LHD 2005 F430

[JLewis]

8 hours ago, GimmeShelter said:

 

That really does look nice!

[Dick]

How you managed to look at it without touching/jumping in and giving it 7,000 revs is beyond me!  Beautiful machine.

[World Citizen]

21 hours ago, GimmeShelter said:

Thank you!  No delivery yet (scheduled for next Saturday) but I did take a drive over to see it on Saturday (in a properly socially-distanced manner: just one-on-one, the vendor opened the doors, bonnet and engine lid, I didn't even touch the car):

I think I wouldn't be as strong and would have given it a sly fondle or maybe even a lick 😋

[Richard Bernau]

Gold was a cheeky suggestion - but I do think gold would look as good as silver, recognising its quite an individual and polarising choice.

I would be tempted by 10mm wheel spacers all round.  Would make a world of difference to the stance.

1 hour ago, World Citizen said:

I think I wouldn't be as strong and would have given it a sly fondle or maybe even a lick 😋

Me too.

[Fleety]

Absolutely beautiful, fair play & enjoy. I personally wouldn’t even consider gold wheels on it. Wouldn’t work with the centre caps IMHO. I appreciate however that gold wheels look great on many red cars. I might suggest it to my 18 yr old lad with his 2005 Seat Ibiza!! 😄

[Beaky]

6 hours ago, World Citizen said:

I think I wouldn't be as strong and would have given it a sly fondle or maybe even a lick 😋

But you do that to everyone and everything...........................................................

[World Citizen]

11 minutes ago, Beaky said:

But you do that to everyone and everything...........................................................

Not anymore, everything tastes of disinfectant or hand sanitizer 🤮 

[GimmeShelter]

So ... the car was delivered on Saturday.  It looked utterly beautiful, but apart from staring at it, and watching the very professional delivery man (sparkly-clean previous-generation Range Rover and pristine German-made covered trailer) kindly reversing it off the trailer and into the space I'd made in the garage, I didn't touch it until today.

[Busybee]

That’s so pretty! Congrats. I’ve never owned a fezza but delivery of one of these must be pretty darn special. Enjoy just soaking it in 👍😍

[GimmeShelter]

I've driven tiptronics and a DSG Golf R, but never a single-plate clutch automated manual before.  First impressions are that it's more like piloting an alien spacecraft than a car.  You can feel the clutch operating and the gearchanges are noticeable, rather than the hot-knife-through-butter action of the DCT gearboxes.  You pull both paddles for neutral and there's a push button on the centre console for reverse.  You can select Auto on another button on the console (if you must) but the car defaults to manual every time you turn it on.

Negatives?  It's got that ageing-Ferrari sticky button thing going on in the cabin.  That is, the black soft-ish touch finish on the buttons goes sticky with age.  This car has had its buttons treated to overcome this issue, but it's clearly not completely successful, particularly on the three central vents in the dashboard, which are noticeably tacky.

And the warning lights are funny little icons mostly huddled into a cluster down to the left of the rev counter, like a bit of an afterthought.  The weakest part of the design is that the indicator warning light is down there, and there's only one.  They really could have fitted a light for left and another for right, and put them up either side of the rev counter.  But if that's all I can find to complain about, I'll be very happy.  At least it has a conventional indicator stalk, not buttons on the steering wheel like on the more recent cars, which would annoy me.

However, the car is exactly as it was described.  I chose this car not just for its colour scheme (red with black being my favourite on the older V8s) but because of its history, particularly that it has had the exhaust headers replaced with Challenge manifolds.  The bugbear on these cars is that the headers contain the pre-cats, which can randomly disintegrate, and the bits get sucked back into the engine, causing damage.  It's common in the UK to replace the headers with aftermarket items made by people such as Fabspeed, but their headers don't incorporate heatshields.  The Challenge headers, being genuine Ferrari items, have full heat shields, which serve to protect the local wiring, etc.  This car also has the Scuderia rear bumper, valance and grille.  It's only a cosmetic thing, but it's so much nicer looking than the standard F430 item.  And finally, it has the Challenge wheels, which I'm told are lighter than the standard 'five spoke' (actually, ten spoke) items and much better looking, to my eye, at least.  The Challenge wheels, manifolds and Scuderia back bumper/grille would have cost a previous owner over £10k, I gather.

4 minutes ago, Busybee said:

That’s so pretty! Congrats. I’ve never owned a fezza but delivery of one of these must be pretty darn special. Enjoy just soaking it in 👍😍

Thank you!  As you can imagine, it feels special and I feel fortunate.  This and the hotrod IB make such a great pair.

[GimmeShelter]

The vendor did warn me that, "There's something wrong with the sound system," so obviously, I was going to have a firkle (a Midlands word) around and see what I could do.

First was the relatively straightforward job of getting the head unit to talk to the CD changer in the boot - the usual random pressing-and-holding-for-5-seconds of buttons to find out which one allowed access to the set-up menu (the TP button, as it turned out) then choosing CDC instead of Aux.  Good.

Then finding that the bass speakers in the doors were sounding rather fuzzy.  A chat with the vendor gave me the dismantling sequence, so I took the doors apart and found a pair of very knackered ASK (Italian) speakers.  Presumably cheap items fastenend in place by substantial-looking brackets and quality fasteners - an interesting juxtaposition, especially given that the head unit is a Becker.

A rather optimistic internet search yielded a pair of 17cm Pioneer speakers of a higher specification, and - praise the gods of electronics! - they fitted, only requiring me to figure out which terminal was positive and which was negative and make up new connectors.

Old and new:

Swapping over:

New one built:

Wow, what a nice sound system now!

[Richard Bernau]

Single clutch robo manuals are quite a thing.  I think you will enjoy mastering it much more than a DSG and when going for it, they shift pretty quick & brutal, although for sure they don't give the full interactive of a manual.  Somewhat bizarrely, I feel like a car with paddles actually makes you drive faster.  Pottering around feels fine in a manual, but odd in a paddle shift box. 

Do like those wheels.

[SP72]

Nice to see some exotica on here

I watched Harry’s video of a manual 430 last week, he absolutely loved it.

I think it’s aged quite nicely

[Dick]

Nice job one the speakers.  I recently did similar on a far cheaper classic and it's a very satisfying job when you get decent sounds coming back!

[topcarrera]

So very jealous, wonderful choice and hope you enjoy!

I wish I was just a little bit braver and able to take a punt on one of these ....

Of all modern era cars then I think these are at the absolute zenith in terms of combined looks, performance and character.

[World Citizen]

I love that you just dived in and started pulling it apart 😎

A friend had a beautiful metallic blue 430 as his daily, Ferrari gave it to him for helping them win the F1 world championship

 

Edited June 17, 2020 by World Citizen

[MarkJ]

f430 is a stunning bit of kit, easily one of the nicer looking modern models they've produced. Slightly jealous  

regarding Harrys Garage, did you guys see the rebuilt Lambo V12 going back into his Espada? Pure engine porn.

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by MarkJ

[GimmeShelter]

On 16/06/2020 at 13:48, Richard Bernau said:

Do like those wheels.

Thanks.  As it happens, I've always thought that the M3 CSL wheels are amongst the nicest ever and these Challenge wheels remind me of those.

[Lesworth]

20 hours ago, MarkJ said:

f430 is a stunning bit of kit, easily one of the nicer looking modern models they've produced. Slightly jealous  

regarding Harrys Garage, did you guys see the rebuilt Lambo V12 going back into his Espada? Pure engine porn.

 

There's a whole series on that engine, taking it out, pulling it apart and rebuilding it.

[GimmeShelter]

A couple of months of driving the car (not every day, you understand) brought up a couple of problem areas, which rather highlight the 'real world' issues that you run up against with cars like this (compared with, say, our Mk2 Focus which just never gives a problem).  The first was an engine management light, that I interrogated with an ELM327 OBD2 diagnostic device, shown below.  I paid £20 for the OBD tool as you can see - although they're available for less, but the vendor was very helpful, so I was happy to buy from him - and I'm impressed, as you tell it the make of car and it will pull up manufacturer-specific data, including derived data (such as mpg), and it can display real-time data including a virtual dashboard, on your phone, all via the magic of bluetooth and a downloaded app:

Anyway, the fault codes were P0420 and P0430, left and right bank catalyst lambda readings.  Apparently this is a 'known fault' and you can fit spacers to the lambda sensors to stop them doing this.  I've heard of it on Astons, but wasn't aware that Ferraris do it too.

The second thing was a bit more fun-and-games.  After a spirited drive along some B roads, I came into town traffic and paused at a mini-roundabout when the following message came up:

"Curious", I thought, as I was stationary at the time ... but then found that the car wouldn't engage gear, so I had the unenviable job of getting out and explaining to the drivers behind me that this red Italian thing just isn't as reliable as my German car ... they were surprisingly good-natured about it (I had expected a rude hand gesture or two, but no, people were polite).  After a couple of minutes, the car let me engage first, so I drove home rather cautiously, with the message still displayed.

It turns out that this was the 'F1' gearbox oil pump, losing pressure when hot, something that they do as they get older, like, about 15 years old.  So I had a firkle (that word again) around in the back and found the oil pump:

It seems there are two types of F1 pumps on 430s, 'cheap' ones and expensive ones, depending on build number.  I sent the above photo to the vendor I bought the car from, and, luckily, mine is the 'cheap' one.  So for £395 plus an hour's labour, and another hour to fit the lambda spacers, I decided to let the expert do the work.  I got the car back on Saturday and all seems well.

As regards driving it, I can report that it is a joy to drive.  I liken it to a big Lotus Elise (I used to have one), but swifter and with a lot less road noise, with agile handling and communicative steering.  Not quite Lotus-precise, but still tactile and very planted.

Maybe that's it, regarding teething problems, or maybe there'll be more to come.  We'll see.

 

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by GimmeShelter
typos

[Beaky]

Sounds very Italian but in a good way!

One way or the other it'll end up a very well sorted Ferrari

[GimmeShelter]

For some time now, I've been meaning to do something about the speedometer.  It was in km/h, which is a bit of a nuisance, always having to do arithmetic as you drive, but also because in km the numbers are a bit more crammed in and not so easy to read.  So after a bit of research, I found a firm named Lockwood that make mph speedometer faces.  The only thing was fitting it ...

Here's what the instruments looked like 'before':

... and here's the sequence of taking the instrument binnacle out, dismantling it, etc:

 

After removing the steering column cowl and the top 'shade' cowl, four Allen bolts (you can see the top two in the photo) hold the binnacle in place:

[GimmeShelter]

Then it's ten cross-head screws to separate the binnacle and surgery on the speedometer:

... and, lo and behold, we have an mph speedo

Wriggle it back into place in the car, connect up the connectors, curse the Allen bolts for being devils to get back in, and check it all works, which, thankfully, it does.

[GimmeShelter]

Prior to taking the car on the Alpine tour, I decided to get some miles in on it, to familiarise myself and to check the car over.  So of course, more 'real world' things started to happen.  Firstly, the little cover from the LHS headlamp washer decided to fly off:

 

What a nuisance!  That would look rubbish on our holiday photos, so I got on to Maranello and ordered a new one: £57 and it comes in primer grey.  But worse still, it arrived damaged:

 

[GimmeShelter]

So I had to beg Maranello to send me another one pronto, as time was running out to get it painted.  But fortunately they did, and my friendly paint shop happened to have Rosso 322 in stock, so the replacement cover was painted and fitted just days before departure.

But meanwhile, during this little panic, the alarm decided to start going wrong.  Bother.  Some testing around in the car and forum-searching diagnosed that it was probably the siren.  It is buried between the two front bulkheads and contains rechargeable batteries:

It's possible to buy the batteries, but they're spot-welded to the contacts.  Bother again.

So, late on a Monday night I found Abacus car alarms on line and ordered a replacement siren module.  To my relief and delight it arrived on the Wednesday, I fitted it and it cured the problem.  Well done to Abacus.