Ferrari 360 misfire issue...

Hi folks. 2000 360 Modena. Was running somewhat fine up until the other day. For the past six months or so, the car stumbled a bit when starting up - like one bank maybe was starting up before the other? Then the other day, it started running terribly, stalling and not idling. It will seem to rev fine, but when dropping down to idle, it starts to stall. I pulled the codes with xdiag, and they were:

P0300 Multiple Misfiring Recognition
P0303 Cylinder 3 Major Emissions
P0302 Cylinder 2 Major Emissions
P0304 Cylinder 4 Major Emissions
P0306 Cylinder 6 Major Emissions (2)
P0305 Cylinder 5 Major Emissions (2)

Those are the only fault codes. This seemed to happen rather quickly, and the tank is quite low on gas. I was thinking that there may be some crap in the gas tank gumming things up. I thought emptying the tank and refilling might help. Also checking the left and right fuel pressures at the same time?

The usual suspects (intake manifold gaskets) might be an issue, but I would think they would fail gradually over time, and wouldn't cause a major issue like this all of the sudden? I have a smoke tester and can check for this rather easily.

Someone also mentioned it may be the fuel canister? I presume that's the charcoal vapor canister?

I also did just recently re-install my old F1 transmission computer. I had purchased a new one, but then I recently sent it to Eric in France to be updated to the Challenge programming, so I put the old one back in. It ran okay with the old one for a bit, and then this started happening.

Ideas and suggestions welcome.

thx

Wayne

 

Yes, sorry, that is what I meant, Stradale TCU. Either way, I don't think it's related to the problem?

thx,

Wayne

 

That was my first thoughts - check the fuel pressure to start (at the small valves on each side of the engine), and then crack a fuel line open, turn on the relay (using Xdiag) and empty out the tank. I have some 109 unleaded fuel here from the race cars that is very good stuff, I would probably fill it up with 2-3 gallons of that, and see what happens. That is the plan at this stage, but I was wondering if there was anything else that might affect the whole system globally like that. The car is relatively new to me (six months or so), and I'm not sure I've run the tank down too many times before? I'm fairly certain there's no separate fuel filter to clean on this car either?

thx,

Wayne

 

Update:

Took off the side panels, the right-side pump is not running with the fuel pump relay activated. I'll check the voltage to the pump tomorrow, but a bad pump looks like the immediate culprit. Also, the fuel that I emptied out today smelled fairly bad (like varnish), so I think it may be a combination of two problems (bad pump and old fuel in the tank).

-Wayne

 

Update:

Using the Xdiag tool, I emptied both tanks by turning on each fuel pump and dumping the fuel into a can. Then I used some of my spare 109 octane race car (VP Racing) to fill the tanks and started it up. It started up, and ran slightly better, but still had a bunch of problems. An "Italian tune-up" around the block didn't really fix things too terribly - it's still not running too well.

Both pumps are beige (not white) which means that they were updated recently. I checked the paperwork that came with the car, and that matches that theory...

It's still not generating any useful codes - only the misfire codes. I find this very odd, as there are no sensors that are giving errors.

I filled it up with some Mobile premium gas and drove it home, and it still didn't run super well. At higher rpm, 3000-4000, etc. it seems to have plenty of power, but when I come off of the gas, the rpms drop below 1,000 for a bit, and it seems to want to stall. Then it comes back and idles at 1,000 rpm. But if you give a bit of gas after that, it stumbles.

So, since it doesn't have any sensor error codes, my next guess would be a vacuum leak. I have a smoke machine, so I will remove the air flow sensor and test the intake system on both sides. I wrote an article on this for the Boxster book I wrote, one can find the article here: https://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/Boxster_Tech/21-FUEL-Vacuum_Leaks/21-FUEL-Vacuum_Leaks.htm

Also, ever since I've had the car, it hasn't started up super-quick. It's always stumbled for about a second or so on startup. Like turn-the-key, sputter-sputter-sputter, and then roar to life. Not sure if a vacuum leak would cause that behavior - I'll have to think about that for a few moments.

Any additional suggestions would be welcome!

thx,

Wayne

 

Yes, there is some confusion in my head with respect to how the codes are generated, stored, and then cleared. I'm seeing codes for the right bank, as evidenced by the misfires for 2,3,4 - I presume. Clearing the codes on one bank with this tool clears them on both banks. I do have another ODB-2 tool that I can use as a sanity check - I don't have access to the factory tool or Leonardo of course.

My issues started all of a sudden - one day the car was fine, the next day I went to start it, and it didn't work. The intake runner gasket replacement seems to be a bit of a chore - I'm going to smoke test my car to see if there are leaks prior to tackling that one. I just checked all of the service receipts that came with the car (fairly well documented), and I don't see the intake gaskets on there. So, you may be on to something, as these tend to fail after 20 years. The car has had the other usual issues dealt with - fuel pumps replaced (white to beige), and the F1 pump and relay replaced.

I haven't worked on this car too much, but I have a bunch of experience with Porsches and BOSCH fuel injection. Since there are no definitive codes being output, this definitely feels like a vacuum leak somewhere. I've confirmed that both pumps are working and the fuel pressure seemed good when I tested it (only checked the right side though). From experience working on other cars, if there is a small vacuum leak, then that may tend to show up quite a bit when the car is idling, or coming off of higher revs (which is what I have). I also believe that if there is a leak on one side and not the other, then the air flow meters will be out of sync and giving different readings. For example, I think I'm hearing popping and spitting on the left (driver's) side. So, if there is a leak there, the MAF should be showing *less* air flowing across the sensor (leaking in from the vacuum leak), than on the right side. Leaks in the seals immediately following the MAF can cause this too of course. I'm away from the car right now, but I will have to go back and check the MAF readings at idle, 1500 rpm, 2000 rpm on both sensors to see if they are off. There's also a chance that one or more of the MAF units may be dirty and not reading the air flow correctly...

Thoughts?

-Wayne

 

Appreciate the insight, and good food for thought. The F1 transmission is new tech for me. I'm wondering though - the revs that I was talking about above (sorry for not being clearer) were when the car was sitting and not moving, and the transmission was in neutral. I.E. Rev it up to about 3000-4000 and then drop off the idle - it will dip down below 1000 and then come back up again. Unless I'm missing something (I might be), I'm not sure there's any relation to the clutch & flywheel?

Indeed it is more pronounced when the car is cold, but was still there after a spirited drive the other day.

-Wayne

 

Indeed! Injectors are definitely on my list to check in the very near future. I did take a close look at the pumps and the paperwork that came with the car. The pump flow appears to be working correctly, and the pumps were replaced in 2015 (they are the newer style beige pumps).

Good point, we've had injectors sent out for cleaning and testing on some of the race cars. If there is no major vacuum leak, that will be what I will tend to look at next.

Actually, I think it was concentrated on bank 1 according to the codes, but misfires were on the other side too, I believe.

The border of Torrance is litterally 500 yards away, so they may indeed end up there soon.

QUESTION: is there a separate fuel filter on this car? I thought they were built-in to the pump? Please correct me if I'm wrong - none of the previous service paperwork from the dealer shows any fuel filters on them?

thx,

Wayne

 

This thread here seems to indicate no fuel filters except for the screens in the fuel pumps and also some small screens in the injectors?

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/location-of-fuel-filter-on-a-360.518670/

Has anyone here added a pair of small fuel filters to each bank of injectors?

-Wayne

 

Cool, yes, you're welcome to stop by - just let me know. Here are some neat photos of the shop from Petrolicious:

https://petrolicious.com/articles/news-flash-pelican-parts-hq-is-full-of-incredible-porsches

The race cars are up at the World of Speed Museum in Oregon right now, but the other cars are around...

-Wayne
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Those are some good points. I just ordered eight new spark plugs. I checked the documentation, and it doesn't seem like the dealer replaced them recently (even during the "major" service done about 2 years ago?). FYI, I ordered the NGK PMR 8B, which are the later-style ones which are platinum coated on both the anode and cathode.

For those of you who want to see what's involved in the plug change, here's a useful article: https://aldousvoice.com/2012/09/19/ferrari-360-spark-plug-change-5/

Thanks,

Wayne

 

Hmm, that's interesting. Did you get any codes triggered that led you in that direction? Or did you monitor the results of the sensors with a tool like xDiag?

-Wayne

 

Okay. Today I feel pretty stupid. I should have remembered my simple lessons from my 308 ownership days.

So, to recap, I emptied both tanks by running each individual fuel pump - attaching a hose to each pump and then running them to a gas can. That appeared to work farily well and I emptied both tanks of all of the fuel.

However, today, I was messing with the car, and I swapped MAF sensors to see if that made a difference (it didn't). But while leaning over the car, I noticed indeed that the right side of the car was much warmer than the left side. Duh, I attached my fuel pressure gauge to the right side and it read 4-5 bar. The left side? Zero. The right side is hot (250+ degrees), the left side is room temperature (100 or so degrees). I should have noticed this obviously before, as it's usually one of the first things I check on the Porsches - which cylinder may be running hotter than the others (I have a thermal camera!).

So, the left side is not running at all, and the fuel pressure is zero. Which leads me to assume the left pump has failed. Except for the fact that the left pump is indeed working and pumped a bunch of fuel out of the car when I manually turned on the fuel pump relay using xdiag. It was sputtering at the time, but I thought it was simply because the fuel level was so low. Now, it appears that there is a problem with the fuel pump. Odd, in that, the pump is only about 2 years old. Perhaps there is something clogging it up? I plan to pull the pump possibly tomorrow to see what the issue is - it's still running and pumping fuel, although obviously not at the pressure that it needs to be.

Again, I have forgotten that the Ferrari engines are perfectly balanced left-to-right, and if you lose 1/2 of the engine, it will still tend to run fairly well (which is what we're seeing).

Any thoughts or insight?

-Wayne