Ferrari Gearbox

[Bethann Gendernalik]

Ferraris technical director, John Barnard with racing driver Nigel Mansell. It was Barnard's belief that a semi-automatic gearbox was central to Scuderia victory that saw the paddle shift arrive in Mansell's Ferrari 640

Mauro Forghieri (seen here with New Zealand driver Chris Amon) was just 26 when he was entrusted with the Scuderia's technical destiny. He was the first to try the semi-automatic transmission with Gilles Villeneuve, but it received a lukewarm reception from Villeneuve who preferred the existing steel shift lever

Ferrari did not rest there. The 599 GTB Fiorano of 2006 introduced a new-generation F1-SuperFast system, speeding up gear-change times even further, to just 100 milliseconds. Closely integrated with the steering wheel 'manettino', the driver could now also select Launch Control mode, offering smoother starts from standstill.

The first Ferrari dual-clutch transmission came in 2008 with the California. This seven-speed unit featured two clutches that pre-engaged automatically, lining up the next gear in advance. That meant gear-change times were minimised and the feeling for the driver was even keener, as well as reducing fuel consumption and emissions.

Next came the first Ferrari mid-engined car with dual-clutch transmission, the 458 Italia of 2009, with closely-stacked gears for the sharpest possible performance. As with the Enzo, there was no manual gearbox option; only automatic. This proved to be a truly defining moment at Maranello. Whilst certain models in the range continued to be offered with manual transmission, buyers came to recognise that the automated gearbox was superior, both in terms of performance and of comfort. The very last manual gearbox Ferrari came off the line in 2011.

Thanks! Thats not all of it, but I will do post it in the other thread later. First buy 2 more of the glass shelves and add a few more exhibits to it, God willing And clean all the dust and fingerprints for higher resolution pictures, for me thats the least fun part of it, so please be patient...

Yup. Same here. I like the feel of a nice, clean building space as well. I honestly think he certainly helps with the "relaxing" or "soothing" part that is supposed to accompany a hobby. Problem is actually getting to a clean Lego room (i.e. the cleaning, organizing, etc...)

Does anyone know if the paddle shift in this model works the wrong way round like the Bugatti and Lamborghini did? (i.e. pulling the right paddle made a downshift and pulling the left made an upshift). If it does will there be a simple way to correct it similar to the other two such as moving that yellow knobby gear above the beam so it meshes on the top of the other gear rather than below (something like that anyway!)?

So if I understand you correctly you reposition the knobby gear by using 2 3L axles instead of the 4L. Then the bit of the axle sticking out of the gear goes into the hole of the square beam type piece in step 242 instead of using the red 2L axle?

The stock design of the gearbox in 42143 Ferrari is pretty much the same as in the 42115 Lamborghini. Same gear ratios, same design, same footprint. So It was very obvious to start copying the proven gearbox from 42115 Pimp up my Lamborghini in the Ferrari with only a few additional MODs.

While the Lamborghini had 4WD drive, the Ferrari has 2WD drive on the rear axle only. So we get rid of the middle differential and keep using the middle axle to connect the reverse gear from the DNR switch to the gearbox. I made a direct connection from the rear axle to the front towards the gearbox, gearing it up with 24:8. So we do not need the gears behind the rear axle and do not need the axles below the differential giving us a free view from the bottom to the differential. Don't worry about the yellow gears in the differential. I faked them by using old gears, because the new gears are not yet available on ldraw.org.

I needed to reverse the gearbox compared to the Lamborghini to have the connection between gearbox and DNR for "D" on the right hand side of the car to keep it close to the stock version. Note that the gears inside the DNR have been swapped (20/12 to 12/20) to get the same gear ratio for 1st gear and reverse.

This seems like the best place to ask. Does anyone know if there is a shift block to prevent a direct shift from 8th to 1st (AKA "the money shift") or will we have to engineer one? I was happy the Sian finally saw one implemented by TLG, but as of yet (step 110), I have not seen anything to block this on this car.

I think its safe to say that the instructions for this model are pretty screwed up. It might have been posted here, but does anyone have a full list of errors I can have for when I build it in August? I want to have the correct gear shifting and gear order for my model.

I am all fine with all black tyres and rims but boy that Ferrari seems to be designed to appeal more with silver (or silver-ish) rims. I am excited to see how silver paints for that two tone look comes out. As usual always admire how your paint turns out as came with Sian

A few months back, I realized that we don't even need the yellow rubber band, #2 connectors, liftarms and axle with ball joints. We can use the knob wheel as part of the stepper itself - I did this by putting the new comma panels under the L and R knob wheels, the comma panels act like pawls and have a pin behind them as a range of motion limiter. The pawls can either by normally taught or normally loose depending on which side you place the white rubber band and ball joint.

Nevermind. I solved my own @#$% problem. TLG never installed a shift block in the Sian, I must have and forgotten that I made my own modifications. With my Ferrari transmission built to step 116, I finally had all the gears to actually test my transmission. Or rather, one gear short, somehow I missed one gear, and only had odd gears in the transmission working. Fixed that, and I successfully performed the money shift, 8th to 1st, with the Ferrari transmission. TLG ARE YOU IDIOTS? NO CAR DESIGNER WOULD EVER ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN! WHY DO YOU PERSIST IN DESIGNING TRANSMISSIONS THAT WOULD CAUSE THE ENGINE TO DETONATE AND THROW RODS EVERYWHERE? (end rant) That said, I realized that on the right side, there were 3 extra gears on the rear side of the transmission, causing the real sequence to be 1 to 8 to 1 to 8 and then to loop back to the original 1st gear. This is actually a 16 speed transmission. since many have lamented that the transmission was the same as the Sian, I brought my Sian over to my work bench and looked at it carefully. I realized that I removed those 3 unnecessary gears, and repurposed a couple parts and with 3 extra parts from my stores, I had built a shift block in that location. I easily have the parts to fix this myself, now I just need to find the time to disassemble the Ferrari engine (with lots of difficult to remove parts) and copy what I did to my Sian.

P.S. We are not allowed to mock TLG's transmission idiocy in reviews of their products. I recall (for either the Bugatti or the Porsche) I wrote a nice review of the product, but in the review pointed out that the gearbox was poorly designed, and that fixes to TLG's mistakes were readily available on the internet. My review got deleted. Stupid Gestapo tactic.

This seems like the place to ask, are there any good mods to help rigidize the daytona's flimsy fuselage, without affecting the look of the car? Compared to the sian, it feels like any wrong move could make the thing break up in pieces.

Unfortunately, as Yale and I were driving his car, I noticed the gear lever moving excessively whenever we shifted into 3rd gear. Under acceleration and deceleration, the shifter would move an inch or two in either direction from a force from within the gearbox. Francois and I knew this was was not good, and were concerned something was wrong inside the gear box that could potentially cause something to break in a spectacular fashion!

It took Yale a few weeks to let us know what to do. He said he had this transmission rebuilt by another shop, so having to do it again was not something easy to digest, but the thought of having a gearbox explode was far worse.

In conversation the other day, I told a friend of mine that around 1968/69, whereas a "DFV kitcar" driver could change gear down for a corner by going from say 5th to 2nd directly, Ferrari drivers could not. I recall reading years ago, that Ferraris had a gearbox "interlock" that meant going down for a corner, the driver would have to go, 5th, 4th, 3rd then 2nd.

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