Today’s high-end sports cars all use exquisite dual-clutch automatic gearboxes for super-quick shifts and better driver control than even a row-your-own manual gearbox can offer. But back in the heady days of the 1990s the technology just wasn’t there yet, and the best sports cars employed horribly unresponsive single-clutch automated manuals. Ferrari’s criminally bad F1 Gear transmission made even the most responsive mid-engine sports car of its era feel drunk and slow. Using a series of hydraulic actuators and solenoids, these “automated” supercars will shift gears for you. It’s really best to just throw all of that away and install manual-shift components into the same transmission.
That’s exactly what Vin has done with his “budget” project Ferrari on YouTube. With aftermarket components from EAG in Texas, Vin was able to take his push-me-pull-you button-press transmission and turn it into a proper enthusiast weapons-grade fun machine. The best part of this whole project is that he was able to buy the automatic Ferrari at a huge discount, and put the whole thing together for a lot less than it would cost to go buy a nice manual transmission 360 Modena today.
This swap seems intimidating on its face, but it took a whole lot less work than I imagined it might. I’ve definitely done more intensive work on some of my cars when they were up on jack stands in the front driveway. With the luxury of a lift a full shop, and a few extra hands, the whole thing took less than a day of work, which is truly impressive. Maybe I should start looking for a cheap F1 Gear 360 Spyder to swap. It seems so easy!