Mostly Ferraris in enthusiastic pile-up in Japan

It looks like enthusiasts in Japan got a bit carried away with themselves on a cruise.




I think we can all get a bit carried away when out on a cruise with friends. I'm a grown man with responsibilities so I always hang back from the crowd for fear of a pile-up like this. Of course you don't need to be driving a supercar for this to happen, so it's a shame as it gives us all a bad name. At least no-one was badly injured or killed :| I guess there'll be some spares around now :)

The lifecycle of modern Ferraris so when to buy one - IMHO

The Ferrari 360 (with a 2001 list price approaching £100,000) is clearly an expensive object to own. I certainly didn't have that kind of money in 2001 when the car was new and still don't, but of course time is cruel on such "investments" - to a point that is. Early adopters clearly have the money to spend and are happy to take a hit on the car's value, but there comes a time when the model moves into the next stage of it's life - not really a life cycle because it doesn't start again, but more a journey through it's worth and desirability. www.howmanyleft.co.uk is a great way to subjectively look at these things. Take a look at the the data for UK 360's and you will see that they have been through their early adopter phase and are now comfortably settled in their summer use only phase owned by people like me who polish them, maintain them and occasionally drive them. SORN's are increasing and road licensing in Q1 and Q4 are down. Prices as of late 2011 are all over the place from higher mileage cars (>40k miles) at £30k+ to some examples well into the £50K mark. Sorted examples with solid history but perhaps in need of some minor detail should be around £40-£45k. I'm happy I didn't take the ~£4k depreciate on the car since new, but then again that's what you loose on higher value normal daily driver too... so you may as well have the Ferrari instead.

Cleaning the inside of the wheels on a Ferrari 360

I like the inside of my wheels to look as clean as the outside on my Ferrari 360. After-all you can see the inside clearly so there's no excuse to keep them spotless. I typical run a soapy sponge through the spokes but end up rubbing my hands on the discs which isn't clever. ow:



Here's my prototype alloy wheel sponge-on-a-stick which is exactly what it is. Most of the alloy wheel brushes have short handles and are also too wide to fit comfortably between the calliper(s) and rim.



Well it works well for me and lets you get into all the corners although I could probably just use a long handled bath sponge on a stick.

Ferrari 360 space saver spare wheel

Ferrari didn't supply a spare wheel as standard on the 360 (and 430) but you could add one as an option. Instead they supplied you with a can of tyre sealant which would get you to the nearest garage for a repair.

I wasn't so happy with this option and equally at the price of a new Ferrari spare wheel available here - http://www.eurospares.co.uk and that's just the rim. There is some talk about Volvo space saver spares fitting, but then I spotted a genuine Ferrari one on ebay a few weeks ago. I won the auction and now have a spare. It's never been used - result :)

Extending the alarm fob range from 2' to 40' on your Ferrari 360

Yet another common issue on the Ferrari 360 is the alarm and central locking fob range. You tend to have to be very close to the car to be able to disarm the alarm and unlock the doors - like less than a metre away. I came across this post on FerrariChat which talks about the poor position of the alarm unit antenna in the car which is in the fuse box and under a metal plate - shielding it from signals!



So you remove the fuse box behind the passenger seat (UK RHD) then fish the wire out with a hook from behind the metal cover:



Then just fix the antenna along the top of the plastic fuse box with some tape and reinstall the fuse box cover trim.



Result = key fob range > 40' Cost = £0 or $0

White powder in the engine bay of the Ferrari 360

Ferrari 360's are renown for dumping white powder all over the engine bay - it's due to the heat insulating material in the exhaust disintegrating and leaking out of the outer casing on the silencer.

I have a Nouvalari muffler on my car, but I also have a stock muffler which pumps out the usual white powder form the casing. Ideally I would want a stock exhaust muffler because I want the car to be as quiet as possible around the neighbourhood so I started investigating whether I could solve the white powder issue.

I examined the stock muffler and worked out that the outer casing is only attached in a few places so relatively easy to remove - which I did. Now check out the insulation material which is about 10mm think and just all in bits. With the top and bottom of one half of the outer casing removed the insulation just fell out of the remaining cover sections form the other end of the muffler.







With it all gone now I figured I can find a new alternative heat material in sheets, cut to size and slot it into the casing and reattached the casing sections I removed, tig welding in a couple of places as per factory.





So this is why you get white powder and there is a possible solution for rebuilding the muffler - these mufflers are not cheap (£1600-£2500) so are well worth saving and without a fix you will be cleaning your engine bay for ever.

Keeping your Ferrari 360 charged over winter

Rain rain go away. We are having a rainy time in the UK at the moment so the roads are damp and the sky is murky. This means I've not been out in my car for over a week!

Problem is the various electrical systems on the Ferrari 360 (and 430 etc.) drain the battery quite quickly and even after just a week of non-use the battery can be low enough to cause problems. I encountered such a problem a few months ago. The car had been left for a week and started fine but the dash clocks didn't "boot" up - nothing from any of the gauges. The Ferrari 360 has a battery cut-off switch in the boot and turning off then on again fixed my problem - kind of a reset something I guess.

So after this I researched the most appropriate charging system. Ferrari make their own, but it is a little expensive and many owners go for the CTEK charger and battery conditioner which you can find here: http://www.ctekchargers.co.uk/ctek-xs3600.php



CTEK MXS3600

You can install a subtle plug connector that comes with the CTEK unit behind the passenger seat which attaches (electrically) directly to the main power bus. So now you can just plug the charger in and keep the battery topped up all the time so your car is always ready for when the sun comes out :)

Sticky switches on the Ferrari 360 355 and 348

Modern Ferraris have suffered from stick switches and other dashboard items for nearly 20 years now. It started with the Ferrari 348 followed by the 355 where Ferrari coated various interior parts with a rubberised material. After a few years of regular use such as power winder switches and door pulls the coating starts to peel off - quick still in hot countries.



Here's a picture of one of the window switches on my 360 Modena. Actually the window switches are the only bits of the interior which have peel so far so maybe Ferrari have improved their coating - well a bit anyway.



I dismantled the switch so I could get to the toggle part to basically scrape off all the rubber coating. It didn't take much effort to remove it all then put the switch back together. The toggle part is now a littler shinier than the switch case, but it looks much better than having a partially peeling coating.



You remove the switches by removing the centre console which is only held in my two dome head allen bolts, so the whole job takes less than 30 minutes and costs nothing.

You can send your plastic parts away to www.stickynomore.com who will strip and re-coat your parts with a much better quality material. These guys get good reviews from www.ferrarichat.com forum.

Tatty cloth insulation tape in the engine bay on a Ferrari 360

Heat and age has taken its toll on the cloth insulation tape dotted around the engine bay on my Ferrari 360. The glue has dried and the tape has become unravelled hanging down in places.



No problem though as I bought some Tesa cloth wiring loom tape on ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140550857403).



There, good as new. Time will tell as to how well this tape will stay stuck. My engine bay is particularly hot as I am running a Nouvalari silencer (muffler) instead of the stock one and they have less insulation than the factory silencer.

Yellow tachometer face on your non-Challenge Ferrari 360

Our friends at Hill Engineering make a nice yellow tachometer face (http://www.hillengineering.co.uk/catalog/d360y430-p-305.html) to replace the stock black one in your Ferrari 360 Modena. It's a fiddly job to swap, but our friends in the US show you how to do it:

http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=176480


http://ferrari-servicing.com/Ferrari360.aspx

Maybe I'll work up to doing this modification. Keys Motorsport Ltd, Silverstone, UK can do the job for you though.

All the service manuals and documents you will ever need for your Ferrari 360

As a DIY owners it's important to have all the correct factory documents and repair manuals to hand for you Ferrari 360. You can get the factory repair book, service diagrams, service manuals free here:

http://www.ferraridatabase.com/The_Downloads/Downloads.htm

On the 360 page of the Technical information and updates you will find the updates, recalls and service campaigns document and it's an interesting read.

After reading this I'm seeking confirmation from Ferrari that my car has seen campaign #97 - replacement of the exhaust variator which has been known to fail causing valves and pistons to get intimate which be a shame and very expensive to fix.



As with anything you download for free from the internet, be sure of the source before and document type.

Ferrari 360 failed door lock and door trim removal

Here's a great thread if and when the door lock mechanism fails on your Ferrari 360. The handle operates the lock via a cable and is prone to stretching and seizing.

Check out this DIY repair thread.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=175604

Ferrari 360 wheel detailing

You need to keep on top of the condition of your alloys to keep them in as-new condition. Ferrari 360 wheels are made magnesium so are a little more tricky to have professionally refinished if they corrode. Mine are a little corroded so will need work in the future to get them perfect.



In the mean time (and yes these are Porsche Cup II wheels from my 993) I remove the wheels every few months and give them a deep clean with soap and water particularly in the inside. I use a toothbrush for the tough dirt and AutoGlym wheel cleaner for stubborn brake dirt.

There you go, clean enough to eat your dinner off :)

Need Brembo brake discs for you Ferrari 360

I bought genuine Brembo front brake discs for my 308 from an online shop called www.nextdaybrakes.com. They did arrive the next day and were really cheap. For the 360 they are cheap at £110 each including next day delivery. I really couldn't fault them when I used them earlier this year. They cost about £20 more each from www.eurospares.co.uk

Of course if they just need a skim your old discs can be brought back to new like this and it's about £40 a disc.

Ferrari 360 brake reservoir cover repair

Ten years of checking brake fluid has left the inspection cover on my Ferrari 360 a little scarred. The aluminium had corroded underneath the flakey paintwork so I scraped off the loose paint.



Then sanded the oxidation off and feathered the old paint edge before a few coats of high build primer.




Not bad from a spray can - satin black



Finally made three plastic washers to prevent the paint cracking in the future when the thumb screws are tightened by over zealous technicians. Ahh OCD.

Cleaning the engine and red intake on a Ferrari 360

The red crackle paint intake plenum on my Ferrari 360 were dirty so I tried cleaning them up after seeing other 360's where they were nice and bright red.

Petrol on a toothbrush didn't make much different and is nasty to work with, so on recommendation I used AutoGlym Engine Cleaner (purple logo bottle) from Halfords. It also gets good reviews from other owners http://reviews.halfords.com/4028/153353/reviews.htm

It worked a treat and really brought the colour out on the red as well as quickly cleaning other engine areas such as the engine cradle frame - and it smells of oranges :) I used a toothbrush to work it in once applied and a clean cloth to wipe the dirt off.



I also used some 1200 grit wet'n'dry on the Ferrari logo to polish out the light surface corrosion built up over ten years. Enjoy.

Ferrari 360 speaker grills resto

The door trims take a beating on the Ferrari 360, I think because people catch their shoes on them every time they get in and out. You can see scuff marks on the aluminium door pockets and the speaker grills get scratched.




I pulled the aluminium door pockets off (M5 bolts) and removed the speaker grills. Sprayed the grills with simple black paint from a spray can and cleaned the scuff marks from the alloy on the door pockets with some solvent - they came up a treat! and just like now.

And the finished job (grill and door pockets) are sharp and clean.

Ferrari 360 luggage trunk boot space

Ferrari designed the 360 with usability in mind and split the cooling radiators across the front of the car to give more boot storage space. The space it pretty huge considering it's a Ferrari (although the Dino had more space in the rear). The Ferrari 360 does have quite a lot of space behind the seats which can accommodate the smallest to the tallest with relative ease.



I think they had DIY in mind when designing the front storage ;)

Where's the spare wheel though I hear you say. Well it doesn't have one and that's the reason you get a big boot. They supply you with a can of tyre (tire) fix to get you to the nearest garage. You can buy the optional spare wheel kit at around $1000 (£650+) but I hear that Volvo space savers fit, which might be a better option.

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Rain - toothbrushes - Ferrari 360

Sun and rain this weekend, so probably won't get chance to launch the 360 :| still I have cleaning work to do on it with a tooth brush :)

Ferrari Owners CLub Northwest Concours August 2011

Another year and another concours. The weather was excellent for this years concours meeting at Cranage Hall, Cheshire in the North of England. Clear blue skies and at least 30 gleaming Ferrari's of all eras turned up.

Here I am in front of my silver 360 Modena - picture taken by my 5 year old!



365 GTB/4 (Daytonas)



and a general view of what was going on:



If you want to make some Ferrari friends or see what's going on in the Ferrari enthusiast world then register at www.ferrarichat.com or www.clubscuderia.co.uk.

Rear arch detailing on the Ferrari 360

With the front arches detailed and protected it was time to look at the rears. The arch liners are more complicated to remove as some engine related equipment is attached to them.

Removal involved removing the engine bay side panels which is not difficult but some of the screws were a tight. With these panels out you can remove the items attached to the top of the inner arch liners.



The liners are held in place at various locations to the frame by M6 bolts - these proved very tight despite being stainless steel. I used Loctite's Freeze'n'Release and managed to remove all the bolts without breaking any and when I reinstalled the liners, re-tapped the threads on the fixings and used new bolts with anti-seize grease.

With the liners removed you can get to quite a lot of the engine including the manifolds, coil packs and plugs, inner drive shafts etc. and of course you can give it a good clean from a different access point of view.





All back together, detailed and shiney:

Leaves in the radiators on the Ferrari 360

Not an uncommon problem these days with cars that have lots of radiator space at the front. The Ferrari 360 has two cooling radiators, one on each side of the car which allows for more boot space too. They are angled and the housing they sit in can get stuffed full of leaves. No surprise to see mine like that. With a small vacuum cleaner pipe and and airline I cleaned these away!


Both sides nice and clean now. Cost £0

Detailing time on the Ferrari 360

Most people recognise car detailing as addressing the cosmetic issues on a car. That's all very well, but my new 360 is pretty clean on top. However, I feel the need to have a good look round the more important bits, so first job is to have the wheels off and take a look.

Most modern cars have an uninteresting subframe with plastic arch liners to finish off underneath and protect the chassis.

So with wheels off I started the underneath detailing at the front end. You dealer prepared car will be prepared with compromises. They will likely prepare it mechanically, but with the wheels off on my 360 it was clear I had work to do to clean up and protect from rust.



360's are easy to jack up with a regular trolley jack. They don't have spare wheels by default and don't have a jack on board. Wheels are straight forward to remove and are nice and light. I gave the wheels are detail whilst off, scrubbing off years of brake and road dirt - I used a non-stick pan sponge and soap and hot water for this!



By removing a bunch of M6 stainless bolts you can pull the plastic arch liners out to also give them a scrub.

Whilst off I used some Valvoline Tectyl 506 on components showing surface rust and had a general clean up. An old tooth brush, and hot soapy water works well on the Brembo Ferrari badged brake callipers. It also helps to have a compressor so you can blow dirt away as cleaning.



All shiney now :)

Collecting my Ferrari 360 - video

So the day came that the car was ready to collect from Kent. The Sun shone in early April and I had a great drive home to Manchester and didn't see any traffic all the way. I stuck a GoPro inside and did some time lapse shots of the journey - enjoy.

Document your supercar ownership!

Without a doubt maintaining a detailed history of my Dino ownership helped me to sell it. Sure record work done on the car by specialists by maintaining written documentation of the work, invoices etc. although it only goes so far in the social media world we now live in.



I believe that maintaining this blog for my recently sold Ferrari Dino 308 GT4 helped the buyer to trust that the car he was getting was well looked after apart from the bills I also produced.

Buyers love to see pictures of the details of you work and it's easy to do. I recorded my work on the car in this blog though not thinking about the affect it would have on resale, but simply to spread my experience of working on these cars.

Start your blog now!