Here's a pic of me pulling the engine out of my 612 yesterday!

Update:

Car has been put back together. Connectors have not yet been replaced as cannot yet source new pins. But connectors have been somewhat cleaned and reassembled.

No change in running. Strange stuff happening. Vince says passenger bank ran when driver's bank injectors were disconnected. Then after reconnecting more than two injectors from driver's bank, passenger bank starts behaving strangely. Noid tester on passenger bank is not a "bright" as on driver's bank, etc.

I think there is a bad ground or power signal. Ground loops occurring, etc. Need to get to the bottom of this. Also, alternator saw water so not sure if they had that in the mix (i.e. connected or not).

This is crazy. But now I am pretty darn certain it is a darn electrical issue. Again, swapping ECUs makes no difference. I really think it is a ground or power compromise. Need to look carefully at the back side of the connectors at the passenger ECU (as water didn't get through due to seals but would still see the back-side of the connections). Losing voltage somewhere under higher load. Also need to verify connections at battery, etc.

This thread is nearing 100K views now! My wife has suggested that I have provided too much income to the Ferrari Chat forum (banner ads, etc.) and need to start my own personal blog!

- Jason

 

Car is Fixed! Yes!!! And I am not kidding!

But I am not going to jump right to the punchline of what was wrong as it is too interesting and I am going to make you all work for it...

So, I will give you some hints as to what the final issue was with the car. Remember, I rebuilt the whole engine after it was hydrolocked. After that, it ran great on the driver's side and poorly on the passenger side.

So here are some hints before I spill the beans...

(1) When it did run on the passenger side, the catalyst would get REALLY hot (lean??).
(2) The car was salvaged. It ran when it when into water. I then got the car and considered that no one had seen it before me (turns out erroneously).
(3) Remember, I rebuilt the entire engine but didn't bother with one portion as there was no reason why it should have needed any attention (unless touched by someone between hydrolock event and when I got it).
(4) The problem was NOT electrical in nature.

Any guesses??!!

P.S. I should have my first drive tomorrow assuming the tranny programs up fine.

 

I love Eddie Murphy...

But no, not a plugged cat or banana in exhaust...

I will hold out for more guesses before the big reveal.

 

That was red herring...

Additional hint. It was air.

Another hint. What might someone have done to quickly check for whether water entered the engine. What's real easy as you approach the top of the motor?!

 

Thanks tomc.

JLL, you are getting "warm".

 

OK, here's the deal. Apparently I mechanic (or the buyer that bought it from salvage) pulled the side of the plenum to look inside for whether or note water was ingested. Well, when they did, they apparently ripped the gasket and then through the ripped piece away and just bolted back on the part. Thus leaving a massive air leak.

Neither me or Vince would have ever expected this to have been removed. As such, we never really looked or suspected it. I replaced every other gasket on the car but again would have never suspected the side plenum gaskets would have somehow been affected (except for the unanticipated intervention of someone else along the way).

Real bummer. And when you look at the pictures you'll say "wow, that looks obvious", but it really wasn't.

This breach of gasket all in ended up costing me over $5K and three months of time.

Additional lesson learned on a salvage car: Take everything apart. Even the stuff that shouldn't be bad. Don't expect logic to prevail, too many variables and moving parts. Much check and replace EVERYTHING!

Enjoy the pics...
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