Shielding the F355 Berlinetta from Heat
The Ferrari F355 Berlinetta is a classic sports car from the 90s, and our customer Brandon, shares his story on how he is using ZircoFlex® III GOLD to optimise performance, making it an even better experience behind the wheel.
Who doesn’t love an F355, the classic V8-engined, mid 90s supercar that is considered the link between classic and modern Ferrari these days. Apart from improving performance over its predecessors, the 355 was designed to be more driveable at a wider range of speeds, even at slow speeds.
However, Brandon’s Ferarri F355 Berlinetta is not just your standard F355 Berlinetta, he has had lots of modifications on it. The primary reason for his upgrade is to further improve performance, he has opted for a few exhaust upgrades with Capristo including test pipes removing the flow restriction the catalytic converter placed on the exhaust; Capristo By-Pass Valve to protect vulnerable engine components and exhaust headers from heat damage. Brandon also fitted Tubi Style headers, MS Racing Y Pipe and GruppeM intake air system to boost its power and torque even further.
As part of his performance upgrade, the cold air intake (CAI) system by GruppeM is designed to draw in maximum amount of ambient air available, lowering intake temperature. However, the case of the CAI was made out of carbon fibre which Brandon knew that, ” When I purchased the intake, I knew that to extract as much performance out of it as possible, I would need to reflect as much heat coming off the exhaust as possible. That’s when I researched different heat shielding brands and came across Zircotec’s ZircoFlex® GOLD.”
Brandon cut our ZircoFlex® III GOLD to the exact shape of the underside of the carbon fibre filter case, which is designed to reduce both radiation and conductive heat. ZircoFlex® III GOLD is an aluminium backed foil with our triple layered proprietary thermal barrier ceramic coating technology applied on it, reducing temperature by up to 85%. With the reflective gold layer on top, it also offers 98% reflectivity, so that heat reaching the carbon fibre surface is minimised. ZircoFlex® III GOLD is only 0.95mm in thickness which is perfect for such tight spaces under these classic-modern builds – shop now.
Apart from performance upgrades, Brandon has also done other modifications such as HRE wheels, Brembo brakes, Nitron coilovers, KW HLS front lift to improve driveability and of course, aesthetics too.
Contact us to find out more how our heat shielding products can be utilised in your builds!