never had anything remotely like this before. let a friend and a passenger drive my boxer, when i got in to go home, there was a severe drop in power. the only guess i have, is that something clogged the injection, because i was real low on gas. Is there any DIY method to troubleshoot. alos the idle is lower than it was. had been idling around 1600, now at 1200 without the power. any help would be appreciated. david
I would pressure test the injectors, and check the spray pattern. If they are bad, then I would suggest removing the gas tanks and cleaning them out, also the injection lines and distributors........then replace all injectors, and fuel filters. It would seem that you had a problem before this. My BBi idles at 1000 RPM. 1600 is way too high, as is 1200 RPM.
(Gotta agree with Hank and say that a K-Jet warm-idling at 1600 RPM needs some fondling regardless, but) "Severe loss in power" (yet running quasi-smoothly) is a classic symptom of 1-bank dead in the injected flat-12 architecture. I'd start with a simple spark test on each bank, (if passed) then a simple fuel test on each bank (e.g., I'm sure one the BB owners could describe how to induce each FP to run independent of the engine running so you could at least do the "audio" FP test) -- good luck with the beast...
Yet another reason why one should not let others drive their Ferrari. My BB512i idles at 1000rpm or so too. Even the cold start idle is less than 1600rpm. I would look at the cold start circuit as it could be flooding the car causing plugs to foul. If that is OK, check the injectors next. The timing could be off too which can cause a high idle and low power. Good luck.
Make sure both fuel pumps are working properly. Had the same issue. Only one of the fuel pumps was operating. The car will run on one and actually do ok just clearly with less power.
Forgot to add that IMO regardless of what your problem turns out to be, you should make this modification that James Selevan posted to reduce the I^2*R heating at the joints in the BBi fuel pump fuse block: http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2705&highlight=fuel+pump+fuse James S -- you should get that information into the Parts & Service section.
Steve M. - always nice when someone appreciates your input. I will prepare a white paper on the fuse I squared R losses and post it in the techniical section. Thanks. Jim S.
Most Ferrari repair shops in the know routinely solders all connections in new fuse boxes they install in Boxers and 308s due to the overheating problem mentioned by Seleven. When I had an intermittant cooling fan problem in my Boxer, it turned out to be a partially melted fuse box and FoA soldered all connections in the new one before installion. I was told that that had been being done since the late 1970s.
