how reliable is the scuderia f1 relay?

Are the relays known to fry out after awhile leading to more costly pump repairs? Thinking of trying this as a preventative measure

https://www.scuding.com/Shop/en/ecu-solutions/101-smart-emt-relay-ecu.html

Another option would be to just replace it with OEM every few years as a maintenance item.

 

I asked my dealer, they said this was more of an issue with the earlier generation cars, of the 355/360 era.

 

Affirmative, in the November 2003 timeframe, Ferrari changed to a 50 amp relay from a 30 amp relay on the 360, CS and 575M. Those 50 amp relays, also used in the engine compartment on some models, have proven to be reliable. Your Scuderia has the 50 amp relay. If you are looking at Stef's electronic relay package, that also has some diagnostic capability for the F1 pump. Depends on whether you think you need that or not. His pre-production pricing expires on 15 September, by the way.

 

Thanks guys!

 

Try the eMT Relay from Scuding Swiss. It has no mechanical parts and will last forever. It will also warn you of any potential issues. I installed it on my F430 and discovered that my aftermarket pump was drawling too much current, reverted back to stock.

New Relay:
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Old Relay:

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Great information. Was the aftermarket pump defective, or simply the wrong specification for the application? Can you share the brand or source of this pump?

 

The aftermarket electric motor is more powerful (had a 70 amp Relay and 50 amp fuse) and draws more current. Check your inbox.



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OK, I'm bite. So what's the problem with the setup? Looks fine to me.

 

Read so many threads about F1 relay going bad frying the F1 pump so I searched for a better relay for peace of mind. Finally found one designed & manufactured by a former Fchat member.

I have Stef's electronic F1 relay installed in my 2006 F430 as a preventive approach for peace of mind. Completely happy with the new relay from Stef. As stated, not only its solid state/no moving parts but it also has diagnosis capability.

When I removed my stock OE 50A relay the relay terminals are already showing burnt marks......see photo below so it was time in my opinion to replace the original relay with something better.

I have Stef's solid state relay in my car now for 3 weeks. 100% happy.

Cant put a price tag on peace of mind. Now I wont have to worry about OE relay going bad any longer frying the F1 pump leading to expensive repairs.

See photos of my stock OE relay & Stef's relay.
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I also changed over to the solid state ECU relay replacement from Scud-ing over the weekend. Works well. Only gotcha's were that on my car (2007 F430) was that the terminal pins for +12V & Earth were reversed (as described by Stef) which surprised me on a mid-life F430.
Also I found the default beep beep whenever the F1 pump activated a bit annoying, so I changed the set-up so it only beeps if a fault is detected.

 

I have also bought this, will install soon. I have a new F1 pump but whilst this will help the next one burning out, I'm not sure I want to see whats going on with it 24/7

 

Just a quick note. I have the unit installed on my 16M. Working perfectly. The photos from Idelora show the plug only. There is not a relay in there.
The actual relay electronics are in the larger box. The plug is there only to make it a true plug and play installation.

 

As much as I hate to say this, replacing the mechanical relay with a solid state/intelligent relay will not make the burnt terminals go away. It's because the F1 pump draws the same amount of current whether it's a mechanical or solid state/intelligent relay. The terminals are burnt because the mechanical aspect of the connections are compromised.

 

ok I have now installed mine, this product should cost at least $1,000 more for its degree of sophistication which most of you will love but personally I don't require. Very glad that my F1 pump relay set up is massively improved though, brilliant !

 

I agree with Mello here. The most common cause of burning on the relay terminals is a loose connection which frankly needs urgent attenion, as a loose connection like this could cause an electrical fire!

The cause? ...When the connection on the relay blades is not tight and your putting this many amps through the contacts the electricity can cause an arc and generate a huge amount of heat in the process which will melt plastic, wiring and anything else in the close proximity, which if your unlucky could lead to disasterous consequences.

I would personally look at the wiring contacts which the relay is plugging into and take the female blade connections out and re-crimp them so that the male terminals of the relay are nice and properly tight. This will prevent any further issues and in my humble opinion should be done regardless of if your using a cheap ebay DC-DC 50 Amp SSR (Solid State Relay) with heatsink and wiring it yourself or using something like the Scuding plug-in and play solution (or even just a factory relay), whatever relay is being used to switch the power on make sure those contacts are really tight. Burnt terminals are a sign of danger!

 

Can you actually feel any changes with this new relay? Does it change the shifting behavior?

 

I assure you my OE relay and the relay socket is 100% tight as far as the connection goes. I know this for a fact as when I removed the OE relay I actually had to use a screwdriver to pry the relay out of the relay socket.

I am familiar with lose connections and the heat it can generate as I am an electrical engineer by trade. This is not the case with the F1 relay contacts showing burnt marks.

 

Yes, on my car I feel the shifts are much crisper.

I actually had a post here sharing my review and experience with Stef's F1 relay but it was deleted by the moderators as they felt I was promoting a non board sponsor product which in my opinion was not the case. I was just sharing my experience with it.


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Hi Isi,

I also had Juri's pump upgrade installed and noticed it does not work well with Stef's ECU, as apparently it contains also an inrush current limiter which is controlled by Stef's firmware. If it exceeds a predefined value, the ECU will go in safe mode to protect the current sensing device.
However at some point the ecu even prevented the pump to start-up and I got the F1 warning light. Well, based on your comments I started to look deeper into things and wanted to see what really is triggering the faults, as with Juri's pump upgrade I have been very happy so far, and it was behaving rock solid, with the 70 Amps "mechanical" relay. I heard comments Juri's pump motor is drawing to many Amps and creating too high inrush current, on top his pump is creating to fast too much pressure, so the accumulator will have a short lifetime... Doubtlessly big "things", if they are true. So I went ahead and got in to the diagnosis with my Texa, measured the Amps while the pump,was operating, measured internal resistance on the OEM motor and Juri's, and got into my old books, to see what is really the case here. So far I came to following results ...

Regarding the pressure built up in the system... I let the Texa run while the car sat there with running engine and frequently observed how long the pumps needs to pressure up from 40 to the 54 bar normal operating pressure - it takes about 2.3 - 2.6 secs which is a spot on value also for the OEM Marelli system (see picture). Regarding the initial pressure up "in the morning", while opening the drivers door timed 4-4.5 secs, which again is spot on with a brand new Marelli system... So in my opinion, pressure wise Juri's pump is right on the market, and won't harm the accumulator not more or less than the OEM system.

Regarding the normal "operating" current, I let the Texa run several "clutch self-adaption" routines, i.e. fast multiple gear changes that requires to run the pump regularly. With a digital amperemeter I tried to see what currents does Juri's pump draw, and I saw at all times a current flow between 19-24 Amps while the pump was operating... at no point it got over 30 Amps, and therefore I put back the 30 Amps pump fuse and ran another sequence of self adaption routines with no problems on the fuse and with same values on the ampermeter. If I would have had an Oszilloscope device I would have been able to measure the inrush current itself but at least by my means I could see, Juri's system is safe in regards to pressure built up and the current during normal operation.

So what's with the inrush current - needlessly to say there are a lot of factors that can contribute to the inrush current and I just tried, based on my abilities and knowledge, to see where I am with Juri's pump, and why does Stef's ECU create problems...

What I did initially was to measure the "inner" resistance of Juri's motor and the magneti Marelli Motor and in order to calculate a value of the inrush current to see where we actually are. The OEM Magneti Marelli motor showed me a resistance of 0.4 Ohm, which in turn gave me an inrush current of about 34.5 Amps, using 13.8 Volts for the voltage... With Juri's motor, already built in, I measured values between 0.3 - 0.2 Ohm which would mean an inrush current of 46 Amps... in worst case 69 Amps. As I was not happy with such a spread I hit the books again and tried to calculate the inrush current as accurate as possible by using the motor performance data I got (see table below). Based on these data (max electric power, efficiency etc.) I could actually reconfirm values I measured earlier while running the self adaption routines with the Texa.

I started to calculate the steady state current with the max power/performance case I.e. 337 Watts, based on P=U x I ....... I got 337 Watts / 13.8 V = 24.4 Amps ... which sounds familiar, based on what I measured as max Amps with the Amperemeter earlier.

As I wanted to get more accurate, on the inner resistance, I used the table again and started from the electric power and calculating with the motor efficiency to the output power...then I took the steady current regarding the 337 Watts and put it all together and came to a Inrush current of 41.3 Amps, which equals to a total resistance of 0.32 Ohm...

Formula I used : Ia = Un x In^2 / Pout-Pin with Pout calc. With 41% effic. (337 Watts x 0.41 = 138.17 Watts)

I = 13.8V x 24.4Amps^2 / (power loss) I.e. Power loss as difference between output and electric power... 337 Watts - 138.17 Watts=198.83 Watts

I= 41.3 Amps ...... using the formula I = 13.8 V / (R1+R2) a total resistance of 0.32 Ohm came out.

Though there are, as I said before, more factors that can contribute to the inrush current, I think it shows already in which area Juri's pump upgrade operates, and I think it is a safe and sound upgrade, safe for the accumulator and safe for the electrical system.
Just out of curiosity I asked our local main Alfa Romeo dealer/workshop, what values they know regarding the inrush current of the selespeed system, which is actually very similar to the F1 system, and they replied that they have been taught by Alfa Romeo, inrush currents of 60-70 Amps for 200ms should be considered to be normal for the selespeed pump motor.

In the end it still leaves the question, why I got problems with Stef's ECU in the first place. Stef already send me already a new ecu, where he just allowed a higher analog value to avoid the ECU going into safe mode and which should run fine with Juri's motor. I will hopefully have some time this upcoming weekend to put it in and see...
Another thing I found out is, that I have an additional socket placed next to the F1-Relay socket, that apparently can be found only on the 16M - no clue why it is there or what function the yellow cable has.... any thoughts? May be someone has it also installed on a normal coupe or spider?

Drive tastefully ;-)

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GREAT information and post. Thank you for taking the time. I'm impressed by the brainpower on this board; I guess it comes with the territory of having the means to own such cars...

I have ordered Stef's ECU and it should be here by Thursday, 19 Oct.

 

It is the secondary air pump relay - fitted to all Scuderia's and some F430s depending on the market.

 

Tobi767,
Awesome work. Good to know that Juri's pump is not harming anything on the F1 system. That said, I am selling the pump I got from Juri, eletric motor along with the upgraded pump and heat sink, which cost me about about $600 and I used it for ~200 miles. Selling for $400 OBO if anyone is interested. The issues I was having were related to my potentiometers, not the F1 motor.

Pump info:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/F1-Pump-Ferrari-part-214267-248083-248087-/252241529426?hash=item3abac44a52:gWEAAOSwKytZMGjG