Is your 355 (5.2) OBDII port inoperable?

I have a 98 355 that, no matter what I tried, would not make a connection at the OBDII port under the dash. Not with a Leonardo, not with an SD3, not with an ST5, not with two different generic OBDII readers.

Only by plugging directly into the 5.2 ECU behind the seat, through the ALDL plug, could I get a reader to work.

I did some searching around, and unfortunately I can't find the thread that had the solution. So, I'm posting it here, to help others. Apologies if this is common knowledge now.

The ALDL plug coming from the 5.2 ECU is female. If you dig around in the wiring back there, you should find a male ALDL plug with a cap. Remove the cap and plug the male into the female on the ECU.

Voila. Now the OBDII port works.

Why would Ferrari (I assume it was Ferrari) have kept the OBDII port disconnected from the ECU? If it would just have been disconnected in its lifetime, I wouldn't have expected a cap on the male plug.

 

All good points. However, this has nothing to do with the pins in the plug.

What I'm saying is that the OBDII port is _not even connected_ to the ECU, at least in some cars. I can't find the thread, but supposedly this was done from the factory. The plugs are there, they are just capped off (at least the male one was, in my car).