plenum shield?
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Not sure I still have them. I’ll check and let you know if I do.

 

$68.29 shipped to be exact for all 14 of those

 

Yup. And you can use a torque wrench on them but I think everyone just uses German spec for everything

 

Upped my detailing game recently with an Active 2.0 pressure washer with all the gear. Did a ton of reading up on things which can be difficult as detailing questions are almost like asking what type of oil to use. Anyhow, super happy with the foam coverage and performance. I’m coming from one of those battery powered Ryobi power washers so it’s a night and day difference. Cut through the track day grime with ease and finished it all off with some CarPro Reload.


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A few more mods this weekend. @veilstylez was nice enough to give me a deal on some inner CF sills from a Scuderia. I had carpet on mine so this was a welcome addition. Walking a fine line at this point with how much CF is too much. I might dial it back in the future but I’ll run it for now and see how I feel.

Also, decided to ditch the Power Acoustik CarPlay unit as it was glitching out on me, overheating in the sun when the top was down, and just overall not a pleasant experience as I found myself having trouble hitting the small buttons on the screen without fat fingering whatever button was next to what I wanted. I have a really nice Alpine in my Wrangler, but lucked out here when a fellow member took this unit out of their Ferrari in favor of the Power Acoustik. This is the last CD player head unit made in Japan from Alpine and should appreciate nicely. I feel like this car deserves to have a CD player in it due to the era and I don’t think you can get too much better than this while maintaining Bluetooth audio. For those keeping count, this is unit number five in my car Pretty sure this will be the last one.


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