My Epic USA Trip / So Many Ferrari's driven!

I promise there is a lot of 360/430 content to follow in this thread so please bear with me

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Ok, so finally after months of contemplation we made it over to the US again for what turned out to be just an epic trip of a lifetime!

Some 8 wonderful weeks (count 'em!) long adventure with my family where we ended up traversing 5 states which included New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas and Florida. We wanted to do more than but just ran out of time and energy, next trip we will do the West coast!

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It was my first trip to USA for many years and the first time I ever met in person some of the big personalities and companies I've been helping for all this time on Ferrari projects so it was great to finally meet those people.

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First off we visited New York and what a great starting point to kick things off...

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I was honored to be given a personal guided tour by Wil, the proprietor of Exoticar (a long term partner and affiliates who was just a fantastic host and also involved in the gated conversion scene for quite some time as well as being a professional well respected Ferrari specialist up in New Jersey).

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He showed us around their immaculate facilities in New Jersey and I was deeply impressed at the attention to detail going on there, literally you could eat your dinner off their workshop floors! Just such a well run shop and well recommended if your in the New Jersey or Pennsylvania area and need work doing on your Ferrari.

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While in NY I got to see a lot of what New York had to offer including Empire State building, Time Square and all the usual tourist spots. It was a fantastic week long tour and a great start to the adventure.

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Wil was just a fantastic ambassador of New York and really showed us everything there was to see. Without his help we wouldn't have gotten to see half of what it has to offer so I am extremely grateful for all his time.

Thank you sir!

 

haha, glad your still enjoying the work done to improve it. I get calls all the time from people just 'gobsmacked' how much their cars are transformed

 

No way, I didn't even know you where in Texas Rob!!!

NEXT TRIP I promise !!

 

Ok, with Ferrarichat being such a hot bed of life in Texas (who knew!) lets talk about it next!

While I didn't get to see Rob Lay, one4torque or clean512 this visit I did get at least get to see a lot of what Texas life has to offer and it was fabulous. I really LOVED Texas!!

Here's some of the photos that I just found hilarious fun and I'm sure only found in Texas...
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Yikes!!


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Epic!!

While in Austin I managed to meet up with a very well respected Director in the Automotive Industry (an ex-Ferrari engineer whom worked in Italy at the time of Enzo (!) and of which I've developed a strong friendship with over the years).

Last year, together we absolutely rocket fuel transformed his personal 575M with a total wake up from a docile but robust 430rwhp (first dyno) to a rip snorting smidge under 600rwhp with dramatically improved throttle response and super fast shifting speed from the F1. He threw me the key after a traditional meal in a wonderful Texas barbecue restaurant and it did not disappoint! Great to actually drive the final iteration for myself. Thankfully he is a professional industry test driver too so the calibration advice he'd feedback to me was just spot on. It drives flawlessly, as witnessed by many current member of the Ferrari North America at their xmas party where it was passed around in awe! nice

The boost of power was so significant that you'd swear we'd transplanted an Enzo powerplant, all done without touching the engine internals! (head over to the 575M area of Ferrari chat to find out more). We just meticulously optimized intake, exhaust, fueling and everything else in between over a period of about 3 man months elapsed. Since we are in the 360/F430 section lets next talk about these cars and what came next....

 

Next up lets talk about another infamous company in Texas, and the Ferrari world, EAG or European Auto Group. Famous as the inventors / creators of the very well known Ferrari 430 Scuderia gated conversion that nobody else has ever been able to replicate..

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After a roller coaster of a journey since they first started out on their quest to transform Ferrari's to gated (no bad thing in my view). they have matured a LOT. It really shows today and it was great to see this in person.

These guys have come on leaps and bounds (and they really needed to). I grilled them and questioned them about all of this and what's now different. They where open and honest about all the change and explained in detail about the fact in recent months having had millions of dollars worth of VC money injected into the company to help ensure its long term goals and resolve all the growing pains they had along the journey. I met with some of their key people and they talked to me about their future growth plans and how they are rapidly upping their game, transforming all of their original OEM designs to something much better.

They had a lot of work to do in this regards to reputation (and they know it) so this was great to see happening.

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CNC Machine after making parts directly in USA to ensure rapid turnaround times, guarantee quality and ability to innovate quicker than ever..

It is the first time I have ever met any of them in person and they where great hosts. They give me a wonderful tour of their vast facilities and showed me all their new equipment and what that those millions of dollars of investment have brought in. I came away deeply impressed about the breadth and depth of the new talent hired into the company and wish them continued success as the market leader in gated conversion business that they invented.

They have finally implemented in very recent times all the things I've been wishing (like many others I am sure) they would do for literally YEARS. Things like not taking deposits until they are ready to do the project in a reasonable time frame, agreeing with the customer a timeline and implementing a tried and test fully automated process management system to track progress through different stages of the build. It keep customers informed of their cars status at every point along the production line process. Like I said they have finally 'grown up'...

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Screens dotted around the facilities for workers to see as different phases of the work are completed on the cars being converted that week...

Policies which mean they assured me, they won't ever keep hold of cars for many months like the bad old days. Its refreshing to see it really is.

Also they have finally refined the quality of their kits to be well beyond OEM and now I would say better anyone else in the business. In terms of quality of parts they have now got ridiculously good in the latest generation that I saw being prototyped while there. They hired a few pretty impressive experts which have accomplished this in record time, poaching from Elon Musk's SpaceX programme. They have been able to rapidly prototype and improve their parts operation by years in just a few months, super impressive and the weight reduction of the gated parts really excites me personally having spent years trying to do this on my own personal 360 project.

Its now to the point that they are now significantly better performing parts and a lot lighter than before so their kits are not only stronger and better feeling they are lower weight too. More on this later but suffice to say I am now seriously considering upgrading my OEM FACTORY gated 6-speed 360 to include some of their most recent lightweight reduced 7th generation parts. For instance they are building a gated shift which is made from pure carbon fiber with a metal insert to ensure the perfect trademark Ferrari clickety-clack sound and the lowest weight.

Their latest quick shift upgrade is just mind blowing and transforms their shifting feel to the best I've ever tried in any car. I want it!!!

In keeping with the scaling up they have setup the re-flashing stations now using my tech... see below

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They've implemented a full section of the workshop so they can flash 4 ecu's at a time using my supplied cloud technology and software system. Its the most advanced of its kind in the world and this advantage dramatically separates their conversions head and shoulders above anyone attempting to just do simple cross flashing.

There is talk of a customer from New York wanting to convert his Enzo to a gated car next so this is very exciting and I cannot wait to see the results!

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They have started a bespoke personalization programme to allow every facet of their conversion to be chosen specific to the customers needs and desires, everything from the shifter feel (relatively sloppy and rubbery like the OEM factory gated version) vs their latest in rifle action quick shift which just feels insanely good. A new product configurator they say will be available to use soon and it covers all the different models they now do including so many models. I hope I have written them all down right...

• 360 Modena
• 360 Spider
• 360 Challenge Race car
• Challenge Stradale
• F430 Coupe
• 430 Challenge Race car
• 430 Scuderia
• 575M
• 575 Super America
• 599 GTB
• 599 GTO
• 599 XX
• Enzo

With R&D work also being done as we speak on the California and later models like the 458 and beyond.

Lets talk about the Scud next because boy oh boy...

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I knew it would 'go' well after I'd done an EAG specific calibration which we'd dyno'd and saw made significant improvements to the already impressive numberers but nothing prepared me for how well this thing shifts...

With triple cones on all the gears in the box (vs the 360 and F430 which just get them on 1st and 2nd gear) the shift speed is just out of this world. I spent time to do specific detailed calibration while present just so I could refine it even further, its perfect and just a bucket list car. People talk about how good it is as an F1 (and it really is a very good F1 car) but as a gated its spectacular too. Apparently Chris Harris (from Top Gear UK) may well be driving one real soon and will give his verdict. I feel deeply humbled to have been able to contribute so significantly to how this car now drives. The work on the electronics was significantly more than anyone ever imagined but the results are just Wow... They have now completed 5 gated Scud which is just great for their owners who all love them deeply. Lucky people indeed. It only took me 10 years of my life to get a similar car with my 360...

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After leaving Texas I headed over to Florida....

More on this tomorrow but lets just say I got roped in to another big YouTuber project...

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Not a Ferrari related thing but I'm sure many of you are watching Freddy (Tavarish)'s amazing journey on his McLaren P1 build but also assisting on his 430 Scuderia too (keeping it Ferrari related)... Yep he needs all the ecu help he can get, more to follow...

Hope your enjoying this write up as much as I had on the trip!!!

 

Another Texan!! Damn Austin too

Next time I need to stay even longer to meet you all in person !!

 

Back to some 360 content...

Best Gated Factory CS conversion in the world????

Another little side project that I also managed to get involved in doing some more R&D on was the Challenge Stradale gated conversion specific parts. In my opinion the conversions which use the 360 Challenge part will never be the ultimate from an esthetics point of view.

This little side project I'm about to reveal here was done with very selfish reasoning really (i.e. that I want this myself in my own car!) but I do think there should be interest for others too wanting the perfect console for their CS inspired conversion or CS gated conversion projects.

Without further waffle, lets look at the differences. I was just never really happy running a 360 Challenge race car style central tunnel console on the CS themed interior. It just doesn't pull off the aesthetics I was going for and I know if Ferrari had done their own Challenge Stradale gated car it would NOT have looked like this...

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So since EAG have invested also into Carbon Fiber manufacturing capabilities too and are now doing some great work in this space it only seemed right to tap into their already impressive set of skills and machinery..

First lets compare the actual Challenge Stradale console...
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Clearly a design element of this was to have all the buttons and the start on one central pillar, not only does this look good it makes it very driver focused.

Not only that but I'm almost ready to launch a 'fix' for Ferrari's mistake with L.C. (Launch Control). I have never felt this was done right. Ferrari decided to get the LC feature implemented using only the Transmission computers ability to SLIP the clutch so as you can imagine hard launched absolutely DESTROY the clutch. This is just dumb. I've been doing an experimental launch control (that will also of course work on the 360 Modena and Spider too) that does NOT use the TCU to do it but Engine ECU software (as it should be done) to maintain rev's and control the entire thing without any significant wear on the clutch. Almost as if you yourself hard launch it... So this will mean you can launch many times as you like without a visit to your local tech for a new expensive clutch.. Watch this space!!! Anyway more on that later.. Back to the console...


The console comes to life..

After some work it was visualized in 3D CAD as a gated version...

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Then using an enormous and very expensive 3D printing technology the entire central console was 'prototyped' in one go...

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This obviously is only for prototyping and test fitting but its obviously a huge help to have such capable equipment that can bring these things to life so quickly... The technology that's available these days is just amazing!

Next step was to make opposite version for making the thing out of carbon and...

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Bam!

Finally a center console "worthy" of the title, the best OEM style Challenge Stradale gated conversion !!!

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The only thing I'm not happy about with this example is the placement of the flags which I think should be relocated below the mirror buttons... and a few last touches to replace the silver tunnel...

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Preview...

And ofcourse a proper CF gear shifter..
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or

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NOW... you can say you have a perfect gated CF interior and not before!!!!

Special thanks in particular to Art @ EAG for all his hard work on this one as I really wanted this to be very specifically "CS" design language applied to gated console. He had a lot of patience

 

I was planning to go over to the West Coast (including LA too) and even do Monterey but ran out of time, then the West coast started to get battered by weather and then Florida too, omg...