95 355 Check engine light HELP!!

there are loads of threads on slow down lights (check engine)

the earlier cars had lights for each side of the engine,, ie. 1 to 4 and 5 to 8,,,,, so at least you can narrow it down to one side,,,

it could be a failing cat,, cat ecu, or any of the sensors on the cats,,,,,


start the car from dead cold,,,,,,, and see if the same symptons exist,,, if so,, then its unlikey to be the cats,,, but could be faulty sensors or cat ecus,,,,,,

if you have a multimeter,, you can check the resistance from the sensors and compare each side,, cold and then hot and this will tell you which sensor is at fault,,,(you will see the resistance change as the exhaust heats up),,, both sides should be similar.....

the ecu,,, is used to monitor cat (or gas) temperature in the exhaust and shuts one bank of the engine down if there is a failure of the cat (i.e stops the fuel, hence no power),,,,(i.e light comes on).....,,,,,,the ecus are prone to failure and are about £150 uk pounds per side,,,,(easiest way to check is get a friends? one and try it on each side,, they are the same and its a simple plug in,, takes 5 minutes),,,,,


as for the ticking ??,,, does it do it from cold,,,,,,,,,,and also hot (cracked headers are also common),, again there are many links on this,,,,

i have done both ecus and both headers,,,,,,,,,,,,,, on a 97 car with 28k miles.


not sure this will help,,,,,

regards
scott.

 

If you are hearing a "ticking" sound you may well have the dreaded 355 header problem. One tell tail sign is little white srands of fiber in the engine compartment. It's the heat insulation coming out. You have a few options 1) replace with crap stock headers that will just go bad again, 2) have them rebuilt by QV London, 3) get a set of NA Performace headers. I would opt for #'s 2 & 3. If and I mean IF you go with the stockers, I HIGHLY recomend you get then ceramic coated.

Also you will want to pull the engine codes, to find out what caused them to get set off. I'm not sure how to pull the codes out of a 355, but since you still have the OBD1 system you should be able to pull then via the flashing CEL. Your car has the Motronic 2.7 so you should have two check engine lights, one for bank 1-4, and the other for the 5-8 bank of the engine. As I said, I'm not totally sure how to pull them for a 355, but it should be REALLY similar for pulling them on a 348. Here is how we pull them on a 348 http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showpost.php?p=135176471&postcount=2

 

sorry guys what does.CATS. stand for..?

 

Catalyitic Converters

 

thanks ernie...it seems lots of f355 is having the same prob.I have own a f355 for 6 months now...it happen to me once and it was a cold start.When I started the car(cold) it seems like there is no power...then the check engine light is out.....when the engine is fully warm up..then everything is back to normal....hm...weird...