IIRC, the challenge car front noise helps with high speed stability vs the standard nose.

 

OK, first day on track with the F430 went relatively well. Rain and slick track in the morning was a bit of a challenge. The track was really slick causing one potentially serious accident where a Porsch was written off and the poor fellow being taken away in an ambulance followed by a second car hitting the concrete wall an hour later with extensive body damage to his Lotus along with a few spin outs from a few others.

The track dried out somewhat in the early part of the afternoon and allowed me to push the car a bit more. Got a couple of really good sessions in. Our track is tight and extremely brake intensive so I was trying to get a feel for the F430 brakes. Definitely could have used some better tires than the Bridgestone RE050's that came with the car. Had some issues with the F1 gear box. Happened about 6 times where coming out of turn 2 on our track in second gear accelerating and shifting into 3rd but instead going up one gear into 3rd, the gearbox went all the way to 5th gear. Might have to get the dealer to check this out.

My PZero Corsa's came in so got to the tires shop at the end of the day and got them installed. Noticed the old Bridgestone rear treads had only about 25% left and about 40% left on the fronts. Could explain why the car felt extra slippery out there this morning. Look forward to using the Corsa's tomorrow.

 

Night and Day With the Corsa's!!

Keep us posted on the Transmission issue. Seems like a strange issue...

 

Seems like you may need an actuator alignment for your F1

 

I believe that as long as the ratio is maintained, you will not upset the balance of the car. So if you had 225s(front)/285s(rear) and you change the front to 235, then by changing the rears to 295, you should be fine. I'm not positive of this, and I would think that you could probably go a little wider in the rear without changing the how the car handles too much.

Why not run RComps if you are using this as a track car btw?

 

Day two on track was clear and perfect temperature. I was excited to see how the car would perform with the new PZero Corsa's. Once the tires wormed up after a couple of laps, these tires were night and day compared to the Bridgestone RE050. Cornering speeds were phenomenally fast and precise. It just gave me the confidence to push the car a lot harder. I tend to brake earlier into corners and modulate my braking to carry more speed and momentum through the turns. Habit developed with my 911C2 due to lack of power and torque coming out of the corners. With the Pirelli's on the F430 and the available power from the car, I was braking later, carrying more speed through the corners and accelerating harder coming out. I highly recommend anyone taking their car to the track to change out their tires to the PZero Corsa's since these are one of the few DOT leagal competition tires available in our size. I did not want to go with straight R compound tires because they are hard to find in 19 inch sizes for the F430 and I can't drive them to and from the track.

After enjoying some great laps, unfortunately my track day was cut short in the morning when I spewed all my coolant on the track. Got it towed on a flat deck to the dealer and it turned out to be a radiator hose clip that had popped off. Anyone that ever had to get their car towed should watch the car getting loaded and off loaded onto the flat deck. My tow guy was very experienced in Exotics and knew what he was doing but I can see some inexperienced guy doing some damage to your car. I heard some horror stories from the guys around me that were watching my car get loaded onto the flat deck.

Looks like Fabspeed has shipped my new air intake cover, BMC air filters and 200 cell sport cats. Hopefully I'll have these installed before heading down to Seattle's Pacific Raceway next Thursday. Won't make any difference on the handling but might improve throttle response not that this car really needs it.

 

Great write up and it's nice to see owners of such capable cars out on the track. I've tracked my 996TT and M3, but I am still reluctant about the F430. Still love it too much to abuse it. There is no better sight than seeing a fast approaching Ferrari up on your *** and passing by WOT.

 

Thanks AV2, I understand the hesitation of anyone tracking their cars. My personal opinion is that you buy a performance car because of its performance. Exotic looks and sounds usually comes as a package to stimulate the emotional side of things and there are those who buy a car strictly on those basis too. But for those who buy it for the performance side of things, what better way to enjoy it then on the track. As long as you don't go on the track with a big eagle and do stupid things, it is a relatively safe way to have fun and enjoy your machine.

Anyways, got the parts I ordered from Fabspeed yesterday and decided to install the stuff that I can do myself this morning before work. Here is how it went:

Carbon front splitter was a cinch and it took only 20 minute including unpackaging the boxes, getting my tool out and figuring out which allen key to use. The carbon fibre piece is significantly lighter then the piece that came off the car. Probably 20% of the weight of the OEM part. It's a small piece so you'll save maybe 2 or 3 pounds off the nose. Build quality was very good. There are a couple of pics of this.

The carbon air box cover were very light as well but the factory aluminum airboxes were almost just as light except for the capped of pipe piece coming out of the underside of it. Not sure what the original intent of this pipe was. Removal of the cover was real easy. Changing both covers and air filters was 40 minutes tops including clean-up. The BMC air filter was significantly lower profile with less folds than the OEM paper filter. The BMC filters come pre-oiled and were a perfect fit.

When I was at the dealer to get the blown rad hose clamp fixed they also did a smoke test of the exhaust which takes a few hours to perform to check for cracks in the stock exhaust manifold. Apparently there were some known issues with the F430 manifolds and it is covered under an 8 year warranty. I was also told that the manifolds has a pre-cat in it. They did discover leaks and will be replacing the manifolds no charge under warranty. I decided not to replace them with after market headers because when I installed headers on my Porsche 997, it did not net any worthwhile dyno results. The only gain might be a bit of weight savings. The dealer has offered to installed the new high flow cats for me free of charge when they do the exhaust manifold replacement.

Some pics from today.

 

Are you going to change the springs?

 

Attachment 133750The rest of the pics from this morning.

 

I would get a corner balance track alignment done at the beginning of next season and asses the suspension after 5 or 6 track days. I have only had two days out there so far and one of them was mostly wet. I wouldn't just change the springs. Been through that once with the Porsche 997. Looks nice lowered, handles a bit better with lowering springs but then replaced the whole thing with PSS9's a month later. I think if I need to upgrade the suspension, I would just replace the whole thing with fully adjustable coil overs. I believe Vivid Racing offered some suspension upgrade options for the F430 on their site.

 

Yes VR sell Moton race C.O.

 

Forgot to mention I also did a baseline dyno on Wednesday on a Dynapack. The result was 418 HP and 305 lbft at the wheel. Seems pretty consistent with other stock dyno readings I've read on forums with a 14% loss. Once the cat's get put on I might do another dyno before an ECU tune.

 

Glad to see someone using their Ferrari for the purpose it was constructed for!!! Sounds like you are loving the car so far, good luck and enjoy!

 

Congrats on the new-to-you Ferrari!

It seems like you're off to a great start on your Ferrari. Joe and the guys over at Fabspeed are known to make some of the best sounding exhaust setups so I'm sure you'll be well taken care of!

Looking forward to the video clips / dyno results!


Some of our customers that are more "track-oriented" have gone with standard steel rotors for durability on the track for those very reasons.