Ferrari 458 V8 Explained: Flat-Plane Crank, 9,000rpm and No Turbos

The engine is the reason many people want a 458 rather than any other Ferrari. It is a 4.5-litre V8 with a flat-plane crankshaft and no turbochargers, and it keeps pulling until 9,000rpm. This page is for the enthusiast who wants to know what that combination means, why Ferrari will not build another like it, and how it feels from the driver's seat. The car itself is confirmed by request.

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The Short Version

The Ferrari 458 is powered by a 4.5-litre V8 with a flat-plane crankshaft, no turbochargers and
a limit of 9,000rpm. Each of those three things is unusual on its own. Together they produce an
engine that answers the throttle instantly, pulls harder the longer you hold a gear, and makes a
sound that has become the reference point for what a mid-engined Ferrari should be. It was also the
end of a line: the 488 that replaced it in 2015 used turbochargers, and every mid-engined V8 Ferrari
since has been turbocharged too. This page explains what those three things mean, why the engine
was built that way, and what it is like from behind the wheel on a Sydney road.

The Engine in Numbers

Most of that table is ordinary supercar information. The line that separates this engine from
almost everything built since is the one pairing peak power with the redline: the 458 makes its
full 419kW at 9,000rpm, the very top of its range. A turbocharged engine usually reaches its
maximum torque early and holds it across a broad plateau, while this one keeps building until the
limiter. The power-per-litre row is worth a second look as well. It is not a published figure, only
the power divided by the capacity, and for an engine breathing at atmospheric pressure it is very
high.

What a Flat-Plane Crank Is

Two four-cylinder engines on one crankshaft

Every piston engine turns the up-and-down travel of its pistons into rotation through a
crankshaft, and the connecting rods attach to it at offset points called crank pins. In the V8 of
most American muscle cars, and of plenty of European luxury cars, those pins are spaced 90 degrees
apart, so the crank seen from the end looks like a cross. That is a cross-plane crank. In the 458
the pins are spaced 180 degrees apart, and seen from the end they all sit in one flat line. That is
a flat-plane crank.

The easiest way to picture the result is as two four-cylinder engines, one per bank of the V,
sharing a single crankshaft. The firing order alternates strictly from one bank to the other, left
then right then left, so each bank fires at perfectly even intervals, exactly as a four-cylinder
engine does. A cross-plane V8 cannot manage that. Some of the cylinders on each of its banks fire
close together, followed by a longer gap before the next.

Why it sounds the way it does

That evenness is where the sound comes from. Because each bank fires at regular intervals, the
exhaust pulses leaving each side of the engine are evenly spaced, and they merge into a smooth,
rapid note that rises in pitch as the revs climb. Near the top of the range the pulses arrive so
quickly that the note becomes a howl. The irregular pulses of a cross-plane V8 give it the lumpy,
off-beat burble you know from a Mustang or a Camaro, a sound people love for entirely different
reasons. Heard side by side at idle, the two barely sound as though they have the same number of
cylinders.

Even pulses also make the exhaust easier to design. Each bank can feed its own simple manifold
without the pulses tripping over one another, which helps the engine empty its cylinders cleanly at
high revs. A cross-plane V8 needs longer, more tangled pipework crossing from one bank to the other
to get the same effect, and road cars rarely have room for it under the bodywork.

The price Ferrari paid

A flat-plane crank is not perfectly balanced. Like a four-cylinder engine, it produces a small
vibration at twice engine speed that the layout cannot cancel, which is one reason luxury makers
stay with cross-plane cranks and their heavier counterweights. Ferrari accepts the trade because
everything it gains points where a sports car wants to go: a lighter crank, quicker changes in
engine speed, better breathing and a better noise. With cylinders of modest size and careful
mounting, the vibration is hard to pick from the driver's seat.

Why It Revs to 9,000

Power is torque multiplied by speed

Power is simply torque multiplied by how fast the engine is turning. An engine that holds its
torque to very high revs therefore makes a great deal of power without needing a large capacity or
any forced induction, and that is the logic of the 458. Its 540Nm looks modest next to the 760Nm of
the turbocharged 488, yet by keeping its breathing strong all the way to 9,000rpm it reaches 419kW.
Work backwards from the published numbers and the engine is still producing about 445Nm at the
redline, more than plenty of sports car engines manage at their peak.

What it takes to spin that fast

Revving to 9,000rpm is a mechanical problem before it is a performance one. Every piston stops
and reverses direction twice in each revolution, and the forces involved rise with the square of
engine speed, so the moving parts have to be both light and strong. The 458's engine has a short
stroke relative to the width of its bores, which limits how far and how fast each piston travels,
keeping the loads within what the materials can survive. The flat-plane crank helps here too,
because it needs less heavy counterweighting than a cross-plane design and so carries less mass as
it spins. The valves have to keep up as well: at 9,000rpm each one opens and closes seventy-five
times a second, and it must follow its cam exactly rather than float.

Why high revs feel so good

An engine that rises quickly through a long rev range gives the driver a sense of progress that a
turbo engine struggles to match. Each gear has a beginning, a build and an ending, and the reward
for holding on is more power and a harder, higher note right up to the change. Low rotating mass
also means the engine picks up speed the instant the throttle is blipped on a downshift, which the
dual-clutch gearbox uses to match revs as it drops a ratio. The result is a car that feels light on
its feet even when it is travelling slowly.

What No Turbochargers Means From the Seat

Response you can measure in millimetres

In a turbocharged car, pressing the accelerator asks for more air, but part of that air must be
pushed in by a turbine spun by exhaust gas, and the turbine needs a moment to gather speed.
Engineers have shrunk that moment dramatically, and in the 488 it is hard to notice, but it never
disappears altogether. In the 458 the step is simply not there. Open the throttle and the cylinders
fill at once, at any point in the rev range. That matters most in the middle of a bend, where small
changes of throttle shift the balance of the car. In the 458 you can make those changes in tiny
increments and know exactly what each will do, which is why the car inspires confidence at speeds
well inside the limit.

A rev range you are meant to use

The flip side is that the 458 asks you to work for its best. Below about 4,000rpm it is strong
but not remarkable, a large V8 going about its business. Between 4,000 and 7,000 it becomes
properly fast, and in the final 2,000rpm the sound and the urgency sharpen together. The cabin is
laid out for driving it that way, with a big central rev counter dominating the instruments and long
paddles fixed to the steering column, so they are always where your fingers expect them however
much lock you have on.

Sound that reaches you unfiltered

A turbocharger sits in the exhaust stream and draws its energy from it, and in doing so it
smooths and soaks up the pulses that make up an engine's voice. With nothing in the way, the 458's
exhaust leaves the car carrying all of the flat-plane character described above. Because the engine
sits in the middle of the car, the intake is right behind your head, so you hear the engine
drawing air in as clearly as you hear it pushing air out. That layering is something the turbo cars
that followed could not reproduce, and it is the main reason people seek out this model in
particular.

Why Ferrari Stopped Making Engines Like This

The 458 was the last of a run of naturally aspirated mid-engined V8 Ferraris that began with the
308 in the 1970s and continued through the 348, the F355, the 360 and the F430. It was not retired
because it had stopped being good. It was retired because the rules changed around it.

Emissions and fuel-consumption regulations, particularly in Europe, push manufacturers towards
smaller engines that burn less fuel on the official test cycles. A turbocharged engine suits those
tests well: at light loads it behaves like the small engine it is, and when you ask for performance
the turbos supply it. The 488 that took over in 2015 used a 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8 with 492kW and
760Nm, more power and far more torque from less capacity. Ferrari went to real lengths to make it
feel responsive, and metered the delivery so the lower gears are given only part of the torque,
with more released as the car moves up through the ratios.

The mid-engined V8 Ferraris that followed kept the turbochargers, and the range has since added
hybrid assistance on top. There is no sign of a return. That scarcity explains why good 458s remain
so sought after, and why the enquiries for one usually come from people who know precisely why they
want this car and not its successor. If you are weighing the two directly, our
458 against 488 comparison sets out how they differ on the
road.

What It Feels Like on a Sydney Road

Around town, below 4,000rpm

Most of any hire is spent at low revs, and the 458 is easy company there. In automatic mode the
gearbox changes up early and the engine sits low in its range, strong enough to leave traffic behind
without effort and restrained enough not to turn every head in the street. You are aware of the
engine all the time, a hard-edged hum behind the seats, but it never feels strained or impatient.
Give it several minutes of gentle driving before you ask for high revs, so the oil is fully warm;
the gauges show when it is ready, and an engine built to spin this fast deserves that courtesy.

An on-ramp and a clear road

The first time most drivers hear the top of the range is on a motorway on-ramp. Select manual,
take a low gear and hold it. From 4,000rpm the pull strengthens steadily, past 6,000 the note
hardens and climbs, and in the last stretch before 9,000 the sound becomes a howl while the car
seems to find a fresh reserve of energy. Pull the right paddle and the next ratio arrives with barely
a pause. Take the top of the dial in anything but the lowest gear and you are over the limit, so the
full run is something you enjoy briefly and rarely. The point of this engine is that it is special
long before the redline.

A road with corners

On Bells Line of Road or the Wakehurst Parkway early on a weekday, with sight lines and a decent
surface, the engine and the chassis start working together. Hold a gear through a sequence of bends
and the V8 sits in its strongest band, answering every small movement of your foot, while the quick
steering puts the nose where you look. On the way into a corner, a pull of the left paddle brings a
crisp blip and a downshift. Leave the manettino in sport with the traction systems on, and the car
feels alive at speeds comfortably within the limit, because what you are enjoying is the response
rather than the speedometer.

The Spider and a sandstone cutting

Drop the folding aluminium roof of a 458 Spider and you are closer still to the source. Sydney
roads are full of sandstone cuttings, and driving past one with the roof stowed sends the exhaust
note straight back at you off the rock. The coast road towards Sea Cliff Bridge, with cliffs on one
side and the ocean on the other, is the obvious place to hear it. Wind noise is modest at legal
speeds with the side windows up, and the intake is close enough behind you that every change of
throttle is audible.

Hiring a 458 for the Engine

The 458 is offered from $2,200 a day, as the Italia coupe or the Spider, and it is confirmed by
request. Send the dates along with your choice of body; we source the car, and the confirmation,
covering the total, the bond and whether that car has a nose lift, reaches you before any payment.
The full review, with the trims, the practicalities and the roads it suits, is on the
Ferrari 458 hire page.

If the dates cannot be covered, or you would rather have a naturally aspirated engine you can
book today, there are two good answers. Our own Lamborghini
Huracan has a V10 without turbochargers and all-wheel drive, and the
Ferrari FF pairs a naturally aspirated V12 with four seats.
Neither is a flat-plane V8, and neither pretends to be, but each keeps the direct throttle and the
unfiltered sound this page has been about.