what scan tools work on 5.2 obd2 f355

Any OBD2 Tool should pull check engine codes... what's the problem Senor?

 

I use the Auto Xray 4000 for OBD 2 work. There are generic
OBD 2 codes and manufacturer-specific OBD 2 codes. Getting the
meaning of the latter codes could be tough, since you have to get
them from Ferrari. I went thru that crap with my BMW M3. BMW
does not even publish the manufacturer-specific codes in the service
manual! I had to do a bunch of sleuthing to decode them...

 

Just post the Ferrari specific code on this site, I am sure you will get a response from someone who can decode it for you.

 

The engine has to be running for most generic code readers to pull codes on Ferraris. Was the key in the on position with the dash lights on, or was the engine actually running when your mechanic tried to retrieve the codes?

Brian

 

Auto XRay is what the guys at EPA used when I was there a few years ago. It has been my experience that Ferrari does not use the conventional (mandated by EPA) pin configuration for their OBD2 connector. The ground is not in the correct place and the +12volts is missing altogether. I still contend that no US Ferrari is really OBD2 compliant according to the Code of Federal Regulations. I did get AutoXray to tell me that the airpump fuse was out on a 355 one time.

 

There was a Federal exemption for small car manufacturers from many details of emission regs called limited manufacturer status. It exempted them from quite a few things. Even though Ferrari's have had fuel evap systems for years they have not had to comply with many functional tests. The OBD plug on all cars before 360 are not in total compliance either.

Even using Ferrari's own SD1 or SD2 on those early cars often means hooking up to the ALDL plug instead of the OBD plug to get communication with many systems.

Limited Manufacturer Status expired 1-1-03.

 

Today I just tried to get my new (to me) car smogged checked in California. It was a Louisiana car where they never check emissions so this was the first time. The car passed the emissions tests except one - it was a little high on the NOX for 15mph test (422 PPM vs. allowed is 406 or something like that). The mechanic felt he could do something to get it lower - not sure what though. But, we never got to that part because he couldn't communicate to OBDII on the 355. He tried a generic scanner as well as the CA tool. Then someone told him to try to set the communication standard to ISO. Still no dice. Now I have an appointment at a dealer. Is it a requirement to go to a dealer for a smog check because these cars aren't officially OBDII compliant?

Brian, you mention the ALDL plug - will the CA smog test allow for that?

Any ideas about ways to get the NOX down?

Thanks,

Scott

 

Ca test requires communication via the OBD2 plug.

NOX should not be a problem if the car is running right. Many people just ignore exhaust gasses if it does not fit the correct profile but it is in fact one of the best indicators of the motors health and state of tune. I use a 4 gas analyzer for diagnostics more than any other tool or piece of equipment I have.

Ferrari's built since the early 80's do not have a problem passing smog unless there is something wrong with the car. They should infact pass by huge margins. The tailpipe is trying to tell a story if we are smart enough to listen. It is no different than your gut hurting, it might be indegestion or it might be cancer. Ignore it at your peril.

For the sake of convienence I would take it to SVAG in Campbell. They are very close to you and they do smogs. Since they used to be a dealer they will not suffer from the same state of confusion the other smog shop did.

 

on my 360, i can get my obdii scan tool to work if i custom make the connector. do not have the charts in front of me (cannot find them in the mess), but it boils down to the spec calls for something like a signal ground on pin 4, some other type of ground on 5, obdii looks for signal on 4 and ferrari uses only pin 5, so you have to wire 5 to 5 and 4 on the obdii connector side

 

Pin 4 is not connected on the early cars and should be a ground for OBD2 to read on generic scanners

Brian

 

Thanks for the suggestions. Took my car to SVAG today (formerly Ferrari of Los Gatos). I used to get my Lotus Elan serviced there and still do on occasion. Their prices are pretty high but since I just got my car, I figured it made sense to go with a place I know and is close by.

Upshot is - they can't get the OBDII communicator to work either! The mechanic literally said to me - it must be a SW problem. They said that they've seen this sort of thing "all the time" on 360s. He didn't specifically say that about 355's. It sounds like it could be that the connector is the problem and there is some custom thing but you'd think that Ferrari would have told the dealers (they were a dealer). Not only that, but what I have to do is go down to some "referee" in south San Jose to get them to say its ok that they couldn't connect to it. Apparently they do this for a lot of Ferraris (tells you something, doesn't it). Ugh. Pain in the butt if you ask me.

Well, to top it off, the car is out of spec for the NOX. Rifledriver, you are right, I obviously can't ignore it. So, now I have to pay to have them to take a look at what is causing that problem. Yuck, I hate this kind of thing. No easy answer I'm afraid.

The only good thing to happen out of this is that they happen to have a windshield in stock and they are replacing that. My insurance company is paying all I have to pay is my deductible. I was worried that they would make me go to some place off the beaten path to get a windshield. It cost $1400 for an aftermarket windshield, about $850 for the molding around it (yikes!) and a couple of hours labor.

All this and I haven't even had the car a week! I hope this is not a premonition of things to come. I don't think so. The downside was that the car is from out of state so I couldn't get it smogged where I bought it (LA) and even though it checked out mechanically, there was no way to know for sure. The NOX is not out too bad so I'm hoping its not that big a deal. The car did just have the major service.

Well, at least the weather is getting nice so I'll just drive my Lotus.

Scott

 

Minor update - I saw on Fchat that someone said the OBDII connector must be tried with the engine running. Well, the dealer tried that (apparently they already knew that) and it still didn't work. Crap. Any suggestions? I really don't want to have to go to a referee. And, if this pin 4 vs. pin 5 thing is the difference, that won't help because the smog stations have standardized connectors which they aren't about to go swapping pins on.

Scott

 

I pull a code every once in a while with my OBDII reader. The connecting plug needs to be bridged between two of the posts. I'm sorry, I can't remember which ones but I will try to take a pic sometime and post it for you. If you don't do this, the reader doesn't work. At least that is my experience. BTW: The engine must be running.

 

I disclaim any expertise but try this;

The car must be running when you read the codes.


Pins 4 to 5
Pin five has a pin but pin four is empty in the socket in your car. The reader won't work. Put a small wire jumper (piece of a paper clip) in with needle nose bridging these two pins.
On one pin it'll make contact with the metal pin, put on the other it goes into an empty receptacle.

This should solve your reading problem. It did for me. Thanks to the master Eugenio!

 

I tried the trick JSL mentions below. Well, it didn't work. However, I'm not convinced that is entirely the problem. I bought a scanner from AutoZone (actually rented as they have a full return policy within 90 days). The connector wouldn't connect all the way on. I ended up getting the thing to sort of work by pushing it in while trying to get it to read. It got battery power but the connector itself wouldn't stay entirely connected. Unfortunately, I don't know if the dealer was able to do anything better (or the smog place I took it to previously). So, it is entirely possible that since it didn't just stay connected that there is some other pin that is not connecting at all on the scanner side. I put the paper clip in but I don't really like that solution as I'm not sure it will work with a connector anyway (it might prevent it from staying in like I said above). In my case, the connector wouldn't go all the way in even without a paper clip. Anyone else have this problem?

Scott

 

You might try contacting Eugenio at Eugenio's Ferrair Service. He is the best in my book. Perhaps he can give you a suggestion. Try contacting him through his web site. Good luck. He has always helped me more than I can say. http://emelbon.tripod.com/eugeniosferrariservice.html

 

I have a 2002 360 and had the check engine light coming on. I bought the Auto Ex ray 6000 with all the different connectors and ended up using the standard obd2 connector. It read that I have a small evaporative system leak but it reads all the data fine. You might see if someone has this model. I did not have to make any connection changes and it works with the key in the on position but the motor NOT running unless you want realtime data which this collects as well.

Hope that it works out.

 

this morning I bought an Innova reader from Checker to clear the check engine light on my 97 355. $60. I wanted a scanner but they didn't have any. The connector worked. It cleared the code and while not nearly as complete as SD, it did reference a cat. not operating at threshold levels. I was aware of the problem. I had what I think is one of the best FCar mechanics in the country clear the code with SD about 8 weeks ago after rampage. He said it was probably some bad gas and to not worry about it unless it lights up a few more times. Long story on this one, but some of the Bosch ECU's in '97-98 had differant and tighter thresholds depending on if the Germans and Italy were fighting that day. At any rate, the reader at $60 connected, talked and cleared. As always, be careful because they truly erase all of the errors.

 

Ok, more on this story. I went to the dealer again and told them my story. They had another 355 with the same issue. I told him mine didn't connect to the scanner unless I literally held it in position and all it did was get power. It never did "link up". I could not try the paper clip solution to jumper pins 4 and 5 because the connector wouldn't connect really. The dealer tried with the normal OBDII connector without the jumper and it still didn't work. It failed rather quickly I might add. However, their connector seem to work just fine (that is, the physical connection - not the logical "wire" connection which obviously still did not work). So, I have to say I haven't tried the jumper solution conclusively yet. With the dealer thing in there, we couldn't get their connector to work right with the paper clip jumper. It just wouldn't allow you to physically connect - probably because the paper clip was in the way. I'm not sure how others have gotten it to work though. I could see under the dash that if I unscrewed a couple of screws I would be able to get the whole connector out. Then with some wiring one could add an extra wire for pin 4 if that indeed will do the trick. Frankly, I'm not sure how to do this though because the Ferrari side has these female "holders" for each pin and unless you have something like that, I'm not sure how you'd have the male pins be guaranteed to connect. I'm sure with some fiddling it might work but I'm not sure it would work "every time". I'm reluctant to make this change at this time (although I guess one could argue I have nothing to lose).

By the way, where does the Ferrari SD2 connect? Is it the same place or something different? If its the same, I guess one could argue that I shouldn't mess with the OBDII connector. I didn't see any other place to connect.

The solution at the moment is that tomorrow morning, the dealer is going to take the car to the referee and try to plead my case. We'll see what happens. Fortunately, after all I've spent with them, they aren't charging me for doing this (so they say).

Scott

 

Here's the latest:

Found out that SD2 connects same place as OBDII. SD2 is fine. OBDII doesn't work. We tried JSL's attempted fix and even spoke to Eugenio about it. The dealer even went in, removed the OBDII connector on the car, wired in a chassis ground on pin 4 and ... still nothing. Yuck. This is Silicon Valley Auto Group.

We tried to get a waiver from the smog referee but no dice.

They had another car there with the same problem. I took my car home. They are going to try something with the other car by swapping ECU's. If the ECU is bad, I can then at least point to that and at least try to get Ferrari to pay for a new one. Other than that, we're out of ideas. I haven't gone to the new dealer in Redwood City CA but thats my next stop. However, they are so new that they know next to nothing at this point and in fact don't even have the computers to hook up to the car yet (well, they didn't last week).

Sounds to me like there are 3 types of 355's out there (newer than 95):

- OBDII connector works just fine
- OBDII connector works fine if you add a ground to pin 4
- OBDII connector doesn't work (like mine)

I'm guessing that in areas of emission testing in the states which don't require OBDII this isn't an issue because no one bothers to try that type of scanner. Since Ferrari's own scanner (SD2) works just fine, nobody would care. Thats the only reasoning I can think that would cause this to be a problem. And, apparently within CA, there must have been enough cars that either got a waiver before (and haven't come up for testing now) or don't have the problem that again, its not been an issue. Ugh.

Scott

 

Hi Scott,

Sorry to hear about all the drama. You might think about one other element. I've seen a few OBD2 355's with open circuits at the Motronic ECU. The ECU pin number 88 is the K-line which feeds Data up to the OBD2 Data link connector. This feed wire can sometimes get an open either right at the ECU or upstream at the Main connector or at the junction connector near the main.
Why, because when the Engine/Chassis is pulled for the Major the harness gets worked like a bungie cord if one is not careful. The wiring diagram on Diagnostic Sheet #22 will show the correct circuits you need to check. Sometimes I just connect my OBD2 tester up with the car running and watch for it to light up as I gentle tug and moves the wires - once light up occurs you know you found the right area.

Cheer
TP

 

Hi TP,
If that were the case, wouldn't SD2 have a problem as well? I don't there is an SD2 connection problem on my car.

Scott