The current car collector climate is fraught with “final” this and “it’s the last so and so”. We get proved wrong time and time again – see the “last” manual performance Porsche…the 911R, followed closely by the GT3. Or perhaps the “last” naturally aspirated V12…the F12 Berlinetta, followed closely by the 812 Superfast.
The point is it’s actually a very special thing when the actual last version of something important is produced, and the 458 Speciale embodies this. The mid-engined, naturally aspirated Ferrari V8 was an institution – the 355 is still one of the greatest sounding cars ever built, the 360 Challenge Stradale paved the way for the “lightweight special” formula that became a firm fixture in any self-respecting performance oriented car manufacturer’s repertoire, and the 458 was probably the single most important car for Ferrari since the F40. It’s no secret that the Gallardo and 997 GT3 (while incredible cars) simply aren’t revered in quite the same way
When that car came out everyone knew about it, it genuinely signalled the beginning of the double clutch revolution – cars could suddenly shift gear so quickly you didn’t know about it, and the fact that the 458 was devastatingly beautiful certainly helped its case.
So the stage was set, people had become accustomed to the lightweight Ferrari V8 and this was a tough sophomore album and when it landed the car couldn’t possibly have exceeded anyone’s expectations more. It was an angry, snarling beast – and that was just the way the thing looked!
The real question is – what is left to do to a car that was already so well put together? And the answer is – a hell of a lot.
It goes back to the point we made in a previous blog post about manufacturing for a global market – you simply have to comply with the strictest standards, or you won’t be able to sell your car. This is painfully obvious when it comes to the Speciale’s exhaust note, while it already sounds amazing you can always tell that it is slightly throttled – the engine is a 597hp, flat-plane crank masterpiece that never quite gives you everything it has…until now.
We had a customer that simply said – I want the most extreme exhaust system available for this car, I want it to sound like an F50.
Challenge Accepted.
The exhaust on the Speciale is composed of 3 elements: manifolds, catalytic converters and a back box. We immediately knew 2 things. Firstly, we had to replace the entire system and secondly, Inconel was non-negotiable.
Inconel is a Nickel/Chromium super alloy that saw extensive use in the X-15 rocket plane that Neil Armstrong cut his teeth on before going to the moon, and this plane eventually went on to travel at speeds of up to 7,274 km/h.
It is famous for its light weight, incredible strength and very high melting point which is why it has been the material of choice for Formula 1 engines since time immemorial. It also possesses resonant frequencies that result in a massively perceptible difference in tone over Titanium or Steel exhaust systems.
The first point of call was to replace the manifolds, the main benefit of the product Novitec offers is that they are backpressure optimised. This reduces exhaust backpressure from colliding exhaust flow pulses from the separate exhaust ports on the engine, in real terms this results in the engine breathing MUCH more freely as the revs climb and pulling very strongly to the red line.
The back box, similarly, also had to be specced in Inconel, and the best system on the market is Novitec’s offering. With this new back box the exhaust note now builds in intensity, gradually and cleanly. All the while as the revs rise, the exhaust tone is changing so that when the owner reaches 5000rpm onwards the car is making a really amazing high pitched screaming motorsport sound, instead of the stock systems flat bark. The difference over standard is huge.
Between the manifolds and the back box lie the dreaded catalytic converters, the way we approach an exhaust system is the following: the back box changes the tone and the cat pipes control the volume. Now there are two ways of approaching their replacement – you can either go for a set of 200-cell sports cats which would still perform general catalytic conversion duty, or you could go all out and simply de-cat the car. The customer said he wanted extreme, so sports cats were never really an option…we ordered some decat pipes.
As with any decat system we needed to control the inevitable warning light that would arise from no cats being present, again you have two solutions – firstly, install a unit into the OBD port to annul any engine warning lights that come up as a result (either the Novitec Tectronic or the Capristo OBD Wizard) OR you can send off your ECUs for a tune which includes remapping them to ignore the lack of cats as well as raising the cars red line to 9,250RPM. The customer opted for the latter – in total with the ECU tune and Inconel decat system he was looking at around a 50hp increase in power over stock.
The exhaust in its final was composed of the following elements:
- Novitec Inconel manifolds
- Novitec Inconel back box (with valve regulation)
- Novitec Power Optimised ECUs
- Capristo Decat pipes
Words simply don’t do the sound the car made following the install any justice, suffice it to say that the car genuinely and truly sounded like a V12, and we think anyone who heard it in the flesh would agree with us when we say it wasn’t far off an F50 with a full system installed. The noise was absolutely mesmerising, totally manageable at low RPM with the valves closed…but as soon as the valves were opened up and the engine speed creeped up the thing sounded absolutely jaw dropping, few cars outside of the F1 grid approach anything even CLOSE to the noise this 458 made at full chat.
Mission accomplished…or so we thought…
Having heard the exhaust our customer was so enamoured of it that he essentially decided to order almost every single exterior upgrade offered by Ferrari Genuine, Novitec and Capristo.
The accessories ordered were as follows:
- Novitec Side window covers
- Novitec tail-light covers
- Novitec air guide trunk lid
- Novitec rear wing
- Novitec flaps for side wall air intake
- Novitec engine compartment louvres
- Novitec indicators and brake light in black
- Capristo front fins
- Capristo air outlet vents
- Ferrari carbon badges
- Ferrari wheels
- Ferrari side skirts carbon
- Ferrari Carbon mirrors
There’s no denying that all of this exterior upgrading isn’t to everyone’s tastes, however, as an exercise in pushing the envelope and making this car as extreme as possible there’s no denying that this customer absolutely achieved his vision.
Have a look at the walkaround video below!