While Underground Racing admits that Ferrari has done a great job with the 458 Italia, the North Carolina-based tuner wants to spice up the Italian supercar as “something’s missing” from the stock setup. And what may that "something" be, we hear you ask? Why a turbo kit, or even better, how about two? Underground Racing will develop a Stage 1 system that will be fitted to the stock engine, while the Stage 2 conversion will be a more comprehensive update, including a custom built powerplant and force induction. More photos and videos alongside with performance numbers are said to follow soon.
At this year’s Bologna Motor Show in Italy, Ferrari unveiled the fabulous 458 Challenge, a competition model boasting the standard model's 4.5-liter V8 capable of 570 hp. To promote the new racer, Ferrari also organized a series of tests at the Valencia circuit in Spain, inviting its own test drivers and Challenge Cup competitors to share their thoughts about the car. According to Raffaele De Simone, the 458 Challenge is faster than its predecessor, the F430 Challenge, but also easier to drive, while Maurizio Mediani was impressed with the double-clutch gearbox. Scroll down for the video.
The 35th edition of the Bologna Motor Show in Italy, which runs for the public from December 4 to 12, saw Ferrari lifting the covers off the 458 Challenge, a track-only version of the automakers fiery -no pun intended- supercar. The 458 Challenge boasts a host of upgrades over its road-legal sibling to make it race worthy when it hits the grid in Ferrari's one-make race series from 2011.
While the Challenge keeps the 458 Italia's direct injection 4.5-liter V8 with an output of 570 hp at 9,000 rpm intact, Ferrari's engineers have made modifications to the gear ratios and calibration of its dual-clutch F1 gearbox to further improve torque at lower revs. The 458 Challenge is equipped with the E-Diff electronic differential already employed on the road-going version, a first for Ferrari's track-only cars. Another first for a Ferrari Challenge model is the adoption of the firm's F1-Trac traction control system.
The race-spec model also gets a specific suspension set-up with steel uniball joints, stiffer springs, single-rate alloy dampers and a ride height lowered by 50mm all round. Stopping power is provided by the new generation Brembo CCM2 brakes integrated with the latest ABS system which debuted on the 599XX, Ferrari’s experimental laboratory car, while it rides on centre-nut 19-inch forged rims wrapped in larger dimension Pirelli slicks.
Ferrari says significant work has gone into cutting down the car’s weight with the company's engineers concentrating on reducing the thickness of the bodyshell panels and on using lightweight materials, such as carbon-fibre and Lexan.
The combined result of all these measures is the improvement of the car’s lap time at Fiorano by two seconds over that of its predecessor, resulting in a new record of just 1’16.5”. According to the Italian company, the amount of lateral grip the new car generates is 1.6G.
Along with the 458 Challenge, Ferrari is also displaying a variety of other racing models from the past and present at its Bologna Motor Show stand, including a 430 GTC owned by the AF Corse team Ferrari and an F1 model.
British car magazine Auto Express, has crowned the Ferrari 458 Italia their 2011 Performance Car of the Year (PCOTY). The magazine chose the Italian supercar from a list of 20 contenders, including other big names like the Audi V10 Spyder, Porsche GT3 RS, BMW M3 Competition and Mercedes SLS AMG. The Honda CR-Z, Renault Twingo Cup 133 and Skoda Fabia RS were the more down-to-earth cars of the group. Watch the video summary after the break to see what makes the F458 this year's performance car in AE's opinion.
A new set of photos showing a... red-hot Ferrari 458 Italia going up in flames is making the internet rounds today. Even though some websites are reporting that the incident happened in Sao Paulo, Brazil, two months after Ferrari issued the infamous recall on the 458 Italia (see here), we don't have sufficient information to be sure about the date, let alone if this particular example had gone through the mandatory repairs. So until we find out more details, follow the jump to take yet another glance of what a 458 Italia on fire looks like.
It took 11 accidents involving the freshly launched 458 Italia with five of them being ruined by fire, and a whole lot of media attention from the internet, for Ferrari to finally investigate the issue and announce a total recall on their latest supercar.
Being that Ferrari considers itself as something out of this world that is not subject to the same unwritten rules as the rest of the automakers, the company did not publish a broadly available press release to inform the media, and consequently, the public, about a problematic product that puts at a fiery risk the lives of its clients. Instead, the Italian brand simply answered questions to individual media outlets such as CNN through its spokespersons.
According to CNN, Ferrari's investigators discovered "defects in the bonding adhesive used to attach the heat-shield to the wheel arch in each of the five cars" that caught fire. Since the heat-shield is used to shelter the wheel arch housing from the exhaust pipe, if the glue dissolves, then the housing is exposed to extremely high temperatures and can catch on fire.
However, the Italian company claims that it takes a combination of extreme conditions to actually cause a fire.
"Heavy usage of the car, such as driving very fast down a twisty road or up a mountain, will increase the temperature inside the engine bay," the Ferrari spokeswoman said. (And we all know that everyone buys a Ferrari to cruise at 50mph on the highway...)
"If that is combined with extremely high ambient temperatures, which has been the case throughout Europe especially this summer, then this will cause the defamation of the wheel arch, bringing it closer to the exhaust and causing the car to smoke or ignite."
The company told the news site that it plans to recall and examine all 1,148 cars produced up to July 30 this year. The five fire-related incidents have occurred in the U.S., Britain, France, Switzerland and China.
"We're contacting clients across the world to get them to bring their cars back to the dealers so we can check the wheel arch," the spokesperson said. "If necessary we will replace the heat-shield with a new heat-shield that is riveted to the wheel arch rather than attached with the adhesive."
We'll remind you that Ferrari has admitted through its UK spokesperson that it is currently investigating the 458 fires. According to media reports, in the past three months, a total of 11 Ferrari 458 Italia models (including this latest incident in China) have crashed with five of them being ruined by fire. Grab a bag of chips and enjoy the short film "A qualcuno piace caldo" right after the break.
Turns out that we're not the only ones to think that the unusually high number of brand-new Ferrari 458s catching fire, is well, at tad suspicious, to say the least. So does Ferrari which is looking into the potential issue. While at least 10 Ferrari 458s have been involved in accidents since the beginning of the year, Ferrari is investigating three specific cases in which the supercar caught fire. One of those cars was roasted in a storage facility blaze at London's Heathrow airport.
A Ferrari spokesman in the UK has officially confirmed that the company is investigating the cause of the fires. "We are taking all the reports very seriously and are looking into them but we are treating them all as separate incidents," the unnamed spokesman told the Daily Telegraph.
In a another report on the same topic, the Italian automaker's spokesperson told 'Just-Auto': "It is important to differentiate between what is a vehicle fire and outside factors and I would include driver error."
Which, of course, is a reasonable argument if you take into consideration that we're talking about a 570HP -strong mid-engine exotic supercar that's capable of reaching 100km/h (62mph) in 3.4 seconds before topping out at 325 km/h or 202mph.
"Six have been incidents where it potentially could be the driver or other factors", the spokesperson added. "I am not in a position to comment on the vehicle fires and all we can say is we are taking it obviously very seriously."
You can check out the Ferrari 458-related crashes / fires we've reported on by clicking on the following links:
