PSA - Electrical Storms and Cars on Tenders...

Thank you for the heads up. I had just assumed the battery tenders would have suppressor built in. Like they say never assume

 

Wow! Was the tender plugged into the wall directly or into a surge protection power strip?


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When I'm out of town for extended periods of time, I unplug the tender just in case something goes haywire. This is definitely one of those just in case scenarios. And I'm with you, I don't think 24/7/365 is necessary anyways.

 

Yes that’s safe but isn’t the idea of having a tender so that it maintains while you’re away?


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In the winter, I have a lot of batteries to maintain. So I typically alternate through them...1 day on the charger each per week. I’m sure it’s about as effective as being connected 24/7.

 

Thank you for sharing your story.

I always use a surge protector for this very reason, you never know what can happen while you are away.

A

 

I guess I'm thinking the idea of a tender is to maintain the battery to keep it charged/healthy. I have a recent version of a CTek, and when I plug it in, it gets to the last stage within hours of plugging it in, so I'm not sure what benefit there is after it reaches that last stage. If I'm away for an extended period of time with it unplugged, then plug it in upon my return, it gets to the last stage within hours, which works for me, and seems to avoid some unlikely yet severe risk.

 

I have a whole home surge protector from the utility company wired in right behind the meter. That is intended to protect from a strike somewhere nearby sending a pulse through the supply lines into the house. Then, any sensitive electronics inside the house including the battery tenders are plugged into additional surge protectors.

That wouldn't protect against a direct lightning strike to the house, but it's about as protected as you can get without unplugging everything anytime a storm forms. And in Central Florida where we get daily thunderstorms for months through the summer, that's just not feasible.

 

This is one of my paranoias...Both my cars are on tenders, only when I'm home, and every night before bed I check to make sure there are no storms in the area, then unplug them if there is. I have a big rackmount power enter in my studio, I was wondering if getting one for the tenders would be a good idea.

 

Haven't had time to fully read the thread but...

1. You absolutely cannot mix and match ecus from different model years. Ever
2. Ecu Hardware is identical but the mix of different variables is huge including sensors, mapping , etc. Every software version even has different CEL codes.
3. You risk detonation and engine damage with different maps and strategies between different firmware as they fight each other. It's one of the reasons ferrari only sell ecus in pairs.
4. They can be reflashed but you must use same firmware on both banks.

 

Sorry I somehow must have missed it. Please try again. Yes i I can help you..ofcourse I will.

Trev

 

Why not disconnect the power supply in the frunk and keep the tender on? I assume the tender is connected directly to the battery, so it will still get power, but it should cut a surge delivery to the rest of the car, no?

 

Good reminder! I had an unused surge protector and quickly plugged the tender to it.


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OK I was travelling when i scanned your post.

1. The immobilizer is physically wired to be always on as its also part of the key fob listening circuit on the 360. This means it also constantly drains current. Not an issue when working correctly but it can also spike other ecus too with the same power, fuse and relays in the fuse box. It's connected to the RHS ecu as is the pairing feature.

2. I absolutely recommend using a surge protector with a noise ripple filter if you plan to leave tender plugged 24/7. I have them on my computers and expensive home hifi rigs. The good ones will shutdown and prevent damage to your attached kit.

3. These days I can clone your pairing, virginize ecus and even disable immobilizer entirely as well as convert any 360 ecu to work on any part numbers firmware via reflashing. Not only that I've developed the tooling to switch your own firmware between f1 to gated and vice versa. I can upgrade older cars right up to 2004 spec firmware which results in improvements across the board, smoother idle, crisper acceleration, better emissions, etc. I can individually disable tests and CEL codes for things like secondary o2 sensors which are only used on 360 for emissions. I can remove hesitation from going to free flowing sports exhausts by use of factory sports exhaust maps, etc.

Later spec firmware really is better, earlier firmware had many of the protective tests for the engine even disabled so more risky to run. Ie you don't get a CEL even when there really is a fault. Etc. Personally the best upgrade is to use CS firmware and use my tools to convert it to gated (if your car is gated) and change configurations of sensors etc so it works on your car, I can even do this for 1999 cars...

Amazing upgrade and even works to improve performance too without resorting to tuning. Ie fully tested by Ferrari. Literally the list is endless so I will be bringing all this to you guys soon...

 

For an extended period of sitting, probably fine, but you would have to go through the ECU relearn process every time you connected the battery back up.

 

So if the car had an incomplete service history (and some modifications) when acquired,would it be beneficial to send the ECU's just to have them flashed to the stock/updated program just to make sure there was a "fresh" start? 99 gated.

 

I always extract firmware first and check if it currently runs modified (tuned) firmware or stock part number firmware. Since I have virtually every firmware ever made now on file.

It not very common that owners even think about the ECUs and mapping when going from stock exhaust to say fitting a sports exhaust.

... However the reason why Ferrari supplied the optional sports exhaust with the mandatory fit ecu's was to tailor it properly so that;
a) Its perfectly mapped for the back pressure differential (no flat spots) between say a free flowing sports and the more restrictive stock system.
b) To comply with the moving goal post of both noise emissions (sports exhaust valves open at different higher point for example to help noise regs than a stock exhaust and even that varies by year and country!) and and tailpipe emissions standards and different CEL codes required by different sensors and actuators fitted to different model years. These changed during the production lifecycle so they required tweaks to the firmware to stay compliant with the later specs and features.

The problem with all of this is that ;
a) These ecu's where NOT really designed for dealer sanctioned upgrades out in the field.
For those interested I'm actually using an engineering debugging facility/backdoor left in the embedded chip itself by Siemens (the original manufacturer), nothing to do with Bosch. This allow you to boot strap the Siemens microcontroller itself over serial if you short a pin to ground on the chip itself. From here you can upload a boot loader from which you can then extract the firmware, eeprom and re-flash the chip, verify and finally reboot. Its not JTAG (if your familiar with it) but a sort of equivalent lower spec version of it.

While there is a reflash over OBD capability its actually never been used by Ferrari due to the reliability factors such as battery voltage. The way it was designed its just too easy to brick one (kill the flash contents) half way through a reflash so they never upgraded Model Years to later flash versions out in the field, despite the benefits for owners. At the time of manufacture it just wasn't a done thing. If you had a newer car you got the later features, that's it.

b) It got very very complicated for Ferrari as different model years needed different firmware and they would have had to produce a new firmware (altered by Bosch for a large fee no doubt) for both variants of sports exhaust and non sports exhaust for both f1 and gated and then for different geographical regions. Think about the number of permutations and it gets crazy... So they simply didn't do it.

This is the real reason why Ferrari could not federalize the use of the sports exhausts on all US model years. Its because it wouldn't have been cost effective for Bosch to do all the different Firmware versions for them for the tiny number of sales.

I can take a 2004 spec firmware for example and transplant sports exhaust maps over from that so it works as ODB testing requires for example. Its all got horribly over complicated for no good reason. It may have been far easier for Ferrari to simply put some wired grounds to enable/disable features (f1 vs gated for example) which they could have supplied different extension wiring looms to change configurations. This would have allowed them to have a tiny fraction of the ecu variants they have and then each cars ground configurations determine its settings rather than the flash settings. Ah well...

 

This is basically my concern. I run high flow cats and a Gruppe M exhaust and still periodically get a CEL, and since everything seems to be running good and I have replaced gaskets, coils, injectors, etc.I suspect that it may be an issue where the ECU is just upset about the mods...I even considered going to stock but the foot print of my exhaust system makes everything SOOO easy to access back there..not to mention sounds pretty good (loud).

 

If you ever get any CELs let me know the codes and I can investigate for you if its worth disabling them triggering altogether. Most likely they are related to emissions, I could for instance alter the threshold for the triggering of the CEL so it may be all that's needed.