Bye Bye 2009, Hello 2010 !

Hard to believe that 2009 is coming to a close, but indeed today is the last and final day of the decade. Here at Ricambi America, we had a very successful year selling original Ferrari, Maserati, and Lamborghini parts. I think we sold about 7 SD3 diagnostic computers, a whole smattering of Lamborghini body panels, dozens of Ferrari clutches, and more timing belt service kits that I can even remember.

What's in store for 2010? Plenty of good things! We fully expect to have new Hill Engineering 308/328 tensioner bearings in Q1 (a long overdue upgrade for owners of the iconic 8-cylinder Ferrari), and later in the year a new Lamborghini Gallardo clutch thrust bearing.

In 2010, we also plan to extensive upgrades to our inventory of Larini exhaust systems, and a aggressive push of their full product catalog -- including headers, catalytic converters, and exhaust bypass pipes.

We recently launched an on-line chat feature on our website too -- enabling customers who prefer to not use the telephone or email to actually chat us live and in realtime regarding their Ferrari parts requirements. It's a solution managed by www.providesupport.com, but matches our requirements at Ricambi America perfectly. Depending on when you're reading this blog, you can actually chat with us now! How cool is that?

A High Carbon Diet, only at Ricambi America

Tis the season for new Ferrari parts at Ricambi America!

In the past, we have sold several sets of OEM F430 Challenge shift paddles. The paddles are longer than the stock ones, and improve paddle accessibility when the wheel is rotated (and more applicable to street driving, when the drivers hands are not exactly at 9 and 3 o'clock on the wheel). The stock F430 Challenge ones however are frightfully expensive and made from a fairly mundane/boring aluminum.

If you want the F430 Challenge functionality, but desire something that looks more polished in the cockpit, we are proud to now offer Carbonio Extended Length F1 Paddles

I have been so impressed with the quality of Carbonio pieces and the real pleasure of dealing with Carbonio on a B2B level, that we're working hard to bring their entire catalog of carbon pieces into our inventory. It'll take a while, but for now I just love the items we've received thus far, and I'm pretty sure you will too.

A long awaited tool arrives at Ricambi America

Its here.

Its awesome.

Its way freakin' stronger than the Ferrari version, 1/3 the price, and in stock now.

What is it? It is the Hill Engineering version of Ferrari tool 95973048 (AV3048)... the wrench for end of stroke pins on the F355, 360, Enzo, and F430 clutch thrust bearings. Those little pins are darn near impossible to remove without a proper tool -- and even if you have the original Ferrari one, it'll break soon enough. They are too brittle, and nowhere stout enough for a professional Ferrari shop.

No need for a homemade, cobbled together tool. This one, like the other Hill Engineering custom Ferrari parts and tools, is a 'buy it once, buy it for life' product.

http://www.ricambiamerica.com/produc...ucts_id=258478

Yes, we really get excited by Ferrari Parts at Ricambi America!


p.s. Yes, it'll fit Maserati 4200 end of stroke studs too.

p.p.s. Huh? Where does this thing get used? Check out pin #20 here: http://www.ricambiamerica.com/parts_...p?V=diag&I=410 That's what it removes.

Ferrari F430 Carbon Air Box Tops - now at Ricambi America!

On an otherwise gloomy drizzly November day here at Ricambi America, things were brightened up significantly when a pretty big box arrived from Carbonio! I had a slight advance warning what was inside, but wasn't prepared for my good luck. It was no ordinary box of genuine Ferrari parts...it appears we just took delivery of the very first batch of Carbonio F430 airbox lids.

They are pretty sweet, and I just had to take a peek and see how they look. The carbon work is spectacular. I've seen plenty of CF -- OEM Ferrari, aftermarket, etc. This stuff is simply drop dead beautiful. They are extremely light. Maybe 6 ounces each.. and guaranteed to look amazing on your Ferrari.

The sight of such gorgeous carbon can make any day a little brighter!


P.S. The 'inside' of the airbox is raw carbon without gel-coating.

Genuine Ferrari Timing Belts at Ricambi America

At Ricambi America, we get zillions of telephone calls from prospective customers who are looking for the best 'deal' in Ferrari parts. Sometimes we're the lowest priced supplier, sometimes we're not. When it comes to engine-critical items like timing belts, I'm not interested whatsoever in price. For me, the only thing that matters is genuine, original, 100% authentic Ferrari-branded items, with the latest possible date code. Additionally, we carry a relatively small stock of timing belts, because we like to turn them fast and ensure the newest possible stock reaches our customer.

The picture in this blog post shows two different belts. The top belt, is a genuine Ferrari item - 111334 for QV, 3.2 and 328 models. The bottom belt is a 'generic' 132843 timing belt for a Ferrari 348. The top belt, sourced through Ferrari directly contains all the correct stampings and a fresh date code (early 2009). The 348 belt was sourced just last week from a different supplier in the USA, and has no Ferrari markings and was produced in early 2007. Which would you prefer in your Ferrari? The price difference? Apples to apples, they are about $20 different per belt for generic versus Ferrari-branded.

Buying 10,000 timing belts and working through them over the course of a year (or more!) seems like an odd business practice. At Ricambi America, we buy them in lots of 20-30 at a time. Sure, we lose a few dollars in currency exchange. Sure, our landed costs might be a bit higher. But when you're dealing with interference engines that can easily cost $20k to repair, why take chances? I don't take chances with my Ferrari. Why should my customers do any different?

The new face of Ricambi America Ferrari Parts!

Now that we have completed the move into our new offices and have plenty of clean well-lit storage space for thousands of genuine, original Ferrari parts, I figured I should bringing Remy to work. The workday at Ricambi America is pretty hectic with all the Ferrari, Maserati, and Lamborghini parts orders that need to be filled and shipped — but Remy makes a great companion because he’s never underfoot, and seems to guard the door pretty well. Unfortunately, the FedEx folks have learned that he’s really just a big pushover, so its an excuse for them to take a break, pet the dog, and say hello.

So, next time you open a box of Ferrari parts from Ricambi America, if you notice a small bit of reddish dog fur attached to the packaging, you’ll know it came from our very own Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, Remy.

A New Professional Ferrari Tool Arrives at Ricambi America

Over the last few years we sold a only a small handful of 95973271 tools to professional shops around that desperately needed this clutch tool. But, at $1300 a piece, it is quite expensive and it takes several F1 gearbox jobs to get a return on this hefty investment.

Thankfully, the folks at Hill Engineering in England have released their beastly (6+ pounds!) version of the 95973271 tool, and priced it easily in the reach of independent shops working on these cars! This aftermarket version is dimensionally identical to the Ferrari one, but much nicer to own. This tool (like the Hill Engineering gearbox bushing extractor) has a home in every shop's tool bin. It will work on 360, Stradale, F430, and Enzo actuators.

A bunch of these arrived today at our shop and they're available for immediate shipment. We have them available on our site here, at only $290: Hill Engineering F1 Actuator Alignment Tool

This great Ferrari tool, in addition to thousands of other unique, original Ferrari parts and accessories can be found on-line at Ricambi America or by telephoning us on 336-499-2500.

Keys to the Kingdom!

Once again, a good friend of Ricambi America comes through with another incredible, rare, original and Genuine Ferrari parts discovery! The elusive folding key blank for the 348 isn't exactly the most durable item in the world, and its not going to make your Ferrari get around the track any faster. These Ferrari key blanks however are absolutely critical when it comes to concours correct original equipment for a 1990's vintage Ferrari. And now, we've got a very limited number of them at Ricambi America. Indeed, the Ferrari Parts Specialists.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall...

We get some amazing genuine, original Ferrari parts at Ricambi America, and today was no different. What popped up was an original Ferrari 328 side view mirror -- which seems pretty mundane, but when you consider how hard they are to find (and the price), it's nice to know we've got one here at Ricambi America.

....and, if we play our cards right, we'll have 2 more of the amazing cool SD3 diagnostic computers in our hot little hands by the end of the week!

The Gallardo Shade is here!

For the past year, Ricambi America has been selling a fantastic product called the Berlinetta Shade and thousands of other genuine, original Ferrari parts. But now, for the Lamborghini with a gigantic piece of glass and sauna-like interior temperatures when parked in the sun, Garfield Exotics has a solution for the Gallardo!

The Berlinetta Shade by Garfield Exotics, is made of nylon taffeta with black underside and a soft steel grey outer layer. It reflects the sun's destructive UV rays and keeps the interior of your Gallardo significantly cooler on hot summer days. No more shrinking leather dashboards, no more sticky and gummy plastic parts! Taking up almost no room in the car, it comes out of a little pouch the size of a small purse and fits on the outside of the windscreen with extreme ease. The Berlinetta Shade is held in place with 3 small surgical grade suction cups and the wipers at the fourth point. No more knocking your rear view mirror out of position!

Each Berlinetta Shade is custom cut for an exact fit to your Gallardo windscreen. These are not one-size-fit-all solutions, or a generic product -- they are a Gallardo-only, enthusiast design.

So, while Ricambi America continues to be the leader in genuine Ferrari parts, our Lamborghini parts and accessories catalog continues to grow!

Brake Dancing at Ricambi America? No, just cool Ferrari Parts

For years, we have turned away customers asking for high quality, perfect-fitting stainless steel brake lines for their Ferraris. Yes, there were other choices on the market which were 'close' to the quality we demanded, but none were perfect. Now, thanks to our partner Girodisc, Ricambi America proudly carries these exceptional Ferrari stainless steel brake lines in inventory. Like the thousands of other genuine Ferrari parts available at Ricambi America, these brake lines are a perfect addition to any customers order.

The lines are available in red sheathed stainless and are quite simple to install. Of course you'll need to bleed your brakes and ideally flush new fluid through the system. But, when you're working on your own Ferrari, what could be more fun! (Oh yeah... driving it!!)

Ferrari Parts? Or Just Furry Parts?

I'm not sure how this relates exactly to original Ferrari Parts, but as things get busy during the heavy driving season, I needed a way to get my Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever (Remy) groomed without consuming too much of by precious weekend family time. Well, a great new service is here in Winston Salem called Barkley Manor which is an outstanding mobile dog groomer.

So, while Remy was getting cleaned up, I had a chance to kick back with my son and wash the Ferrari 348 and install some nice new Ferrari Floor Mats. The look great, fit great, and make the old car look fresh again. Speaking of Ferrari Parts, I'm not sure why -- but we've had a complete run on Hill Engineering Clutch Release bearings recently. I guess springtime is when all the Ferrari clutches start to get used again, and we see signs of failure or the lasting effects of last-season's hard driving.

Ferrari Club Track Day !

Whoo hoo!! just a few more days until the local Ferrari Club Track weekend. Getting the Ferrari out onto the track is always a real treat -- being able to drive a bit harder, learn a whole lot, and exercise the car is great fun.

In preparation for the track day, it seems we've had a decent amount of local (North Carolina and Virginia) customers buying more Ferrari parts here at Ricambi America. A custome with a 360 just upgraded his F1 transmission ECU (also known as an F1 TCU) to the Challenge Stradale version: 196986. He''ll get superfast shifts when fully on the power, and probably feel like a whole new Ferrari is at his fingertips.

Less gamerous, another customer needed new shock bushings for his Ferrari 360 Spider. Using the Ferrari Parts diagrams on our site, he found exactly what he was looking for!

Now... we just need to hope for nice weather and a dry track.

Electrical Gremlin -- or something real?

On a recent drive down to a Ferrari Club of America meeting, my 348 developed a mysterious "Check Engine Light" condition. What?? In four years of ownership, I'd never seen the CEL lamp illuminated, so to watch it glowing brightly in my eyes for 400 miles was pretty nerve-wracking. The car ran fine -- except at steady throttle around 3000 rpm on the freeway. There, the car would occasionally stumble, and the revs would drop a few hundred.

When I got home, the first thing I did was realize however my car got fixed, it would be only with Genuine Ferrari Parts. The good news, is that as the owner of Ricambi America, I have a whole warehouse at my easy disposal. That doesn't mean finding the problem would be easy -- it simply meant finding the right Ferrari Parts would be simple.

So far, I've pulled an cleaned just about every electrical connection in my Ferrari engine compartment and treated the pins with Stabilant 22a. Next, I pulled and inspected the oxygen sensors in the Ferrari. What I found was pretty annoying: the passenger side O2 was black and a bit oily. The right side O2 was dry and white.

Uggg... something is running strange on the right side of the car. Well, after several conversations with professional techs, and a lot of hunting, I think the problem might be in the fuel pressure regulator (in this Ferrari Parts diagram, it is #73) If the regulator is stuck, it's quite possible that bank of the car is receiving erratic fuel loads and thus causing the O2 sensor to report a messed up condition.

...more dignosis today!

Well, more hunting today.

Snow Snow Go Away!

Well, there's not much to post about today. As expected, with a big snowstorm covering most of the Eastern US, the phones are pretty quiet this morning. We're still packing up lots of genuine Ferrari parts and accessories, because despite the bad weather, FedEx is still running and our international customers still expect shipments to be leaving the US this afternoon.

We did get an extra SD3 diagnostic computer into inventory last week, and maybe I'll spend the day playing with it and checking out the 430 Scuderia stuff.

A Ferrari Parts WOOT? From Ricambi America

I was downstairs packing up some random bits and pieces and noticed that our stock of Challenge Stradale TCUs had grown waaaaay too large! So, taking a page from another great Internet site, I though we should deep-discount these items and see if we can lower our stock position to a more reasonable level. Holding thousands of genuine Ferrari Parts on our shelf at Ricambi America might look neat to a visitor, but its quite an investment. No need to carry too many of these items in inventory as long as our sourcing in Italy remains strong.

So, for customers with a 360 Modena or 360 Spider who want to experience neck snapping fast F1 shifts, this swappable Transmission Control Unit, is just the item! It is a genuine Ferrari article with the 2004 Challenge Stradale firmware. Take it to the track, and have some fun. Yes, around town the shifts of your F1 will be a bit rougher, but at high revs, you'll feel like Michael Schumacher at Monza. :)

The wheels on the bus go round and round!

In the past, one of the hottest items we sold for 360 and F430 owners was a set of genuine Ferrari Challenge Stradale wheels. Now, with the advent of the F430 Scuderia, it seems everyone wants a new pair of shoes. Because Ferrari parts for new models (like the Scud) are often blocked by the factory for resale until a certain period of time elapses, we were delighted to get several sets of these genuine Scuderia wheels into inventory yesterday!

They are all presold (and in fact already reboxed and headed onward to customers), but its nice to know they are now commerically available. We can get them in both titanium (shown) and the race-inspired Ferrari gold. Are they cheap? No. Are they an absolutely super-cool way to make your Ferrari stand apart from the pack? Heck yeah!

Our new website design is also now fully operational! Although a few little issues were identified after the go-live, our site at Ricambi America is up and running and looks fantastic. We chose to integrate some of our advertising photos into our mainpage -- trying to make the image and 'feel' of Ricambi America more consistent across different media.

Roll with it, baby!

Every now and then, we get some amazingly unusual, rare, original and genuine Ferrari parts at Ricambi America. Although we don't specialize in the vintage cars (like 365BB and such) whenever a cool item comes our way, we're happy to stash it on the shelf for a future buyer.

Today, we finally got around to taking pictures of our long-lost Ferrari BB512 spare wheel. This baby has the original tire, original decals, and probably the air from 30 years ago! I wouldn't suggest anyone actually roll this on their Boxer, but for concours correct items, it is an absolutely perfect item !

Darn cool, eh?

We shot this video back when the weather was warmer... ah, I wish it were warm again. :(

It is COLD!

It's so cold today that I'm having a hard time even thinking of what to post in my blog! I recently saw this phrase "International service from one of the worlds largest Ferrari parts inventories, we have more Ferrari parts, more Ferrari parts experience and better Ferrari parts prices than most anyone in the business" and thought it does really nicely summarize Ricambi America.

Last night we updated our website to better guide customers into our detailed Ferrari parts diagrams and catalogs In addition to familiar layout on the parts page, we offer a tree navigation from anywhere on our site. This new format also nicely accommodates our Lamborghini parts, and Maserati parts -- in addition to giving us some 'growth' opportunities in the new folder structure.

Hopefully this format will assist our worldwide customers and allow them to have a smoother, more detailed, and more rewarding experience at Ricambi America.

The Grill of my Dreams?

As many people know, I am an avid supporter of the Ferrari 348, and have one myself. It is a Ferrari which got strong criticism from the press when it was released in 1989 and never made much of a commercial splash. In fact, the cars languished in showrooms for a long time as dealers had difficulty finding buyers during a down economy with a 'less the loved' Ferrari model.

At Ricambi America, we sell Ferrari parts for just about every modern Ferrari on the road -- but when 348 owners call, of course I take a special interest in their cars, and certainly share their passions (and frustrations) for these little 8-cylinder gems. Whether a customer needs a new clutch, brake pads, major service kit, or just something fun like aluminum racing pedals, I love to hear how customers are living with their 348. Unlike the later cars such as a Ferrari F355, 360 Modena, F430, Scuderia, or Stradale, the 348 is a little 8-cylinder car that was 'modern' in its day, and experienced some significant teething pains.

So, leaving aside all the genuine Ferrari parts that might be needed in the mechanical realm, critics then focus on the styling. The massive side strakes for cooling, while a bit odd, are generally liked by the public because they remind people that a 348 is a 'Baby Testarossa". On the other hand, the rear grill of a 348 is usally disliked. With its rectangual tail lights, and aluminum grill work, it looks non-Ferrari. Missing were the iconic round taillights of previous Ferraris. In fact, so 'unliked' was this design, that Ferrari immediately reverted to the round taillights with te F355 and hasn't turned back!

Last week, I was fortunate enough to receive a protoype version of the Ferrari 348 Challenge Grill -- aka, the LeMans Grill for my car. We're still in the final stages of fit and wiring, but the pictures below show just how neat it looks! Maybe not for everyone, but for a diehard 348 junkie like me, it's the perfect Ferrari part.