Dear all, My 355 challenge has been playing up with engine problems. Turns out they relate to a ECU harness issue: the harness is giving poor connection which in turn is preventing one side of the engine to run properly. My mechanic has asked Ferrari for prices on electric harness but I suspect they are either NLA or prohibitedly expensive. I was thinking getting a car electrician to go through the plugs in the harness and replacing connector pins may be more efficient. In effect a restoration of the ECU side of the harness. About 10 years ago F Chat community was full of praise for the Dave Helms / Scuderia rampante gold connector kit. But when I searched this morning it seems that solution isn’t longer an Fchat favourite. Since I doubt the problem has disappeared, has another solution been favoured by the commnunity since ? Forum search suggests the problem doesn’t seem to be that prevalent these days. Please advise !
Is there some reason you or your mechanic can't figure out what part of the harness is creating the poor connection?
Thibaut, have your mechanic try cleaning all of the harness connections before resorting to replacing the connector pins. Barry
They are a racing outfit, usually they try to replace rather than fiddle, identify and repair individually. But I agree: absent any off the shelf solution, I think we’re looking at cleaning and / or changing connector pins rather than brand new. Any reason the SRI gold connector solution has gone out of favour ? I recall a cult following here.
I have an F355 Challenge too which I drive an average of 15 track days/year. It's regularly serviced and inspected for proper functioning before each track event. Servicing includes checking of the electrical system and cleaning of contacts on a regular basis. Your car would benefit from regular use and servicing. Again, have you technician clean all male and female connectors. Spare yourself the expense of changing the connectors as a first resort. I think there might have been a cult following with the gold connectors.
It's far LESS work to identify the problem and fix it, than to replace the entire engine harness. Not even close. Sounds to me like this shop is looking to make some $$$$
Installing gold connector pins is not a good idea unless the pins are gold on both sides of each connection. Having gold pins in the connector on the loom side connecting to zinc coated pins (on the ECU, sensor etc.) will cause galvanic corrosion due to dissimilar metals. Combining zinc and gold would cause rather high galvanic potential, as shown on this chart: Image Unavailable, Please Login
You can buy all new pins from digikey. I think someone posted the part numbers a while back Yeah Like Barry says I deoxit my connections to keep everything nice and connected
What is the problem ? Why are they thinking a harness placement will be the fix I would go deeper into what the problem is before spending time and money on replacing any connection or harness Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
Ok thank you for the input Problem is bad contacts I have instructed to take it to an car electrician for a good clean up
Yes, but which components of the engine is bad wiring attached to? Crank sensor? MAF? O2 sensor? Coolant temperature sensor? Throttle Position Sensor? Relays? Power? Ignition control? Etc... The garage must have looked at fault codes. What were they?
So the engine harness is the ecu harness. It could be a bad component like a sensor or what not and not the harness or connections. Something sounds funny here. Sent from my SM-G990U using FerrariChat.com mobile app
There was no CEL. Just one side of the engine wasn’t firing. The mechanics started fiddling with the connections and it came back to life (so I have been told, I wasn’t present)
Yes probably a wiring issue if that’s what happen I would have a good auto electrician have a go at it and see if it will happen for him and pin point where it is before just doing a harness Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
They are doing the cleaning and also on the other side as I fuess the connections aren’t much better there. apparently ferrari in france isn’t quoting for a brand new harness. Two years ago I had to replace the main oil lines. The prices shown by ferrari were surreal. Ended up getting new one made at next to nothing.
Yes, oil lines and coolant hoses have to be changed at regular intervals with these old cars. Also, if you still have the fuel sampler, get rid of it and replace it with a new fuel line... Image Unavailable, Please Login I've see an old fuel sampler leak and cause an engine bay fire. Fortunately the driver pulled the fire bottle release and very little damage occurred.
