Wiring Mess 308 GTSi 82

Trying to straighten out wiring on 82 308 GTSi. There is (or are as there are two of them in the wiring harness near the left rear quarter panel) a red/white staccato wire to the rear of the car apparently to the lighting, can't find that on any wiring diagram. Can't find a good wiring diagram online, those that I do find show red/white has to do with the seat belt warning circuit. Can't be that, as those wires don't run anywhere near the tail of the car. Any ideas?

There is also a bright green circa 12ga wire in that harness that is butt joined to a smaller 14ga dark blue wire that then runs to the tail lights. I assume this is not OEM but some hack?

And while we are at it, where can one download a color coded diagram for this vehicle? Everything I can find online is really hard to read.

 

Aha ... my car was a US 82 308 GTSi but now it's a 355GTO! And no, it does not have the antenna now. So that explains why the wires are just dangling. And that explains why there are two of them ... one up, one down?
And yes I could use a link to the OM pdf thanks.

Is "afterburner" Birdman? I went to his website but the link to obtain those wiring diagrams is not functional.

 

Well I hate to keep pestering the knowledgeable folks but I am stumped even after consulting various wiring diagrams. There is a rather fat green wire in the wiring harness bundle toward the left rear quarter of the car. Can't figure out what the original intent of this was, but on my car it has been repurposed to provide power to a 12V relay that in turn powers a motec and various associated gizmos eg an electrovalve for the third exhaust pipe flap. Problem is this green wire is not supplying 12v, it is grounded somewhere, so car will not run now (it did, briefly, at one time). Probably by one of the various "technicians" that worked on this car, or possibly by accident. I am trying to trace the course of this wire, but it disappears into the wiring harness at the left rear and I can't find where it reappears. Possibly in the console tunnel? There are a couple of similar looking wires coming off the right hand fusebox but these power the relays for the radiator fans and do not appear to go anywhere near the back of the car.

 

Well Steve this is now a 355 drivetrain driven by a Motec M800 and stock 355 coil packs. Motec recommends powering up the ECU via a 12v relay which is where this fat green wire goes (to terminal 30 on the relay). The other wires to this relay are 12v (smaller yellow wire) from the ignition system as a signal; ground; and 12v switched output (red) for the various electronics.

It's possible this green wire is not stock at all but the wire does not look new so I suspect it was repurposed or rerouted, probably from the digiplex as you say. But how did it get grounded is the mystery. No fuses are popping so?

What puzzles me is why it is grounded with the ignition off; and it's not hot with the ignition on; hence none of the electronics are powering up. The yellow signal wire from one of the coilpacks is hot with the ignition on. I am looking for the place where it is grounded but cannot find it. That is why I asked about the original intent/routing of this wire, so I can see whether the grounding is intentional, or accidental (there was a lot of cutting and welding that went on as you can imagine).

 

Will do when I get this car put back together and running. Believe me, you don't want to go there, particularly not via the same route I took.

 

I disconnected relay connector and measured ohms to ground and got effectively 0.

There was no smoke either, that wire was not getting power. Soon found out why. Found the other end of the green wire, it was grounded on the AC compressor mount. When I relocated it to the nearby battery disconnect at the subframe, the green wire now has 12V unfused, effectively straight from the battery. Genius no 2, who r&r the drivetrain to fix Genius no 1's mess/undisclosed accident damage, disconnected it and then forgot where it went. So seeing it was green with a washer type terminal on the end, he thought "Oh, this must be a ground wire" so he grounded it. Same Genius no 2 had the nuts on the long control arm bolts barely finger tight.

I will now try to start motor but don't want to do that without a second person standing by with a fire extinguisher, and outside my workshop. Going to hail later today so tomorrow perhaps.

Thanks for the long distance help.

 

Well I got it to cough a few times, some smoke from both exhausts, an improvement demonstrating that it is now getting spark on both banks, Didn't want to strain the (new) battery so I have put it on charge and will try again later. It's been several years since it ran, I suppose the fuel injectors could be gummed up but they were cleaned and tested when the engine went back in the car so I am hoping they are good. The fuel system was totally dry so it may take some time to get the air out of the lines. I can hear the pump running so we know that's good.

 

Added some more fuel and got it started. Seems to idle better now that the valve guides and valves have been replaced. Genius No 1 blessed the motor before he put it in and when he could not get it to idle, he said he was "sure" it was due to a deliberate adjustment of the valve timing by prior geniuses. When we took it out, the valve timing was perfect, the problem was poor compression in a couple of cyls due to valves not seating perfectly, caused by guide wear the usual 355 thing. Genius no 2 also adjusted the position of the drivetrain (Genius no 1 mounted it too far forward and misaligned) but didn't adjust the gear linkage, so I can only get it to go into 2nd and 5th at this time.

 

I paid Genius no. 1 to do a leakdown on the motor before he put it in the vehicle stating the obvious that I didn't want to have to take it out again after he installed it.. He pronounced it good, there were a couple of weak cyls, he said it was "just carbon" as the compression "came up" when he "tapped on the valves". The "gentleman" in Los Angeles I bought the car/motor from (who I later learned is notorious for this sort of thing, even though he is a member of a profession that does not tolerate bad behavior) assured me, in writing, that the motor was good. But we now know he knew otherwise, as the exhaust manifold on the bad side had been removed and replaced without gaskets, and the throttle bodies over the dubious cylinders were loose. So he and/or his mechanic, had dug into it to get a visual on the valves on the bad cylinders. They didn't even bother to torque it all down again, and Genius no 1 didn't check. Genius no 2 caught all that when he took the heads off.

 

One more wiring question: emergency flashers work so the relay and the lamps are good. But I have no turn signals at all, either direction. Could this be because the emergency flasher switch on the console (which was replaced by Genius no 1) is incorrectly wired? Or is it more likely a problem with the steering column stalk? Seems to me unlikely the latter would be inop both directions.

 

Thanks again Steve, the fuses and the relays for the lighting etc. are still pretty much stock. It's the engine-related wiring that was repurposed. The reason I suspect the column stalk is the headlight switch is flaky ... it raises the buckets at 3/4 turn but at full turn it lowers them again. We did put in 288 type driving/fog lights so I just use those for the most part.

Is there a diagram that clearly shows which wires go on which terminals on the hazard switch? There are a bunch of them.

 

I have 12v coming off the fuse for the yellow/black; there is a brown that goes to a plastic box marked SIPEA/Made in Italy and I have 12v there too. There is a red and a black going to the same box which I assume is the flasher? It's not a relay, only 3 wires. Could this box be the issue (it looks ancient).

 

I pulled out the entire relay board; the brown wire is the top left wire for the top left (hazard./flasher) relay. It has 12v with ignition on and hazards off, whether the flasher stalk switch is on or off.

So we are back to the stalk switch? Can't be the wiring right, as the hazards work great (and the turn indicators on the instrument panel work as well when the hazard is engaged).

I will say the hazard/flasher relay looks new but perhaps not correct type (it is a cylindrical see thru unit). The guy that put it in there has been messing with Ferraris since he was about 15 and he is now in his 70s. And one other clue, about 3 years ago the turn signals worked briefly, but at least one of them illuminated the wrong lamps entirely (the reverse light if I recall). Since then I have soldered the rear lighting circuit wires properly, they were just twisted together and taped in the engine bay by Mr know it all and then some.