On Ferrari Friday’s, William Ross from the Exotic Car Marketplace will be discussing all things Ferrari and interviewing people that live and breath the Ferrari brand. Topics range from road cars to racing; drivers to owners, as well as auctions, private sales and trends in the collector market.
In this episode William talks about how doing transmission swaps on Ferrari 360’s, 430’s, and 599’s are gaining momentum in the collector space.
Episode 14
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the podcast. It’s been way too long since I’ve posted something, hasn’t it? So, I tried to scale back some of the other things that are going on, because I just keep forgetting and just getting out of here to do this. And I really enjoy doing this. I mean, I know the, I don’t know how well the sound quality is.
I don’t know how much you guys really, you know, everyone’s, I got some downloads. So wait, why not? So I guess I’ll just keep doing it. So I’ve got a plan together, you know, going into this new year. I know it’s almost February, but like I said, I kind of, uh, got a plan of attack for all the things I got to do and what I want to do.
And [00:01:00] I want to really kind of attack the YouTube channel in regards to stuff. So. Uh, and you know, acquire some things for the channel, but also, you know, kind of maybe grow this podcast some more and expand it to some other topics and hopefully get some guests on and whatnot. So I’m going to do what I can, but again, I’m no audio file.
I’m no expert at doing this kind of stuff. So God only knows how it’ll turn out, but Hey, just bear with me. And as we grow, hopefully it’ll get better. And maybe I can get some people that actually know what they’re doing and, and help me out on this. Cause I try to stick with what I know and that’s cars.
You know, and that’s talking about cars, driving cars, selling cars, doing everything like that. So, that’s what I’m good at. Computer technology stuff, not so much. I guess it could be my ADD, I just don’t have the patience for it. Eh, or who knows, maybe I just get bored too easily. Again, the ADD, so anyways.
But hey, welcome back to the podcast. I’m William, and I really appreciate you guys listening. So today’s topic, as you probably saw from the title, we’re going to discuss [00:02:00] Something that’s kind of taking off recently in the past, I’d say, you know, year, year and a half, maybe two years, but it’s really, really gained momentum.
And that’s taking the Ferrari, say a 360 and a 430. Now, even a 599, even doing the 430 Scuds, taking the F1 transmission cars and making them into a six speed manual. Now there’s an outfit down in Texas, uh, EAG, um, that actually has performance now. They have a very similar name to a very, very well known retail BMW dealer down in Cincinnati, Ohio that deals in, you know, used BMWs, but they deal in M3s, M5s, whatnot, all the high end stuff, and they get some gorgeous cars.
They’re extremely expensive, but they get the best of the best of the best. And if you’re looking for something along those lines, if you’re looking for an E46 M3, an [00:03:00] E36 M3, or the E39 M5, those are the guys to see. That’s also EAG. But anyways, so different outfit, different company down to Texas. So they’ve been around for a long time and they, you know, doing a lot of work on cars and what have you.
And they, I think it took them a couple years to really kind of perfect the package that they utilize to do this, uh, transformation on these cars. Now. You know, they really fine tuned it and honed it, so I mean, it’s, it’s spot on. Now, I don’t know how familiar all you guys are with how that transmission works, but it’s actually a cable operated system.
Even from the factory, it’s cable actuated. So, it’s not like there’s hydraulics involved, and that sort of, I guess, you know, running lines, and that kind of stuff for, you know, it’s, you know, mechanical, so to speak. So, they actually had designed and engineered a whole system to replace the F1 transmission.
Now, I don’t know if you’ve gone online and how [00:04:00] much you do in your free time, what have you, or killing some time at work at your desk, you know, but, uh, I’m always, um, you know, in my free time or just sitting around, I’ll be on bring a trailer every day. I’m on bring a trailer a couple of times a day. I’ll go on cars and bids and, you know, not so much eBay because I just not a big fan of eBay looking at cars on there because they just kind of, I think that’s for the, the, uh, I want to say not say lower end, but I don’t say shady, but I don’t know.
Very rarely do you find anything good on eBay. I’ll tell you that right now. Uh, but, uh, you know, and sometimes I’ll snoop through Craigslist just to see if there’s something kind of lurking around parts wise. Um, but also, you know, Auto Tempest is fantastic. So I don’t know if anyone out there has been utilizing Auto Tempest just to shop around and do some daydream and looking at cars.
But Auto Tempest is fantastic because they actually search through basically every single used car [00:05:00] site on the internet pretty much. Um, you know, they’re missing a few, but only one drawback, I guess, is it’d be nice if someone could create something along the lines for all the auction sites and for cars getting out, you know, uh, they’re getting auctioned.
So that would be really cool because then you can really kind of get a better grasp of what’s really out there and what’s for sale and following pricing and whatnot. Because in my business, I know I’ve really got to kind of keep track of the trends and what’s costing what and what’s going up, what’s going down.
So it’s kind of, that’s kind of what led me to this topic because it, when they were first coming out where they started doing these, I guess, getting more well known in regards to doing these changes, transformations on these cars, you know, there was some people that were crying foul thinking, Oh no, why are you doing this?
That didn’t he had the other side, which like me, uh, it’s to me, I think, Hey, it’s awesome. It’s outstanding. You can’t fault Ferrari for it because [00:06:00] they’re following the trend. And, and, you know, you look at what their sales numbers were. And everybody was wanting to buy that F1 transmission because that was the cool thing to get, that was the in thing.
So, I think it was something like, you know, on the 360s it was almost like a, uh, 70 30 split. 70 percent getting the F1 transmission and 30 percent getting trans, uh, you know, the 6 speed manuals. It might be, it might be a little off. Then I know with the 430s it increased even more to almost a 90 10 split.
Maybe like a 85 15 split. So, you know, finding F30s with the 6 speed is pretty, pretty tough. Uh, from the factory. So EAG stepped in and came up with this kit. And I know originally it was, hey you had to send your car down there, they would do it. I know it’s like, you know, it’s your 360 or 430, whatever, you know, depending on which one it is.
You know, obviously there’s some incidental work in there depending on the shape your car’s in. Uh, but you’re probably looking to do the transformation about 40 to 50 [00:07:00] grand. So it’s not cheap. Um, but the kit that they engineered is supposed to be, I guess, even the tolerances are tighter. Um, the quality, everything that they did was, I guess, it’s even, it’s better than the factory’s version of it.
So you’re getting a very high quality. So the tolerances are tighter. Everything’s a lot tighter. It’s a lot more, I guess, packaged better. In regards to this kit that they sell and install now I’ve seen a few cars that have said hey, it’s utilizing the AG kit, but the installation was done by X Y Z Company wherever they were at.
So obviously you can buy that kit and I think the kit just buying itself like 18, 20 grand, something like that. Maybe a little less, maybe a little more, somewhere around there. But you look at labor and everything like that, so labor, you’re looking at 20, 30 grand to do it. Because there’s a lot involved.
You know, you’ve got a lot of pieces, you’ve got to get your gear selected and whatnot. But one of the big things that they perfected, now, I don’t know how they do this in regards to the cars that are [00:08:00] getting done, uh, outside of EAG, that they’re just selling the kids to. Because the biggest hurdle That they had to overcome.
I mean, you could make the parts, get the cables and stuff like that. Hey, that’s just a lot of CNC machining work. Uh, engineering and just, you know, doing a lot of measurements and whatnot and getting that done. And hey, you got a good CNC guy. Hey, they can whip this stuff out. You know, if you got your own CNC machine, you can just sit there and do part, part.
Hey, try this. Oh, no, do that. Take this off. You know, so you can handle it pretty easily. But the biggest hurdle when they were trying to perfect this was the ECU. Now, getting into that and, you know, getting, plugging yourself in and getting the computer itself to recognize, hey, you know, hey, this is, we’re going from the F1 transmission, automated transmission to a six speed manual.
Now, there are two completely different Programming, did that sound right? Sorry, I apologize if that came out right. So I’m, I’m, you know, thinking as I talk here. But anyways, so the, each car, each [00:09:00] version of it has a different program to it on how this thing reacts to your shifts. So like when you shift, you know, the revs, everything like that.
So, and also on F1s it’s got the little digital readout, you know, gears, what gear you’re in, everything like that, which the manuals don’t. So, that just becomes a blank space in essence. But um, they have to go in there and reprogram this car to basically think it’s a, you know, hey, it’s a 6 speed manual car now.
So that took a lot of work to do it because one thing is just about with your revs and as you know, you’re holding a gear, everything like that. You know, because sometimes in that F1 transmission, you’re holding the gear, it’ll shift itself. You know, it’s like that because the computer’s thinking, hey, it needs to shift.
So they had to go through and reprogram the whole ECU to be able to handle this. So which is, it’s an a feat in itself. So again, I don’t know if that’s something that they just say, here’s the time to download it, [00:10:00] whatever. Here’s the, it’s on a USB. I don’t know how they would do it for an outfit outside of EAG itself for doing that.
But you have to reprogram the entire system. Now, if it was up to me, I would have EAG do it. I mean, I guess if you got a really good shop and trust it, but hey guys, I mean, that’s up to you. But I mean, I would probably, my have my druthers, I’d have EAG do my conversion. Um, but obviously I think as it gets more and more common in doing it, you know, like I said, it’s not too technical to do the swap.
It’s just getting the right people that know what they’re doing. And I think the biggest thing is having the guy that knows how to do the programming for the car. So once they get that situated, then hey, you’re in business to do it. But anyways. Getting back to the main topic in regards to these cars now, so they’re like the past six seven months I’ve been kind of looking around at You know 430s and [00:11:00] 360s and you know It’s just been popping up more and more and more that you’re seeing these cars that have had a manual swap done to them and basically a Majority almost all of them have it’s been done by EAG because they’re pretty much the only I would say the only game in town But that’s the one everyone utilizes because they basically have perfected it now.
They’ve been perfected to outstandingly, especially for the three sixties and four thirties. Now I know they started, you know, some of pop started popping up doing the four thirties scud, which that would be a dream car to get for me. I would take one in a heartbeat. Now everyone’s thinking, Oh God, that transmission is great.
Why did you buy it? I was like, but you know, I’m old school, you know, I’m going to be 53 in April. So I lean more towards having manual cars. It’s just who I am. I just think it’s more engaging, you know, and besides, if you’re driving that car on just on your regular streets and roads. You know, it’s not like you’re, you know, unless you’re doing track days consistently with this car and you don’t really drive it on the street, you know, on the street, you’re going to get a ton more.
Yeah, I [00:12:00] was going to use that swear word, but I don’t want to get, you know, bleep things out. I think it’s going to get a lot more engagement and enjoyment out of you got a six speed manual because you’re just involved with the driving experience. So I have no qualms with these conversions getting done.
It’s just getting done properly. Now, it’s interesting though, pricing wise, like I’ve seen a couple of dealers. I had one dealer, I actually spoke to ’em about it, and they had the car priced at like two, was it 2 20, 200 $20,000 for a conversion. And I’ve seen ’em all the way down at 130,000. And these are on four thirties, so you know, 360 with the manual conversion done, I’ve seen ’em anywhere from the one 20, a little one teams range all the way up to 1 60, 1 70.
Now here’s the thing, now they’re gaining in value big time in regards to this. So I’m gonna give you guys a little. tidbit. If you’re, if you’re in a position in life, you can go out and buy one. I would definitely go buy a 360 6B manual from the factory or a 430 if you can get your hands on. [00:13:00] Yeah, you’re going to pay a premium for them, but tell you what, as long as you maintain and do everything you’re supposed to do and just, Hey, you have no issues paying, you know, roughly, you got a budget about just over your lifespan of the car that you own it.
It’ll average about say four to five grand a year. You’re going to have to do on maintenance. Now, some years it could be maybe. 1, 500, 2, 000, just doing your general stuff, oils, that kind of stuff. But some years you’re going to have it worth maybe 8, 000, 9, 000. So it all balances out to about 4, 000 or 5, 000 a year.
You’re probably looking at just a budget in regards to maintenance for this car. But I said, if you got the wherewithal and the means, I would definitely go get your hands on one and enjoy it. Uh, cause those things are going to just go up in value because it’s, Hey, again, they don’t make any more, Ferrari ain’t making any more manual transmission cars.
But. Now, I guess here’s where the argument comes into those. Okay. What’s, what’s the value you’re going to maintain or keep? Is it going to increase, decrease or what on a car that’s had a six speed conversion? Now I know I’m pretty sure that, you [00:14:00] know, you can get all, you’ll get all the parts back and everything like that for the, from the conversion.
So, Hey, if you’re, when you go to sell the car and move it on, Hey, you could give those parts to the new owner and say, Hey, if you ever wanted to switch it back, cause it’s. Pretty straight forward underneath, as I said, with the cable, the actuators, everything that goes on there. Again, though, you have to reprogram the ECU to be able to go back to it.
So, I mean, I don’t know why you’d want to, but I guess that’s a jerk car. You spent the money, you can do what the hell you want with it. But, you know, I would never switch it back, that’s for sure. So, but here’s kind of where I’m getting at a little bit also with this conversation is I’m in the process of potentially, you know, looking at a 430 and I’m debating whether to go with a factory 6 speed or one with the swap.
Now, if I go with the swap, I can save a decent amount of money. I could probably save 50, 100 grand, I bet. Somewhere in that range. You know, compared to a 6 speed, you know, swap that would have been done on one. [00:15:00] Um, roughly, I would say mileage wise, everything like that, you know, a lot of the ones I’m seeing, you know, you got them in the mid high teens into the mid low 20s range, you know, mileage wise.
Um, and here’s the thing. Mileage doesn’t scare me. Hey, if it’s got all the service history and maintenance records to it, I got no problem going after a higher, higher mileage car. You know, hey, everything’s fine. It’s a car. It’s meant to be driven. As long as the service has been done, Hey, you got to do that on your other, your regular car.
Yeah, that might be not as temperamental. Um, but you know, you still got to do general maintenance, everything on your just regular Camry. Forward or whatever. Um, so that doesn’t scare me in regards to having a high mileage as long as the history is there, you know, and a very complete history. Um, 360s though, as everyone knows out there that knows their Ferraris is my only drawback is going towards a 360 is they got the belts.
And those belts have to be done about every 5, 000 miles or [00:16:00] every 5 years, something like that. Um, 000 miles. I know it’s every 5 years at a minimum. Um, And depending on where you go, now here’s the thing with those, I know I’m getting a little sidetracked here, but normally you go, you’re going to go somewhere that does the work, everything, a lot of times they try and tell you it’s, any place will say it’s an engine out to do it.
It’s not. If you have some place that knows what they’re doing, like there’s a place here by me that I know they do excellent work because they do it for some of these guys, these dealers around here. Uh, and I know Sam down at RSM. A little plug for him. Check out RSM Motors. Sam’s got, he’s a kind of a boutique dealer.
He’s just got very minimal inventory, but the inventory he’s got is phenomenal. But anyways, Sam sends his cars there and I know on a belt change service, they only charge about three grand. You know, so it normally appears like, Oh, it’s like 10, 20, 000. Nah, it’s not that bad. If you go to a shop that knows what they’re doing, um, it won’t be that bad.
But that’s another nice thing, they’ll go into the 430 because it’s a different [00:17:00] engine and they went to change instead of the belt. I mean, you’re still going to have your general maintenance issues, everything like that, but you’re not going to have to do these belt changes all the time. So that’s kind of part of the ownership.
So especially like the earlier 360s, they got, you know, hopefully that some of the issues have gotten fixed. The first of the 99, 2000 models, they had some issues with the fuel rails and that kind of stuff. So, you know, kind of getting into a newer one deal. Um, but anyways, I’m leaning towards the 430 to try and hold one down.
Now, again, like I said, I’ve seen something priced in regards to, Hey, you know, 1 31 40 range, but then I see him obviously all the way up 200 range. Now it’s like, okay, let’s be realistic. Now the guy, the dealer that had the one that was in that one, uh, 2 20 range, I think it was 2 17 or something, something like that.
Anyways, I had a conversation with the phone a couple of times and he’s like, I’m willing to deal. I mean, you know, so he wants to move it. And you [00:18:00] know, my thing is okay, maybe 1 65 1 70 because the car I think I had 22, 000 miles on something. Great services or anything. It’s a gorgeous color. Now, me personally, I hate tan interior.
I cannot stand tan or light colored interiors. I think that’s the biggest mistake you can do is getting something, getting a light colored interior car because it just shows dirt, grime, or anything. I just, it’s just not me. I either prefer black or red. Now, I’ll go into a dark, dark tan like, you know, tobacco brown color.
That looks sharp. I said, I hate light tan. I hate gray. I just, I’m not a fan. So anyone I get, it’s going to have to have a dark, you have a black or red interior, uh, or that, you know, nice tobacco brown interior. But my preference is black interior. But anyways, so I know that guy would do a lot. So I play kind of like trying to see where the trend’s going is, are these swap cars going to, I guess.
Become almost equal value of a [00:19:00] factory one or, or is it just always going to be a, I guess a 30 percent roughly to 40 percent difference in price between a factory manual and a swap car. So I don’t know. No, I said, I want to get my, cause I’m going to drive it. I’m going to take that. I’m going to start using it.
Hey, for the YouTube channel and start, you know, going around cause I want to do is obviously I want to go around to events. I’m not wanting to be one of those YouTube channels. Just hey. They get in their car and they go, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. And I think you guys probably know what I’m talking about.
Um, great channel though. He’s got some decent cars, but I want to have actual content. I want to go check out like all these, you know, there’s awesome museums. I’m in Ohio. I got tons of museums that are within a, you know, eight, 10 hour driving me or jump on a plane. Um, I got these awesome events around here.
Hey, in the wintertime, I just jump on a plane, go down South wherever, rent a car, head out to Cal, do stuff like that. But I really want to start, I want to create content. And kind of, uh, you know, take people along for the ride. But another little thing, you know, [00:20:00] background on me, is I also wanted to be able to give back.
I am a wish granter with Make A Wish and I also volunteer a couple animal shelters here locally. So I really wanted to be able to utilize the channel and be able to, you know, bring attention to these causes of mine and hopefully help them raise money and do a lot of those things. So anyways, and that was a little sidebar, but anyways.
So that’s kind of what I wanted to get into, start using that kind of showcase and kind of do stuff along those lines to generate.
But so I, I’m, I’m debating, you know, I came across, uh, a 430. It’s available to factory six speed. I haven’t spoken to him yet. Cause I don’t know what the price is yet on it, but it’s a black, black car. So it’s like right up my alley. Um, you know, and I’m not one to do all these mods to it. I’ll probably put an exhaust on it, but other than that, I’m not one to do all that crazy crap to it.
I’m not going to twin turbo it and all that stupid ass shit. Um, that’s not me. I’m a purist. I mean, I love the sound of it. I [00:21:00] want to make it, you know, make it sound beautiful. That’s why I do the exhaust on it. You do it to be on it. I got Corso over here right down the street by me, probably about 15 minutes from my house and I could partner up with them and get them on board and hate, see if they can do some something for it special, but I’m just curious to see where things are going.
I’m curious what your guys opinion at, because it’s. Again, some people are going to go, Oh, it’s blasphemy, you know, it was how it came and born from the factories. I should keep it. Well, you know, it goes back to that. It’s just, well, they didn’t make that many of the six speed manufactured cars. There’s only so many amounts are going around.
So it’s like, what do you do? So again, Hey, do you get the conversion done? You go by, you know, get the EAG route or, you know, Hey, you just, you pony up and you’re paid for one that was that way from the factory. I think more and more. You are going to find it that much more difficult to find the factory six speeds or you’re going to pay through the nose for them where the swaps become more viable and a alternative choice just because one cost, you know, like I was saying [00:22:00] before, the product that EAG have produced and the engineering quality that they’ve done, they perfected it, the tolerances are tighter than the factory.
It’s a lot more tight. It’s it feels tighter. Not saying that the factory 6 speeds are sloppy or anything like that. They’re great to look. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, um, noise on those. But it’s from my understanding and from everyone I’ve spoken to is just the engineering level is to the, I mean, to the moon.
It’s, it’s a tremendous and you know, it’s. Having the parts whatnot. Yeah, so again, you’re gonna the little shift light thing, you know, what gear in won’t work But that’s okay, but you got your gear selector. You got that chrome ball sticking out. It’s just beautiful. And I know I Not sure I know on some of their little ones AG was at was etching or wasn’t etching their name into the gate where the you know Lever sticks out of some have it some don’t so I don’t know how that operates if [00:23:00] you know if you can ask what or not, but hey You can always go on my eBay, which I said, I don’t like, but you can go on the Ferrari chat, all these places.
They have parts and stuff. You can just find one and swap it out. I mean, it’s just going to bolt on, bolt off because it’s the same size. Because those cars, obviously when they were built, they were kind of set up to go both ways. So you have everything there for it. So, and the clutch pedal hang, everything like that.
So it’s all there. So it’s not like it’s going to have to be something custom made. You can just swap out the factory parts for it for aesthetic reasons, if you like. But anyways. That’s my thoughts on that. I’m curious to see what you guys think, you know, hey, you know, put a message below, shoot me an email, William at the Ferrari Marketplace dot com.
Let me know your thoughts and see what you guys think. I’m really curious to know what everyone out there feels about these manual swap cars and their thoughts. And, and if, hey, if you have the wherewithal, you know, would it bother you? Would you want to factor away? What did manual swap bother you? [00:24:00] So I’m curious to see what everyone thinks.
So shoot me an email, let me know. I have a feeling we might talk about this some more. But anyway guys, hey, I really appreciate you listening. Keep a lookout for the YouTube channel. There’s already some stuff out there. It’s Garage 65. Uh, that’s, you know, it’s the word 60 then the number 5. So look up Garage 65.
I’m trying to get that all tweaked out. They have some number apps right now, so I’m trying to get the number eliminated. You’re supposed to be able to do that somehow, someway. Check it out. Um, like I said, I’m going to try and get this to more of a weekly format here on this stuff. Uh, get some other topics going, you know, talk about some old race stuff.
Uh, talk about some of the new stuff coming out. I know we already talked about the Puro Seng and it’s kind of growing on me. So, um, yeah, I have a lot more talk to him. Like I said, I’m hoping to get some more, get some, get some more, get some guests maybe to come on and chit chat. Um, I just did a podcast with the other guys over at Garage Ride the other week with, uh, Colleen Sheehan from Ferrari’s Online.
That was a great one. It was a good time. Check out garage riot. Uh, they got some great content, uh, great [00:25:00] podcasts on there, uh, and listening up. So they got some good stuff too. So everything’s posted up on the exoticcarmarketplace. com website. Uh, there’s links everywhere on those team too for all these for mine for garage right and we’re adding more content on a regular basis.
So Check that out and I will talk to you soon guys. I appreciate it and take care. Talk soon
Copyright William Ross, Exotic Car Marketplace a division of Sixty5 Motorsports. This episode is part of Gran Touring Motorsports, Motoring Podcast Network and has been republished with permission.