458 Scuderia Audio 458 Stealth Amplifier Sneak Peek

I've been wanting to make some traction on this project for over a year but have been buried with orders. I just completed the 599 upgrade kit so I can now devote my full attention to this project.

The most difficult part of a full system upgrade in the 458 is the amplifier, by far. The only place to mount one is in the front trunk. Therefore, you need to remove the tub, run several long runs of wire through the firewall, etc.
It turns out that there is quite a bit of room (relatively speaking) right above the battery. You can't fit a big JL Audio DSP amplifier in there, but a Mosconi 4 channel amplifier can fit just fine. The great thing about this location is that the battery is right below it and the InfoTainment box is right above it. You wouldn't have any installation wires that were over, say, 10 inches. Simple installation, and the amp has more than enough power to drive the new midranges, tweeters and an 8" subwoofer.

I was finally given access to both an Italia and a Speciale, and spent the better part of a day cutting pieces of cardboard, then tin to make a rough template for a "shelf" that bolts to the upper battery support bar and a standoff on the firewall that will secure the amp. My CAD guy rendered the first draft and I just picked up a couple of aluminum prototypes from the machine shop today. Early next week I will be test fitting the shelf and amp, make any final adjustments, then start cranking out stainless production pieces. Of course the underside of the shelf will be lined with adhesive backed rubber for safety (electrical insulation).

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Spent the afternoon test fitting the first prototype. We are really close. The two biggest issues were the amp needs to be moved 1/2" to the right on the plate, and the vertical support bar in the back of the fixture was not tall enough (the hole was off). Fortunately, the location of the vertical bar in the Y axis was perfect. This was what I was worried about. Adding some height and moving the hole is really easy, as is adding extra material and shaving off material here and there. Will go back to the machine shop tomorrow morning with the revised drawing. The changes are small enough where I can have stainless production parts fabricated now.

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Class D amplifiers provides much better efficiency and thermal performance than comparable Class AB amplifiers.
With my 360/430 super amp, I shoehorn two Mosconi Pico 2 amplifiers against each other inside a metal case with no cooling fans or ventilation of any kind, and have never had any problems whatsoever (and I've sold over 100 super amps). The Pico 4 (which is what I am using here) is in a relatively open area and has heat sinks on both sides to boot.
I've sold around 80 complete systems for 458's and 488's so far, but that number should go way up when people see the option of not needing to mount an amplifier in the front trunk, run long wires through the firewall, etc.

 

Both cars are at a Ferrari auto wrecker. The Italia is heavily damaged, but I can still verify that this stealth amplifier setup will fit in the car. I am installing a system in the Speciale for the owner who does not want the large DSP amplifier installed (hence the motivation to complete the stealth product). Even if there were enough room over the battery to fit a Mosconi Pico 8/10 DSP, it would still be a Mosconi TUN file and not a JL Audio one.

Have you watched any of the JL Audio TUN software tutorials on YouTube, or contacted the free JL Audio tech support with any specific issues you are having with the TUN software?

 

I have 5 production plates being laser cut out of stainless as I write this. They will be powder coated black and I should have them in my possession by the end of next week. Will keep you posted.

 

Unfortunately, yes. There is only 3/8" clearance on all four sides of the tiny amp shown in the pictures. Mosconi has a slightly larger amp that includes a DSP, but it's just a little too large to fit in there. The VX400/4i is more on par with the size of the battery itself as far as the footprint. Since no amplifier with a built in DSP will fit over the battery, I'll have to see if I can find another place to conveniently mount a standalone DSP to augment this amp. The Mosconi DSP is smaller than a comparable JL Audio standalone DSP, and since the amp is a Mosconi, it is the logical choice. However, I will not be able to look into that until this current project is completed.

 

Lots of progress today.
Test fit version 2.0 (production piece). It fits perfectly. Even the alignment of the mounting hole on the vertical tab is absolutely perfect.

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I'm going to hijack my own thread under the assumption that folks who are watching this new amplifier shelf product are interested in understanding how to actually wire up the amp.
This install is so easy a monkey to could do it. Removing about a dozen or so fasteners gets you to the connector that plugs into the back of the InfoTainment unit. The speaker wires coming out of this plug need to be rerouted in, then back out of the amp. In this case, the amp is less than 6 inches away. The pinout of the connector is extremely intuitive. Left to right on the connector is left to right with the speakers. Also, left to right is front to back with the speakers. Additionally, all of the top pins are positive and all of the bottom pins are negative. Wiring this up is a cinch. I'm going to make a YouTube video where I disassemble the right side of the dash, install the new amplifier shelf and amp, wire everything up, then reassemble.

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Ideally, I would be able to make a harness with one of each of those connectors; the male (which is embedded in the InfoTainment box) and the female (the red and black piece which has the moving parts) so none of the wires in the original harness would need to be cut. The male connector is readily available (around 20 bucks) but the manufacturer of the female connector won't even talk to me unless I'm willing to purchase a minimum of 270 pieces (and I can't even imagine how expensive even one piece is). And a minimum two month lead time. So it looks like the Speciale owners will need to do what everyone else is doing, which is to cut the wires about 3 inches from the connector (so when they sell the car, they can just solder the wires back to each other with some shrink tube and no one would be the wiser) and solder the plug side to the wires on the input harness of the amp, the solder the car side to the wires on the output harness of the amp.
I do know that the connectors on the regular Italia and 458 Spider are much simpler (no moving parts, etc.) so if I can ever get my hands on another Italia locally that has an InfoTainment box still in it, I can research on that end.
I have a friend locally who was gracious enough to allow me to dig into the electronics, but that was last year and he has since sold his 458 Spider and purchased a Lamborghini Adventador.

 

I may have spoke too soon. A rep sent me an email today and claimed that although it would be almost impossible to get some of these connectors made (and no one has any in stock), they do offer free samples. I filled out the form and asked for 10 pieces, but some text popped up stating that they would only send me 1 piece. I have been down this road before with this company and they have always come up short, so I will believe it when I receive the sample in the mail. If they send me 10 pieces, we're golden. Otherwise, I may need to ask a few of my buddies to register and ask for 1 free sample. Stay tuned...

 

A bit more research has yielded a similar amplifier (Mosconi D2 100.4) that has a built in digital signal processor. This amp is only 25 millimeters wider. I'm pretty sure there would be just enough clearance to mount this amplifier onto the shelf with only minor changes to the shelf. There seems to be some ambiguity regarding the actual dimensions (whether they are including the mounting brackets or not) so I'm just going to have to purchase one, go back to the Speciale and do another test fit. Having a DSP built in would totally be worth the additional effort. Meanwhile, the unobtainium connector is supposed to show up at my door by Wednesday of next week.

 

So the difficult to obtain female connector should be here on Wednesday. I ordered a couple of the male connectors, they should also be here on Wednesday. I ordered the D2 100.4 DSP amplifier, that should be here on Wednesday.
The female connector didn't come with any electrical pins, I had to order the minimum order, which was 170 pieces. No big deal, they were cheap. What is not so cheap is the crimper for these connectors - a thousand dollars!!!
Forget that. I'm going to hand solder each wire into each pin, then crimp with a generic crimp connector. It won't matter if the crimp is not perfect because the wire will be soldered. I've never been a big fan of crimping anyway. I've been into high end car audio since 1982, I solder everything, and I've never had an electrical problem with any of my systems.
Meanwhile, preliminary results show that the new amp will probably fit onto the shelf without any modifications to the shelf except for relocated mounting holes. However, the only way to be sure is to send the amplifier to my CAD guy for verification. I'd rather spend a little more time on this and get it absolutely right.

 

These guys were also working on a 488 which had the passenger footwell access panel removed. I only had a moment to take a quick peek inside, but it looks like there is some sort of large, round mechanism made of black plastic that is basically hovering right over the area where my new shelf/amp would go. That was a big disappointment. The next time I'm up there, I want to take another good look to make sure this wasn't just some sort of temporary device.

 

All of the parts arrived today. The amplifier looks like it's going to fit. I may need to trim one of the small mounting tabs in the back, but there will still be enough left to properly secure the amp on that corner.

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I never get this lucky!!
They actually sent me 10 unobtainium connectors. Now I have everything I need to manufacture a special harness to make the installation completely plug & play with no cutting of any of the factory wires.


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Lots of progress today.
First of all, the new digital signal processing amplifier fits. There is about a quarter inch clearance on both sides, no problem.
Also, I took a closer look at the connector and got the pinout. There are 8 speaker wires, a power wire, a ground wire, some other wire, and 9 smaller wires on the other side of the connector. I have no idea what they are. It doesn't matter, however, as this is a pass through. Thank goodness there are only 9 small wires as the connector could accommodate up to 40 small wires.
A minor setback is that the pins that the rep sent me are for the smaller wires. I wrote her and mentioned that I also need larger pins for the larger wires, but she probably won't see the email until Monday.

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