Hazy - 1997 F355 GTB F1

[Club Scuderia]

Members name: Hazy


February 2005

This was the happy, happy month I purchased my first F car after selling my oh so sterile and boring 996 C2. The car came about from a chance conversation with a friend in Birmingham who mentioned that his next-door neighbour, a good friend of his, was selling his 355. The car was lying dusty in his neighbour’s garage, but was in excellent condition. It is a November 1997 car, Rosso with full nero interior. The colour combo was exactly what I wanted, but if I am honest I would have preferred manual to the F1 gear shift. That is no longer the case having got used to it, but more on that later. It had 24,000 miles on the clock with 4 owners and a full Ferrari service history, other than that it needed the cambelt service doing that month, and it needed two new rear tyres which I purchased for £410 (Bridgestone SO1’s) and the seller split this cost with me.. Not many people buy a Ferrari privately, but I felt it was a calculated risk loaded in my favour on the say so of a good friend, and it has turned out to be a good “gamble”. I also purchased my...erm…. personalized plate for the princely sum of £599 from the DVLA this month.

Within the first week of ownership I had rang around for a price on the yearly service and cambelt change. Graypaul in Nottingham (0115 983 3555) were the best at £1950 including VAT and collection and delivery. I could have got it done at an independent for £1750 but this did not include collection and I felt it was worth paying an extra £200 to keep a Ferrari main dealer history and for the convenience of the car being collected. I was a touch nervous that Graypaul would find something that I had not planned for that may cost £££££ but the only supplementary item they found was that one of the front brake pipes required changing in the near future. Phew! Graypaul are excellent and very thorough, they come highly recommended from me!

 

[Club Scuderia]

March 2005

March 2005

My car had a standard exhaust and sounded awesome, but after having read about the true F1 sound 355’s make with an aftermarket exhaust on I felt it would have been rude not to buy a Tubi for it and have the brake pipe changed at the same time. Again, after ringing around for prices (can you see the theme here, I’m tight) I found that Hollingsworth at Ombudsley (www.midland-ferrari.com) were the cheapest at £1350 including fitting (sorry boys if that was a one off price!). The guy told me to drive up and they would fit the exhaust whilst I waited. Shame the guy didn’t tell the mechanics!!! They weren’t expecting me. But to their credit they dropped everything, put on heat resistant gloves and got on with it. Unfortunately they found that the offside CAT was completely knackered and wanted changing, which a couple of weeks later they did for me having sourced a second hand one. They also changed the errant brake pipes at the same time and charged me £350 for the two items fitted which I thought was reasonably priced. Back to the Tubi, WOW!! It transformed the Ferrari into everything I had hoped it would be. The wail from 4000rpm onwards is truly electric, through the tunnels in Birmingham centre it truly sounds like an F1 car, it makes me grin from ear to ear. To my surprise the car still cruises at high speeds very quietly, but the only problem with the Tubi is the somewhat intrusive rumble on tickover, but that is something you get used to.

 

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April 2005

April 2005

Fairly quiet time in April, no repairs, no ride outs, just the odd blast in the local countryside.

 

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May 2005

May 2005

I took the car on its first track outing this month at the excellent Bedford Autodrome GT circuit (www.bedfordautodrome.com). This is when I really realized the full potential of the Ferrari F1 system, and how superior it is to a conventional gear change when driving hard, especially in Sport mode which makes everything a lot quicker and more aggressive. Being able to shift gears quickly, accurately and with both hands on the wheel in a high-powered car like the 355 is an absolute godsend on the track. It will always be F1 for me from now on, given the choice, even with the relatively short life span (apparently) of the clutches on the F1 equipped cars. The car was truly awesome at Bedford with truly astonishing levels of grip. Towards the end of the day as I got progressively quicker, I eventually tripped the decibel limit with the Tubi wailing away so I had to ease off a little to pass the microphones after that!! For anyone wanting to experience their Ferrari on track (its what they were made for) I would strongly suggest that Bedford is probably the best place in the country to do it. Its well surfaced (little or no tyre wear) has plenty of run off if it does all go wrong and is extremely well organized. Try it for yourself!!

 

[Club Scuderia]

June/July 2005

June/July 2005

Off on holidays etc this month didn’t use the car too much. DOH. At this point I hadn’t really got “into” the whole forum community thing, and hence was not going to the various events and ride outs, not using the car enough, really. My advice is don’t fall into this trap, go to the meets, use your car as a social tool, it really is great fun!!!

 

[Club Scuderia]

August 2005

August 2005

I attended my first Fchat meet in August, Angelboy (Paul) kindly organized the Flight

ay on August 14th. I enjoyed the opportunity for the drive out to Gamston Airfield in Nottinghamshire and the free flight in a light aircraft (just awesome) but, being new to the forum and being the shy retiring type I didn’t really make the effort to introduce myself to the other guys…DOH. On the drive back I decided that I hated the standard wheel so I purchased a Momo Race steering wheel and boss from David Yu via the forum and Hollingsworth fitted it for me. In my opinion it is a vast improvement on the standard wheel, the only downside being the loss of the airbag, but I don’t intend crashing so no problem!!! At the same time I also had Hollingsworth paint the front bumper which was stone chipped and both rear buttresses which were affected by the common cracks on the joint problem. They charged me £500 for this and the work was completed to a very high standard indeed. However I was chatting with the mechanic when I picked my car up and he advised me to change the reverse lever because it had gone quite floppy and was in imminent danger of failing completely. A new item is a breath-taking £2400 but Hollingsworth managed to find me a good second hand one for which I paid £700. This is where I feel a good relationship with a local independent really pays because they are happy to try and save you money whereas a main dealers hands would be tied with something like this, they could only supply new.

 

[Club Scuderia]

September 2005

September 2005

This was when a rather large slice of misfortune befell my car. I have two large garages linked buy a single doorway. a tradesman working at my house asked me if he could use one of my garages to save his timber/plasterboard getting wet in the rain, so i moved my track car out of the one garage and left the Ferrari in its normal spot in the other garage, it didn’t have its normal car cover on though. Upon my return that night I discovered the dozy idiot had gone through to the other garage to presumably have a peek at the Ferrari, only to leave the joining door open and consequently covering my car with a thick layer of very fine sawdust. After trying to wash the sawdust off, the results were catastrophic. He shine had totally disappeared from the cars paintwork and it was a blotchy greasy mess. I could have cried. After much advice from the forum, I contacted a specialist car detailer and all round good egg, Dave Bowerman (www.sportscarprotection.com). He came round a couple of weeks later and after 13 hours and £250 well spent he left my car gleaming like never before! See the before and after pics above. I have to say the finish Dave gets is stunning and he comes highly recommended from me.

 

[Club Scuderia]

October 2005

October 2005

October saw my first foray down south for the now infamous Poseur Run on October 2nd , details here: (www.fcars.co.uk/showthread.php?t=125) What a great day (even if I did get lost) great cars and great people, reinforcing my view that the meets are a MUST if you want to get the most out of your F car. I had to go from London to Southampton to collect a car which my passenger drove back, so I did a lot of miles that day, £120 in fuel!! However I experienced the loss of all gears on the 355, it was stuck in neutral and would not select any gear at all for a good twenty minutes. Upon my return the car was collected by Hollingsworth who found the problem (the gearbox could not sense neutral) re-configured all the gearbox settings and it has been fine ever since. Top guys that they are, even with collecting the car they did not charge me a penny!! I cannot rate these guys highly enough.

On the 19th October I attended an airfield day organized by Jas on the forum, at North Weald airfield in Essex. It was quite a wet day but provided a great opportunity to throw the Ferraris about with abandon without the fear of doing any damage (other than to the tyres perhaps!) and to find out your cars limits in relative safety. Dave Bowerman came along too so I took the opportunity to let him have a fair bit of time driving my car, which he enjoyed, and repaid me thoroughly by applying another coat of wax, but this time the £6000 Zymol Royale wax to my car, which, as hard as it is to believe is very visibly better than the vintage previously used. Cheers Dave!

 

[Club Scuderia]

November 2005

November 2005

Again a very busy month for meets etc. I took the car on the excellent Leeds and Peaks run: www.fcars.co.uk/showthread.php?t=573 and it performed excellently on the run through the peak district, keeping up with four 360’s and one 430. however the heater packed up on the last half hour away from home, only blowing cold. And I do mean cold. The brakes didn’t feel very good on the run either, lacking power and feel so during that week I changed the pads to Ferodo DS2500 purchased from Demon Tweeks for £80 ish (www.demon-tweeks.co.uk) and I also managed to move the heater valve manually over to warm in time for Vmax (www.vmax15000.com ) on 20th November at Bruntingthorpe airfield. Vmax saw my car clock 170mph (180mph on the speedo!) and the brakes were transformed by the new pads. I can thoroughly recommend this event for trying out the top speed of your car in complete safety.

 

[Club Scuderia]

December 2005

December 2005

Mileage: 155
Problems encountered: Heater still not working properly
Total spent: £1568.03

Obviously the salty roads have meant little use this month, but I have finally got around to taking the car to Hollingsworth to get the heater sorted. Whilst the car was there I had a few stone chips that I picked up from Vmax sorted out and they also found that the two internal drive shaft gaiters had split, which I asked them to do at the same time. Unfortunately this is a fairly labour intensive job which pushed the overall bill up, but it’s a job that had to be done. The car, as ever, is running sweetly. I do not seem to encounter the flat battery syndrome that a lot of other owners seem to suffer from after long periods of inactivity either??? Probably damned myself now…

 

[Club Scuderia]

January 2006

January 2006

Mileage: 450
Problems encountered: Non!
Total spent: £99 (trackday)

Little use this month other than a trip on 21.1.06 to a lovely sunny Oulton Park, where I took my track car and the 355. The 355 drove beautifully round probably the best circuit in the country and I was pleased to meet two other Fcar members there, Terry (who took some temp readings from my car) and Ric (Bromers).

I ended the day early to dash to Limetrees in Northampton for the first proper Fcars overnight gathering, great night it was too….the sound in the car park the next morning was epic as everyone fired their cars up, well, everyone that wasn’t nursing a hangover that is..

 

[Club Scuderia]

February 2006

February 2006

Mileage: 460
Problems encountered: A desire for change!
Total spent: £99 (trackday) + upgrade cost

Another cracking day out with my two cars this time at the Bedford Autodrome on 4th February. Again it was great to have a couple of mates from Fcars show up, Stewart, Si and Nigel, and the 355 again performed faultlessly (although my mate managed to spin it on cold tyres!!).


I took the car down to London for a “valentines” weekend with my wife on 11th February, with Rob Hudson and his missus Fiona joining us in his car. My missus enjoyed the rare opportunity to travel in real style in the 355 down to a nice hotel, car parking was good, if a little tight through the raised kerbs!! Nice to see on here my car was spotted twice on that weekend too!

The huge outlay this month came about courtesy of a discussion with Rob Hudson at the midlands meet we held at the Hinckley Hotel on 15th February. He was trying to tie a deal up p/exing his lovely 360 Modena against a Challenge Stradale. I told him that I would be interested in buying his car, but I don’t think he thought I meant it!!

Anyway one thing led to another and my beloved 355 found a new home at Bob Houghtons, and I picked up my 360 modena directly from Rob’s house on Thursday 23rd of February. What a car! More to follow….