Airbag spiral contact has arrived

Airbag spiral contact (Part # 169471) has arrived from Pro-Sport Ferrari. Here are a few shots of what it looks like:

Next step is now get it into the car.

Lights, camera

One of the items that I recently invested in was a Gopro Hero 3 Black edition camera like this:

I looked at a few other brands but the GoPro seemed to be the best. Now the Black edition comes with a remote wifi control. This means you can control it via an included remote or an app on your idevice.
After doing some testing I finally got to go out on a run with it in the F355. My first attempt at putting something together is here:

For this piece I used Microsoft Windows Movie Maker which was pretty easy to use. I didn’t spend a lot of time with the production as I wanted to get something out.
My next attempt at editing was using Apple iMovie and can be found here:

Now if you compare the two you’ll find that iMovie version is far more pixelated and the reason for that is the raw file was too large to work with on the under powered Macbook Air I had. Thus, I needed to ‘optimize’ it before I brought it into iMovie. So, you’ll have to excuse the poor video quality.
I haven’t given up on iMovie just yet, I’ll certainly be doing some more research to see whether I am perhaps doing something wrong. I will however say that the whole production process using Microsoft Windows Movie Maker was much faster but then again it was a more powerful machine. Still some learning ahead.
However, I spent more production time with the iMovie version and tried to integrate the changes in soundtrack better with the video sequences, and I think it works quite well.
All of this is still part of the learning process about how the GoPro works and how to best produce something worth viewing. I hope to be able to bring reader plenty more videos, which hopefully will improve along the way. In the meantime don’t be afraid to let me know what you think or if you have some suggestions about how I can improve the production please let me know, I’m all ears!

Not quite

After all the wait, the airbag light is still on unfortunately. Turns out that the Airbag spiral contact (Part # 169471) looks like it needs replacing as well.

It’s item number 48 in the above picture. The good news is that is about $250 (from Pro-Sport Ferrari) and Sal from Racing Red can come to me and change it over when it arrives. So that isn’t too bad.

I will tell you that it is certainly annoying to still have the light on, and some people have asked me why I simply don’t put up with the problem (since it doesn’t affect the car’s performance) or disconnect the globe if it is really annoying me? At the end of the day I want the car ‘right’. I full appreciate that things will go wrong over time and as an enthusiast I want to fix them ‘correctly’ rather than just ‘making due’. I’m just that kinda guy I suppose.

Sal was also kind enough to take some photos of the car in its various disassembled state during the installation of the new Airbag ECU (Part #169710) and cables (Part #169712).

While these parts were being changed I took the opportunity to get the dash re-trimmed.

I did that because it had deterioration as you can see in the above images.

You can see the different with the new trim in the above pictures. Much, much better and I am very happy with the result and my decision to get this done. I think that it really adds to the value of the car.

So I have the car back again, with the airbag light still on unfortunately. However, I have ordered the Airbag spiral contact (Part # 169471) and will get that replaced as soon as it arrives. Then I’ll feel much more zen when I’m driving.

It is interesting to see the car’s dash disassembled and I must admit I’m surprised at how simple it appears. I’m sure it is far more complex but it really doesn’t look like there is all that much to me.

Anyway, I’ve got me a nice new dash to show the world when next the car steps out and for that I’m really thankful.

On track

One of the benefits of being a member of the Ferrari Club of Australia is that you get the opportunity to attend track days. This allows you to more fully experience the performance of your car on a track.

The above video, that includes photos and snippets from the days, was taken at the May 2013 Ferrari and Maserati Track Day at Eastern Creek. I went along just an observer given firstly my car was still in the shop having the dash re-trimmed and secondly I wanted to see what these days where all about before bringing the car along.

The morning was divided up into a number of ‘training’ stations around the track where drivers could learn more about their cars. In the above video you’ll see them doing a launch and then down to a breaking point. Other stations involved a slalom and cornering practice. Each time an instructor was in the car for tuition and assistance.

Once this was complete each driver then receive one ‘sighting’ lap of the track with an instructor and then, after dropping the instructor off, they could blast around as fast as they wanted (which you will again see in the video).

It certainly looked like great fun and I have never seen so many supercars in one location (especially 458s). The next track day is in October and I’ll seriously be thinking about giving at go with my F355.

Spare me

On of the things that many are not aware of is that the Ferrari F355 does not normally come with a spare wheel. Nope, not even a space saver! When you think about it, it is a rare occurrence when you actually need a spare so it makes sense to leave it out of the car since it reduces the overweight which provides better performance.

However, I have only ever driven cars with a spare so I always found it a little perturbing that the F355 didn’t have one. So the easiest solution to overcome this nagging doubt was to buy one.

The spare that suits the F355 is a space saver as shown above. It lives in the front trunk of the car. Now there is apparently a brace that you can install in the car as shown below:

to hold the spare firm. Apparently that assembly is quite hard to find and when I took a look in my car I could easily see where it should be installed. I’ll have to have a closer look when the car is outside in sunshine one day.

Obviously to change the spare you also need a jack and wrench. These come in a kit, as shown above, that I also purchased to give myself piece of mind.

The other thing that you need to beware of when you purchase a spare and jack is that it adds weight to the nose of the car. I noticed this only after driving around after putting then in the car and finding that the car scrapes more over driveways. Will need to be even more careful now when entering and existing driveways.

Now the spare and the jack are not cheap, but then again nothing on the F355 is cheap. That said however, I see the spare and jack as more than just piece of mind I see them as adding value to car if (heaven forbid) I ever decide to sell it. This is because the spare and jack are becoming harder and harder to source, so getting one now should certainly add value to the car overtime. I suppose we’ll see on that score but for the time being, having a spare and jack are worth every penny simply in my books for the piece of mind they provide when I’m out and about with the car.

Airbag ECU and cables

Well the replacement airbag ECU and cables for the F355 have turned up. Here are some shots of the parts:

169712 – Airbag cables

169710 – Airbag Electronic Control Unit (ECU)

So the car has been booked in with Racing Red to have these parts changed and to get the shrinkage on the dash repaired.

It is probably a little hard to see in the above image but just above the wiper connection you might be able to see some brown bits. This appears to be where the glue and the dash have parted ways. Not a huge issue but if the dash has to be ‘almost’ disassembled to replace the airbag cables might as well take the opportunity to get this ‘whole’ dash disassembled and this taken care of as well.

A car in the crowd

When you drive a bright red sports car you stand out no matter where you are. When your drive a bright red Ferrari you stand out even more. So, what’s the only way not to stand out? Be part of a crowd of bright red Ferraris like below.

Ferrari Club Australia (FCA) NSW division organized a drive morning from the old toll gates on the F3 to Mangrove Dam on the central coast.

About 25 Ferraris of all makes and models assembled for the drive up and back, starting along the old Pacific Highway.

It was my first ‘drive day’ event with the club and I had a blast. The car performed flawlessly and the route made it really worthwhile. Probably the most enjoyable part was doing with a group of enthusiasts, who all love their cars just as much as I do. Finished off with a great brunch at the Corrugated Cafe, an excellent way to spend a Sunday morning.

I’ll have to add this trip to my list and do it again! Thanks FCA.

In da club

One of the things that other car enthusiasts told me to do was join the Ferrari Owners Club.

I finally got around to do this. The fee is basically $250 per annum and after joining the first thing I received was a few previous editions of the club magazine. I sort of wondered whether this was all that I could expect. Turns out it wasn’t.

Over the past few weeks I have received a number of items shown above including:

– a membership card

– a membership certificate

– a membership badge

– a key ring

– a gold medallion

– some additional magazine

What I really joined the club for was to attend the events (especially drive and track days) so I was looking forward to hearing about these. Turns out that the club is organized at a national and state level, so when the state magazine turned up it was full of upcoming events. Yeah!

I’m in the process of working out exactly which events to attend and I’ll post more about these as they approach, however the other night I did manage to attend my first ‘official’ club event.

It was an open day at Belinda Bodyworks in Leichhardt.

There were some nice cars there to drool over, including a yellow 348tb parked in the entrance.

An interesting night to see how cars are repaired and the technology that is now in use. It was a well put together event with some nice takeaways from the crew at Belinda Bodyworks. It would have been nice to have actually known some others but hey that’s what happens when you are new boy in town.

Not just a simple reset

In the last post I mentioned how the airbag warning light had come on and simply restarting the car failed to clear it. After speak with Sal from Racing Red he decided that he’d need to see what the car’s computer says before he could diagnose further.

The connection for the airbag ECU is in a panel in the passengers foot well. You pull off the panel to reveal the fuse box and the connector.

The computer revealed that the ECU believed that the car had ‘crashed’, thereby deploying both airbags. When you drill into this ‘crash data’ you see:

The most common cause of the airbag warning light is low battery voltage and you can see that is an error recorded before the “crash”. The car has no problems starting and gets a run every week so you would tend to think that the issue is not related to the battery voltage.

Using the computer Sal was unable to reset the airbag warning light and believes that the issue is a faulty ECU unit, given that the failure happened while driving rather than when first starting.

So the next step seems to be to procure the replacement airbag ECU and then look at changing it over. Doing so may also require changing the wiring from the ECU (which lives under the centre console near the gear stick) to each airbag. That will mean disassembling the dashboard.

If the dashboard is going to need any disassembly it is probably a good opportunity to get some other issues with the upholstery taken car of (the passengers airbag is fraying and it coming away slightly from under the windscreen, right in the middle of the dash).

Sal says that he can take car of both and would need about a week to complete everything. Next step now is to find a replacement airbag ECU.

Love the F355