Ferrari F430 Spider

[mwstewart]

rainmasterb said:

Looking good Mark. Will we get chance to see it in the metal at Horsepower at the Hall this coming Saturday?

Thanks! Sadly not the next event but I will be there as soon as I can be.

[hughcam]

mwstewart said:

hughcam said:

Enjoy Switzerland! Make sure you do the furka and Sustain passes. They are the best roads in the world!

Thank you - neither are on the list actually! Are they better drives than the Gotthard Pass?

The Gotthard pass leads to the Furka IIRC. A pic taken on the Susten* pass taken last September below;



IMO the Susten was the best road I have ever driven. No traffic and miles of downhill hairpins leading to a huge reservoir. Heaven.

[Lugy]

Cracking thread and really nice to see the dirty parts for a change! It's very refreshing to see someone getting stuck in, rather than just take it to the main dealer. I'd imagine at the end of your ownership (if that day ever comes!) you'd have saved a massive amount on labour costs/parts mark up than any potential lower resale value.

Certainly gives me the confidence that I could one day own something exotic and self maintain.

[S3_Graham]

mwstewart said:

hughcam said:

Enjoy Switzerland! Make sure you do the furka and Sustain passes. They are the best roads in the world!

Thank you - neither are on the list actually! Are they better drives than the Gotthard Pass?

Would you mind sharing your trip stop overs? Im in the process of planning a route to get me to Lake Como in Juy with the GF. At the moment its looking like
Outbound:
Bromley>Nurburg
Nurburg>Chur
Chur>Como
Como>Garda

Return:
errr... no idea yet!

[mwstewart]

hughcam said:

The Gotthard pass leads to the Furka IIRC. A pic taken on the Susten* pass taken last September below;

IMO the Susten was the best road I have ever driven. No traffic and miles of downhill hairpins leading to a huge reservoir. Heaven.

That looks awesome!

Lugy said:

Cracking thread and really nice to see the dirty parts for a change! It's very refreshing to see someone getting stuck in, rather than just take it to the main dealer. I'd imagine at the end of your ownership (if that day ever comes!) you'd have saved a massive amount on labour costs/parts mark up than any potential lower resale value.

Certainly gives me the confidence that I could one day own something exotic and self maintain.

Thank you. A lot of the owners get quite precious over them and often I think unreasonably so. They are no more complex to work on than the majority of modern cars.

S3_Graham said:

Would you mind sharing your trip stop overs? Im in the process of planning a route to get me to Lake Como in Juy with the GF. At the moment its looking like
Outbound:
Bromley>Nurburg
Nurburg>Chur
Chur>Como
Como>Garda

Return:
errr... no idea yet!

Sure thing. I'll update the thread as things are firmed up, but here's v0.1!


Ignore the start/end times for now as we haven't yet factored in sightseeing time. Day 6-10 includes a five night stop in a Tuscan villa otherwise that leg could be cut down if desired.

[threadlock]

Definitely do the Furka Pass and the Grimsel Pass while you're there. Those were the best two roads we did on a grand tour last July. Didn't try the Susten.

Looking down at the south-west end of the Furka, with the Grimsel heading off to the right (north) in the distance:



Descending the second half of the Furka, just before the car park at the nose of the Rhone Glacier:



(There's a decent hotel at the bottom of the Furka if you want a tip.)

https://goo.gl/maps/hkCsA
Have a great trip! Hope you get decent weather and few tourists.

[mwstewart]

threadlock said:

Descending the second half of the Furka, just before the car park at the nose of the Rhone Glacier:
There's a decent hotel at the bottom of the Furka if you want a tip.)

https://goo.gl/maps/hkCsA
Have a great trip! Hope you get decent weather and few tourists.

Thank you! It looks superb, especially seeing the glacier too.

The Belvedere Hotel is very close to your map marker - is it the one you recommend?

[MrBarry123]

As has already been said OP, impressive to see an owner tinkering with a car, such as this, themselves - looks great.

And we might even see you around as we'll be in Switzerland and Italy around the same time as you are in September!

Edited by MrBarry123 on Wednesday 6th May 10:08

[Uncle John]

Had a read from start to finish last night which had me enthralled!

Starts off with modifying and I immediately thought of exhausts, filters, the usual etc etc....

but you Sir have my utmost, taking a car from the legend that is Ferrari and markedly improving it!!

Chapeau!!

Enjoy the road trip.

[S3_Graham]

mwstewart said:

Sure thing. I'll update the thread as things are firmed up, but here's v0.1!


Ignore the start/end times for now as we haven't yet factored in sightseeing time. Day 6-10 includes a five night stop in a Tuscan villa otherwise that leg could be cut down if desired.

Awesome, thank you.

The main part of the trip im looking forward is the up and over the alps bit. Ideally i'd like to drive nearby, stay overnight and just spend a day enjoying the weather and 'experience' of driving over.

Having not done it before, finding the town names and hotels is tough! and a bit of a gamble!!

[threadlock]

mwstewart said:

The Belvedere Hotel is very close to your map marker - is it the one you recommend?

It's not the one we stayed in, which was beyond the end of the Furka Pass in Obergoms: The Hotel Alpenhof. Their website seems to be in the middle of a rebuild, but they're on Tripadvisor

The Belvedere looks like it's in the middle of the tourist trap up the mountain, right on the Furka itself.

Our favourite Alpine hotel of the trip was the Hotel Post in Galtür along the Silvretta Strasse. Here's that little road:



So many fantastic driving roads in the Alps. You'll remember it forever, I'm sure.

[threadlock]

S3_Graham said:

The main part of the trip im looking forward is the up and over the alps bit. Ideally i'd like to drive nearby, stay overnight and just spend a day enjoying the weather and 'experience' of driving over.

Having not done it before, finding the town names and hotels is tough! and a bit of a gamble!!

I'd definitely recommend you allow a day per major Alpine pass to fully enjoy it. Find an hotel at the start or the end and give yourself time to play on the pass itself, rather than making the pass just part of that day's route. Our route covered 1,600 miles in six days and we were almost always pushing on from place to place rather than pausing to savour the driving and do favourite bits more than once. Our Furka Pass hotel was close enough to allow us to return to the pass in the evening and drive the second half of it again a couple of times, which was when we got some great video footage.

All the hotels look like perfect Sound Of Music, chocolate box places. We used Tripadvisor and Booking.com to work out which ones were value for money. To find the roads I researched PistonHeads but we also found this site handy:
http://www.ultimatedrives.net/top-10-roads/
We thought we wanted to drive the Stelvio but *everybody* said its popularity with tourists practically ruined it, so in the end we left it out. There are plenty of other choices!

[mwstewart]

Updated Clutch Master Cylinder 180841
Today I fitted the updated clutch master cylinder to address the issue with the old unit (175187) identified in recall R/2006/210 - https://www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/recalls/recalls... Access is via the luggage compartment and through a waterproof membrane, which must be cut then sealed up once work is complete.


Replacement was straight forward, just a bit fiddly. I used new crush washers, clips, and hose.


Titainum Look Door Handles
I really like the titainium door handle official accessory: http://www.meridienmodena.co.uk/titanium-door-hand... I have been contemplating these for a while, but at £500 I keep thinking the money is better spent elsewhere. Today I removed one of the handles to have a look how they are made and I was surprised to find they are actually cast alloy and not plastic like I was expecting. I decided I could do something with them! I used paint stripper to remove the factory paint and primer, leaving the cast finish:


Next I used different grades of went and dry paper to achieve the machined look of the accessory handles.


Finally I lacquered them. Here they are:


ILUAL43 Headlight LED DRL
I fitted the new version of ILUAL43 Headlight LED DRL from Scud Ing. Here's a standard sidelight for comparison:


And the ILUAL43. In person they are incredibly bright.


Fuel Flap Cavallino Rampante
Finally today I got around to modifying my fuel flap with the bolt on Cavallino Rampante I bought last year. I'm not a fan of exposed carbon on a Silverstone car but I really like the prancing horse on the accessory carbon flap, so modifying my standard flap seemed the ideal compromise.


I marked on the flap my preferred position then drilled a 3.5mm hole, and prepared it with etch primer, then a smear of grease over that once it had dried.


Flap back on the car complete with the Cavallino Rampante.

[neilbauer]

It's the small details that count, and only someone who knows the marque would probably spot them. But add them all together and it makes a good car a great car

[r1chardh]

Just glancing at your route - are you staying in Maranello? If so, may I suggest considering Modena instead? From what I remember, Maranello isn't the most beautiful of places and Modena isn't far away. (Unless you have somewhere lovely booked in which case forget this). Also worth trying for a Pagani Factory tour if you have time!

http://www.pagani.com/en/contacts/pagani_factory_t...

Love the car by the way, your willingness to do whatever needs doing to get it the way you want it is inspiring.

[mwstewart]

neilbauer said:

It's the small details that count, and only someone who knows the marque would probably spot them. But add them all together and it makes a good car a great car

Thank you

r1chardh said:

Just glancing at your route - are you staying in Maranello? If so, may I suggest considering Modena instead? From what I remember, Maranello isn't the most beautiful of places and Modena isn't far away. (Unless you have somewhere lovely booked in which case forget this). Also worth trying for a Pagani Factory tour if you have time!

http://www.pagani.com/en/contacts/pagani_factory_t...

Love the car by the way, your willingness to do whatever needs doing to get it the way you want it is inspiring.

We're actually going to stay in a villa somewhere in Tuscany for a few days and then make a day trip to Maranello. I guess given the factory is there it's a bit of an industrial area overall? Thank you for the advice though; I hadn't considered the Pagani factory until you mentioned it - fantastic idea!

Thanks for the comments on the car.

[sc0tt]

Looking good but the fuel cap looks proper halfords.

Who am I to talk though as you have a ferrari and I don't

Enjoy.

[DanielJames]

Great updates, can't wait for the road trip update!

[mwstewart]

sc0tt said:

Looking good but the fuel cap looks proper halfords.

Who am I to talk though as you have a ferrari and I don't

Enjoy.

Yeah, it's a personal preference thing, though it's actually like it on the accessory part:

DanielJames said:

Great updates, can't wait for the road trip update!

Cheers!

The good weather is upon us and I have run out of time for the preventative clutch replacement operation; I actually contacted a couple of mobile mechanics but nothing came of that, so I've put the car back together for summer use. Looking through the inspection window in the transaction shows a bit of life left in the clutch, so it should do for the rest of this year at least, then I can tackle it next winter.

I effected a minor repair on the cat heat shields where water had gathered around the factory rivets and corroded the shield thus allowing the rivets to pull through. I repaired using much larger stainless rivets.


I found one of the nylon vacuum lines was routed in a way that meant it was crushed upon installation of the lower airbox. I moved it out of the way when refitting.


Tailpipe Restoration
The four remaining studs in the rear tailpipe sections snapped last year when I removed the silencer. I attempted to drill them out in situ this week but it was game over as soon as the bit reached the lower section which is welded them to the flange; the metal has become too hard from welding to easily drill out. In view of this I opted to remove the tailpipe sections and use an angle grinder to cut off the welds (green arrows), and then for reassembly I will use stainless bolts rather than steel studs. My car came with Capristo brackets fitted so the other two studs were already removed (if they were ever fitted at all - I don't know).


I decided to restore anything on the parts I had removed to make future maintenance easier. The AccuSeal clamps fitted at the factory are advertised as being stainless steel but really it is just the clamp section itself - the fastening hardware is steel and hence a recipe for disaster.



I replaced the AccuSeal clamps with 100% stainless Mikalor clamps. The smaller two are 47-51mm.


The larger are 63-68mm - the originals have to be cut off with a grinder as they are tacked to the exhaust. The Mikalor clamps don't cover the slits but this isn't an issue as there is 25mm of sealing surface behind them.


The exhaust valve actuators are also stainless steel but come fitted with copper plated lock nuts which also corrode heavily. I replaced them with stainless nuts and stainless shake-proof washers.


I refreshed the stainless exhaust tips with 80 grit wet and dry paper. I am careful to use the paper horizontally to each the tip in order to create a brushed effect.


Refitting the exhaust is a doddle and the rear bumper can stay on; I place a rag in the exhaust wells to protect the body and then pivot the exhaust around the 90 degree bend before the tips and it slides in without touching any of the bodywork. I used fairly liquid on the joints to make the whole thing easier to assemble. It only takes five minutes to adjust as the rear silencer ties everything together leaving only a little bit of adjustment via the joins behind the cats.


A shot from underneath showing the new hardware and Capristo brackets.

[sc0tt]

Great work.

I can't imagine why you didn't get much joy with the mobile mechanics

Hi, yeah it's a Ferrari ... Click ...