Why is it that....

Why is it that everything takes SO much longer on a 400 than any other car ? Yes, it has 12 cylinders - 50% more than all of my other V8 engined cars but nevertheless....

Yesterday afternoon I decided to fit the new, original appearance plug leads I bought from Superformance a few months ago - I started around 4pm and naively thought "a couple of hours should do it"


WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG and once again WRONG !!

I decided to do each side in turn, marking the cap 1-6 before removing the old leads (1 being the lead furthest away from the distributor) so I knew I wouldn't screw this up.

Getting the distributor cap off isn't too bad, even the awkward third hold down screw can be undone with a small socket or screwdriver bit but its not as easy as on every other car I've had in 37 years of car ownership.

Getting the plug lead clamps off isn't too bad either but you know straight away that the rear one on the drivers (Right hand) side will be a pig to get back in tight unless you have a short stubby thin wall spanner. These needed to come off as the new leads come with brackets pre-fitted - only problem is that the new ones aren't bent to the correct shape and aren't as long as the originals so I knew there was aggro ahead here.

Undoing the small wires which attach to the sides of the distributors isn't awful but I could see both it and the HT lead ran through a green sheath which held them together as they passed across the rear of the engine and the old, black leads were way thinner than the new red with white outer heat resistant covering leads supplied by Superfomance.

Getting the old plug leads off was ok, most came off in one piece but one broke at the plug cap end (possibly a faulty one ? Who knows).

I carefully cleaned the rotor arm and small terminals on the distributor wires with fine emery paper and used a dremel drill with wire brush attachment to clean the distributor contacts then reattached all plug and HT leads to the cap - this took a while as the outer white heat covering doesn't fit inside the lead locating hole so needs to be cut back accordingly depending on the depth of the plug lead locating hole - these vary a lot depending on where on the cap they mount. Getting the new HT lead through the green sheath (6 inches long on the passenger side distributor) was a real pain but eventually I took the other lead out, passed the HT lead through then pushed the other lead half way through and then hooked it and pulled it through the rest of the way.

Then came the time to refit the assembly to the car - fun fun fun.

The new leads are way thicker than the outgoing ones so the entire assembly is more clumsy to work with - all of these thick leads coming out of the cap made getting to the awkward third screw really difficult - eventually sorted but after much cursing and finger scraping.

Then came the time to fit the HT lead to the coil - simple right ? Not with these leads as they use a a very small rubber boot which you can't easily push on when the lead is inserted and there's so little space to get your fingers through on the lower coil that you can't get a firm grip. Try, retry, scratch head, curse, try again, think of clever a way to do it - no good, think up another way - also no good. Eventually folded boot back along lead and applied a small amount of washing up liquid to it. Almost worked (but not quite) until I pulled lead out about 1cm, flipped boot forward (slippery bugger by now) and then slid forward - bingo !

Next fit leads to plugs - no space to grip and push plug lead boot as recesses where plugs fit are narrow plus so many pipes, hoses and cables in the way you can't get your hand in anyway - oh for the correct tool for the job ! Eventually managed using a pair of pliers which masking tape over the jaws (crap pliers as all my decent tools got stolen with my BMW and haven't been replaced yet).

Last job was to fit the lead mounting brackets - all of which needed to be bent to avoid the choke cable and were really about 2centimetres too short to fit correctly when bent. Eventually fitted but sort of foul the choke cable a bit - I never use mine so I'm not worried but will contact Superformance re this as the leads cost £360.00 so these should really be correct.

Stand back - admire your handy work and marvel at the fact that its 10pm and you've only done one f*****g side.

Tidy up tools, tentatively start car praying that its ok - sounded fine so shut engine off and went to wash up as 6 hours was enough for one day.

6.30am this morning start doing other side. Took 3 hours to complete but gave up trying to thread both leads through the green sheath as it was about 15inches long on the the drivers side and there was NO WAY I could both get the buggers through - no one will notice so what the hell anyway.

Started car again and it sounded different - couldn't exactly say how, just different. Drove out of the driveway and noticed that the low down stuttering that I'd previously encountered was way less noticeable - not totally gone but far better. Went for a good 20mile thrash and the car is far more responsive and way more lively, proving that the old leads (or at least some) were either failing or breaking down under load. Now it just needs an oil/filter change and a tune which is next on the list.

Over 9 hours to change a set of leads - I'd never have believed it.

At the end of the day these leads look great and have done the trick re performance but quite possibly any new leads would have achieved this but as I'll probably only ever need to buy one set I thought I'd get these - be your own judge if you think it's worth it or not.

And I was right about the bracket attaching nut at the rear of the drivers side - I can't tighten it up fully so will need to beg/steal/borrow/buy the correct spanner !

 

thanks for the support Bill.

I've used the silicon trick before but it wouldn't work with the superformance HT leads because the red wire is sheathed with the white heat resistant cover. The end of the boot is trapped under the white sheath hence can't be moved down the wire - the only thing that I could do was fold the boot back (sort of inside out) and then try to "pop" it forward over the coil post.

The boots on the old leads were more of the standard type, being larger and thicker so could easily push over the coil post. The new ones were very thin and barely larger than the post that they had to cover hence the difficulty.

These are probably similar to those fitted at the factory when the cars were built but due to restricted access now they are a bit of a pain.

I still can't get my head around how long it took to do the job - looking back it seems ridiculous !

 

You're correct but my main point is that in this case 50% more cylinders = around a 900% increase in fitting time.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not complaining about the car or the investment - I love the car and don't begrudge the cost or time. I just can't comprehend how much of both get consumed with what are (usually) fairly trivial or straightforward jobs - I still wake up in a cold sweat and have nightmares about replacing the air filters.

That said, its my first Ferrari and I was warned that its a complicated and expensive model to work ok so the reward versus investment calculation doesn't seem to work here except on an emotional level.

When I was looking to buy a 400 my car collector/bike/aeroplane friend in Holland's advice was very simple - don't !!

What does he know anyway.....

 

Ken, you old cynic.

Manufacturers would NEVER do anything of the sort - that would just be plain wrong !

 

Over the past 184 years and 1 month I've worked on more cars than I can remember and can honestly say that nothing has ever been both so frustrating and rewarding at the same time as this 400.

I've had it out most of the day today and driving it is just so enjoyable - it really doesn't matter that the 0-60 time isn't as fast as many hot hatches as to me its the overall experience that counts.

I've taken the car to a couple of classic car shows over the past few weeks and have been surprised how positively people have reacted. Those that recognise the model seem to really love it, those that don't are very interested in the car and to a person all appreciate its subtlety and its un-Ferrariness (new word?)