Stereo rewire

It is pretty straight forward and simple but for only $80 a decent car stereo shop will do it for you in probably an hour save yourself the head ache.....

 

I disagree. The best installation will be done by an owner that cares about what cant be seen. The stereo shops are the single biggest cause of electrical problems in the Ferrari's.

Exceptional craftsmen when it comes to enclosures for speakers, etc and then use Scotch locks, crimp connectors, heck, household twist connectors on the wiring. I remember having a conversation with a VIP from 3M (when still living in the Norweigen Riveria) asking if the director of marketing for the ScotchLoc connector could be found and he told me he had changed his name and was in hiding from mechanics.

I tried to get Ferrari to allow me to make a harness (when I was still in the dealer network) that would supply them all of the connection points, grounds, power taps... that would be required for an install and not hack into the OE harness. They would not allow me to do it because they wanted no part of these installs what so ever.

Cut it all out, repair the OE harness to new condition and start over again if its anything like what I have had to deal with in the past. Removal of the trunk side and back covering will expose numerous areas for you to penetrate to firewall with a proper grommet protecting the wires. Proper constant power tap point is in the pass. footbox and looks like the one in the rear engine bay. These need service so remove the copper comm bar and clean / brush it before you add another terminal. Shrink tube and label the harness you make every few feet so the next poor bugger will know what he is looking at. Before reinstalling the trunk covering, draw a wiring diagram of everything you did and throw a copy in the handbook, drivers door pocket and your manual.

If I saw documentation and an install done like this durning a PPI I would throw on rose colored glasses and see the car in a whole new light, knowing someone that cared has been servicing it.

Sorry about the ranting, obviously a sore point for me. Spent many days chasing a miss in a 360 where a ground wire for a speaker was tapped into the computer CAN line, a 355 where an amp ground wire hacked into an airbag system, and yet another 550 with wires tapped into the ABS / ASR system causing the strangest damn things when the volumn was turned up! All of these cars had incredible custom speaker enclosures built in the interior and attached only to the carpet with velcro on one and a single sheetrock screw into carpet only on the other. The airbags might have saved the driver in an accident IF they deployed but surely the enclosures would have taken the driver out had he survived the impact.

Take your time, ice out and clean roads isnt for another 2 and a half months there, you have plenty of time.

Dave

 

Thats excellent advice Steve... Rip everything out, go back to original and start fresh as if it were a new system going in.
Also true was the comment about there being a few holes in the bulkhead to run wires into the trunk, but you have to remove the trunk liner.

 

AAAAAAAAAAAH YA... Not sure who you dealt with in the past I'm sorry you had such problems arise sounds like to me that those were the ones done by an amateur, when I take my cars to someone I usually check to see if they are reputable and having owned many stereo competition cars I can tell you there are tonnes of professionals out there that are waaaaay overqualified most new cars that come off the showroom floor have been already touched by a stereo tech unbeknownst to you, they are hired right from the co to do add ons etc... so do your homework before picking a stereo shop. (hint) if it is a guys home garage run...

 

I wish that were the case but sadly it is not, these were done by "professionals".

That business is no different from the one I am in, there are good and bad in every business. As I stated, their work that shows is absolutely incredible, the rest is horrible! It is immediately obvious that the installer (in a number of these cases) has little to no background in electronics. I am sure in the right circles having "Monster" wire has bragging rights that follow but I run smaller wire to power a 300 amp TIG welder. Drill a bigger hole.....

In the Ferrari market, they come off the showroom floor when someone buys it and then go to the stereo shop. I PDI prepped these cars new, I know what went on the floor.

Take a 360 Spider I serviced a short time ago. Imagine the look on the owners face when it cost him 4.5 hours labor to change a fuse. That was the least of his problems! The speaker box was as wide as the interior and took up the whole space behind the seats. Seats had to be removed to remove the speaker box to access the fuse boxes. The worst of it was the speaker boxes in this case were securely installed with a dozen sheetrock (???) screws directly into the aluminum chassis, some of which were being used for grounds. Combine aluminum bodywork, steel screws and a little current and one has a BIG hole in no time. Ferrari wouldn't even allow you to use a drill bit that had been used on steel to touch these cars, they required a whole separate set of tools to be used on the aluminum cars only. All connection points required steel thread inserts used and on the aluminum cars have to be triple cad plated so this doesn't become an issue over time. We were told a story while at the factory being trained on the 360's about the 360 test mule car. Someone decided to mount an antenna to the roof of this car and bypassed the above precautions before it went on the road for endurance testing. Guess what happened?

If mechanics that knew all of these things were responsible for stereo installs we would be seeing drivers with a boom box resting on their shoulder as NO one could afford to have a radio in the car. To give credit where its due, this discussion is no different from someone on this site stating "all Ferrari mechanics are fools and cheats" which I do not think is the case. I am sure there are stereo shops that really care about what cant be seen, use common sense when drilling holes in aluminum cars, know and understand current draws Vs wire gauge.... I wish I could find one to send owners to.

Dave

 

Wow those guys really fuc@ed up the 360 OUCH! I would blame that on the owner sounds like he was more interested in a big audio system then his car.
I hope in the future I wont be crying the blues if I do you have full right to tell me I TOLD YOU SO.....

 

Just wow....... I can't believe the lengths some people will go to. I am currently in the competition circuit and after everything was said and done decided to open my own place just due to the lack of integrity some shops have when working on a car. I don't wish that on my car and would not on anyone else's as well. Don't worry about the mess, it will get better and you will have the satisfaction of knowing it was done the way you want it.

 

Always do your own stereo installs, unless you're good friends with someone and you know for sure that he doesn't do sloppy/cheap work when no one is looking.

You wouldn't believe the shortcuts most "installers" take... Sotch connectors, duct tape holding wires together, components glued to the car in the way of service items, unprotected wires running through burred holes drilled through firewalls in bad locations, drill bits rammed through HVAC systems accidently while poking holes in firewalls... the list goes on & on.

Trophies mean nothing. I once had a car's alarm done by the best shop in town. Showroom full of trophies. They used Scotch connectors, outside the interior even, and rain doesn't mix with those things...

 

But the 'ballers etc. care only about the sound quality not the build quality. Watch any of the Disco channel/Speed series and see how not to do it. Only good builder was the hot-rodder from the Speed-Shop IMO. Any race shop finding some of those things, you'd be out on yer ear. No more effort to do it properly, except maybe time, and that is always an issue with those TV shops. I hate to see some of the underpinnings when getting into some cars, and they got charged a frigging fortune!!

As Dave says, go back and repair, start over and do it right.

Brian

I have some old harness from 355s which could be cut up.