Ferrari F355 GTS

Hey Guy's,
So I recently imported a 1997 Ferrari F355 GTS from the USA into Canada and as most of you know in canada you must have DRL (Daytime Running Lights) activated. So I was talking to many people and they all told me that it is the Fog lights that get activaed as your DRL, but when I brought it to the Ferrari Dealership to get them activated they activated my parklights as the DRL's instead of my Fog's. The thing I REALLY dont like about this is when ever my car is running now all my backlit dash light are ALWAYS on and i DONT like that. So now I called the Dealership and asked them what they did and of course they refuse to tell me what they did. So I am trying to find Multiple Wiring Diagram's to figure out what they did. I KNOW they must have spliced the wire somewhere, but its just the fact in finding where they did it. If anyone has any suggestions or Eletrical schematics or have had similar problems PLEASE help me!!!!!!
I took apart my whole car today trying to find what they did and I found Absolutely nothing that looked aftermarket or out of place.

Sincerely,
TonyF355

 

Hi Tony do you have any pics of your car? I have a 97 yellow gts also.

try this site to download the manual

http://www.ferraridatabase.com/The_Downloads/Downloads.htm

 

Here's a general idea how this works. Your ignition has the constant power and is very near your light switches. They have either spiced the main positive in your ignition to your parking light wire or they have ran a loop in the fuse box under the passenger footrest from maybe teh fuel pump or other source fuse that has constant power to it when the engine is running. First check the fuse box on the floor board and see if there are unusual bridges made from one fuse to another. If not, take the nuts off and look behind the fuse box. If you dont see anything there, next go to the ignition area. If you dont see anything there, come back and I will look at my car that is taken apart to see what else they may have done.

Steve

 

MarioZ
Here are a few pics. Mine is Corsa Red/Tan
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Looks great Tony.

Hopefully we will meet up on a drive this summer.

Are you an FCA member?

 

Thank you for reply Sevminasyan, yesterday when i was taking it all apart i took apart the consoul and i did not find anything that looked spliced. one other thing i think you should know it that the parking lights are the DRL, but when the car is off the parklights button still works on its own. I dont know if that i any help, but i thought i would throw that in! also i did look under the kick plate at the fuse box and did NOT see any abnormalities (splicing of any wires). however i did NOT take off the fuse box and look in behind. if i do take off the fuse box and look behind it what should i be looking for again?!?!? And i am also going to take my consol apart again and look for the splice to the ignition. do you have any refference that i can go by, to where i need to look for the splice, or what the wires look like. or the general locatioin of the wires. So in your opinion they MUST have done it somewhere in the fuse box under the kick plate in the car????

 

Marioz,
I dont know what the FCA is. Please explain.


P.S I can see that you and your car live in canada. Can I ask what you did for your DRL's and how it worked out??? Did you do them your self or get Ferrari to do them?

 

F Ferrari
C Club
...of
A America

 

The fact is that when you turn the ignition on, the ignition provides a constant power leaving the ignition unit. When its off, you only have incoming constant power. So, as soon as the vehicle is started, the ignition connects the incoming power to the outgoing wire. This outgoing wire is connected to the parking light wire that is running from the light switches behind the steering wheel. The simplest way to do it is to connect the ignition outgoing wire, maybe with an extra relay to the wire loop leaving the light switches on the steering column. If everything looks original there, try tracking the wiring loom as far as you can without taking the whole dash apart. If all is clean, first find the correct fuse for the parking lights, then behind that particular fuse, see if there is an extra wire coming into it. Is should be obvious. To test it, pull the supposedly extra wire out and see if teh parking lights go off. That will give you your answer. If it works, take that same extra wire that went into the parking light fuse and extend it into the fog light fuse.
Let me know if you find anything. Beautiful car by the way.

Steve

 

Hey Steve,
Thanks for your help and suggestions (GREATLY APPRECIATED).
Were heading out to the garage right now to take a look at what you said and will get back ASAP with what we find out.

Talk to you soon,

Tony

 

Hey Steve,
It was EXACTLY the way you said it would be!
We took the cover off the bottom and the top of the sterring coloum. The jump wire in the attched picture, went from the parklight wires on the top of the coloum to the live iginition wire on the bottom of the coloum. Once we removed the jump wire everything went right back to how it was originally!
Thank you so much again for your suggestion it saved us.

P.S.
We have the parts coming this week for the proper DRL setup using the Fog lights. Can I send you a PDF drawing (in another post) that shows you the parts and where they are supose to go to see if you have any suggestion on to what it should connect to?

Much Appreciated,

TonyF355
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

here is the schematic of the DRL components that I order of Ricambi America.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I'll give it a try. Seems like from the diagram it is situated in front of the shifter ? But when you get it, send a pic and directions that came with it and we'll work on it together. If you need Misc 355 parts, I have a 95 model I am parting out. Let me know if I can help. I am glad it was an easy find

Thanks
Steve

 

here is another shot
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Thanks Steve,
I will take pics of the products and make post's when the parts come in!

 

Tony,

beautiful gts!!! best of both all worlds and my favorite fcar and sports car built/designed to date.

 

Thanks Dlynes,
I agree with you!
Wonderful CAR!!!!!

 

Hi,

Great information gentlemen. I just brought in a 97 Spider (corsa/tan). Do you have the wiring diagram or perhaps a connections chart that shows how the kit interfaces? I bought a similar kit from (where else) Canadian tire that does the same thing but doesn't have the connector. Any help is appreciated.

Cheers,

David

 

Beautiful car. I would remove the bra ASAP. I've seen a lot of good paint ruined by those. I don't believe there is a way to use one of those without destroying the paint. The bra will rub dull spots into the paint that will be worse than the chips it is meant to protect. There is a good reason no one uses them anymore. Sorry to take the thread off track, but I'd hate to see a beautiful GTS have its paint ruined.

 

Hi Tony,

Not sure of your location but I am in Quebec and most guys with US imports into Canada will put the fogs as DRL just to pass the inspection.

Once the inspection is done and you have your plates, remove the connection and put everything back to normal.

 

What a beautiful example !