That kit looks familiar! Take the time to do a thorough install - well worth the effort. Let us know your before and after impressions - roughly 1,300 miles on mine since I installed the kit and my car has never felt better.
Dave Helms' precious metal connector kit - my install/review here: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=236795
Tom: This should be right up your alley. Well worth the time spent. I think most, if not all, of your weird fault codes and electrical gremlins are going to disappear overnight. BTW, is that kit a work-of-art, or what?
Yep. I can't wait to get started. It will probably be on Saturday. I'll try to take plenty of pictures.
I need one of these kits! ............... I am a firm believer that good connections at the various sensors are vital to the ECU's ability to properly manage the engine! Just as faulty ground connectionas have been the cause of many ills .............. does this kit include injector pins too ?
I believe it addresses the connectors listed below. I won't know for sure until I dig into it this weekend though. 355 (5.2) Motronic Connectors 1996-1999 Idle control motor 1) yellow/black 2) white 3)white/red Air temp sensor 1) gray/blue 2) black/white Water temp sensor 1) black/white 2) gray/black Knock sensor (L) 1) brown 2) black with black jumper to #3 Knock sensor (R) 1) brown 2) black with black jumper to #3 Gray plug Throttle PS 1) red/blue 2) black/white 3) tan/white Cam sensor 1) green 2) pink 3) black Coil (L) 1) green 2) yellow/green 3)purple/black Coil (R) 1) purple/black 2) gold 3)purple/white Water temp (gauge) 1) 2) Crank sensor 1) black/purple 2) purple 3)black Electro sol. (blue) 1) red/black 2) black Electro sol. (black) 1) green/black 2) blue/yellow Injector #1 1) olive/black 2) white/black #2 1) same 2) white/green #3 1) same 2) yellow/red #4 1) same 2) tan #5 1) same 2) tan #6 1) same 2) green/black #7 1) same 2) blue/black #8 1) same 2) olive/tan
I checked a couple times for these kits in Ferrariads, but no luck. Are these only available directly from Dave Helms? Haven't seen a ballpark price... can someone provide that? Thanks.
I spoke to him yesterday regarding the Ad and he is currently in the process of up-dating it. You can call him directly at Scuderia - (303) 938-9000.
Yup, blew that one and allowed the ad to expire when I wasn't paying attention and Scott was kind enough to call me and say 'hey you dork...' Too focused on a big project at the shop with a hard time line, I see the hose ad dropped as well. Seems my stating I would post the names of the insurance companies that refused to underwrite or quoted rediculas figures for the hose and fuel system products we are making has them rethinking their position on the subject according to a conversation with my insurance contact yesterday. I havent seen numbers yet but things are looking optomistic on that front now. Much time has been spent upgrading the contacts / boots being addressed with the kit and a big thanks is due to everyone helping me with that. I now have options to the kit that expand it to cover the contacts at the slow down ECU's (those are on the way to you Tom as I was able to test fit them late last night), fender well harness plugs, shock plugs, O 2 sensor plugs, 5.2 MAF, some relay socket contacts... As not all of the cars require attention to these areas I have decided to make many of these options so not everyone is burdened paying for things they might not need. If we offer it as an option it is only because we or someone else ran into the need for it, nothing is offered because it looks nice. Once your eyes are focused on these little contacts and you have them in hand one can then see how much hair they have grown over the years. Test fitting the slow down ecu contacts that Tom requested I find had me shocked to see how bad they were on my test car that was in the middle of the 2.7 kit install! There is simply NO WAY to clean the female contacts and they are now showing that quite clearly. The problem areas at this point (aside from identifying the terminals, finding an in country supplier and choosing the highest quality available) are dealing with the logistics of finding qty's of affordable quality tools. There are a great many available that wouldn't last long enough to finish the kit install, I know as I have a shelf full of them. Prior to choosing a particular tool manufacturer I always test them in house and make sure it works as advertised which is not always the case. Just yesterday over lunch we identified a problem area with one tool in the kit on the shipment just received and 50% of them had to be returned. Some of the tools required for the optional contacts simply are not available and we are having to make those ourselves. Until production is up to the levels required we are simply sending out loaner's to be passed on to the next in line. There are many challenges but one of the rewarding areas of working with a tight knit community such as this is everyone is helping to make this better every day. I send out an expensive tool to someone I have never met half way across the country and a few days later get an email asking who is next in line to send it along to? That alone is rewarding! I will be working through the weekend on a time sensitive project at the shop but once that is caught up I will be able to focus on a new kit advertisement for this site and my web site.
Alright. First three plugs are done. The wiring colors are different that previously mentioned though. 1997 F355 Spider. Idle control motor Was: 1) yellow/black 2) white 3)white/red Mine: 1)White/green 2) Green 3) White/blue Air temp sensor Same: 1) gray/blue 2) black/white Water temp sensor Was: 1) black/white 2) gray/black Mine: 1) Gray/black 2) Black/white Now my lack of automotive experience shows. I can't identify the locations of the following plugs. Also, I have only found 4 of the 7 unidentified 3 wire plugs. Knock sensor (L) 1) brown 2) black with black jumper to #3 Knock sensor (R) 1) brown 2) black with black jumper to #3 Gray plug Throttle PS 1) red/blue 2) black/white 3) tan/white Cam sensor 1) green 2) pink 3) black Coil (L) 1) green 2) yellow/green 3)purple/black Coil (R) 1) purple/black 2) gold 3)purple/white Water temp (gauge) 1) 2) Crank sensor 1) black/purple 2) purple 3)black Electro sol. (blue) 1) red/black 2) black Electro sol. (black) 1) green/black 2) blue/yellow I know where these are. Injector #1 1) olive/black 2) white/black #2 1) same 2) white/green #3 1) same 2) yellow/red #4 1) same 2) tan #5 1) same 2) tan #6 1) same 2) green/black #7 1) same 2) blue/black #8 1) same 2) olive/tan
Here is my first connector. The idle sensor before I started. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Here is the finished product. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I filled in the blank and found the proper adjective you were lacking (said with a smile). What this does is provides the Smurf ad gal of mine with fodder to beat me up again. I can hear it coming..."Nice ad campaign you dork..., get back out into the shop where you belong".... There is something 'special' about getting beat up by a 4'10" female with an attitude, one heck of a mechanic in her own right to boot, especially when she is right and I have no defense. One day I hope to actually pay her for her efforts (what's up with that?!) as she is so talented and good at what she does. I think I will grovel and beg a bit and see if she will do this next ad for me if I promise not to play ad guy for a few weeks.... that is going to hurt! Nice work Tom. Make sure the same amount of effort goes into the cleaning of the sensor pins and you are there. Try removing the rear wheels and wheel wells to access the injector connections, far easier than standing on your ear doing these from the top. Take the time to remove the filter boxes and MAF, once out of the way things are far more easily done with some elbow room. Once all done you can trust the ECU's are getting the outputs the sensors themselves are sending and then can chase any rogue problems with the single biggest failure source already dealt with. The 2.7GTS we finished last week showed great improvement in 3 of the 4 faults we were chasing. A complete throttle balance was required to deal with the 4th. The outputs the ECU's were seeing from the MAF's were so far out of kilter due to furry contacts we had to hook up the mercury manometer to verify what we were seeing after the Gold contacts were installed. This example was so far out of spec I theorize someone balanced the intakes from readings given by the MAF's with terribly bad connections. Garbage in = garbage out (!) and then when used as a base source for data and adjustments made using this data...... an extreme example of adjusting around a base problem and in turn amplifying the effects of the main issue itself! This one frustrated me as I have never even considered doing adjustments this way and in turn the thought of the throttles being WAY out never even came to mind. Write off another 3 hrs as educational expense and put another page in the workshop manual checklist. Leave no stone unturned as in this case the contact kit fixed 3 problems AND allowed us to find the actual base issue causing what we could hear. It will not un-do what has been done when others have adjusted around a problem but it will surely allow you to deal with the base issues with a degree of confidence. In my example above I had to reset all the intakes back to zero and start from the beginning once again. To a degree, I am doing what I have already advised against as I do not know what condition the carbon buildup on the throttle plates, the carbon buildup on the intake valves....they all effect the throttle setup and should be cleaned to like new condition prior to readjustment of the intakes. In this case I have a budget I must stick with (and am already pushing those limits hard) and given that, I have to draw the line at what we know and have right now. Simply put, I am doing the wrong thing for the right reasons and in doing so am part of the problem. I suspect the throttle plates wont clean themselves and in such can be considered a constant for the time being. I mention this so owners can see how far ahead they must think before turning a screw....this is a system comprised of numerous interrelated components all relying on the other for feedback. Throw in one high resistance contact high in the food chain and all others systems deal with the false readings given from that. If you dont have the PROPER tools or COMPLETE knowledge of what you are doing, seek those that do before making changes to settings. You cant do what we had to with a vac. gauge, a OBD2 scanner, a two column mecury manometer.... you NEED an 8 column mercury manometer showing what 8 throttle plates are doing at the same time, simple as that. What does a valve job cost? Just cutting the valves and seats and bolting heads on or doing the WHOLE VALVE JOB? As my father said, "It wont fix a flat tire, but what it does, it does very well if properly implemented"
Thank Carm. There are a number of owners starting to see the merits of what we are trying to do. In time I hope that the "high maintaince" rap these cars have recieved will be better understood as this CAN be changed if we quit the 'quick fix' mentality. There is a Silver Lining to the Terrible Quality Parts situation we now have upon us in this industry. Some of us will no longer stand for it and have been forced to do something about it rather than just sit and Bit!h about it. I look at Birdman as a pioneer of this effort, sure you can make a fusebox even better than what he did back then but you wont make one that works any better than his. He will likely not see a full payback for years to come from his efforts but he faced a problem head on and offered a working solution. I have yet to use one of his products but the knowledge they are there when I need one is reassuring and out of respect for his efforts I will never have to rethink this area. Success is relative, one day we might see a payback on investment. When it fixes problems that have plagued us, we are there already.
