550 engine cooling improved!

Would love to hear which bolts were giving you trouble and what your ultimate placement was. I have had 2 other 550 owners reach out to me with minor ground installation issues, that were ultimately solved at the planned locations. Still undetermined if its the location itself or a contact issue with what's at the post already. However, if a change to the install sheet or even grounding wire length is needed, I would love the feedback. So far its been just a few isolated issues.

 

I bought the radiator relay kit for my 550. Can you send me how to installed because It come with to plugs but I only see one plug from the motor of the fan.
Where is the other going?
thank you

 

Just sent you a message back.

 

I personally own a 2000 550 Maranello. (And a Barchetta, but that’s a different story…)

I am in Houston, TX. I’ve had a lot of 550s go through my hands in the dealership, and while some of them seem to handle the 90-100+ degree F temps we get down here in the summer, most of them have had issues with cooling. My personal car (with 14K miles) has always run what I would consider “hot”, like most 550s; the coolant temp would get to 2/3, sometimes even 3/4 up the dial while sitting in traffic in the summer here in Houston. As soon as I would start moving, however, the temps would immediately come down, which made me suspect the fans.

I’ve read all of the threads about 550 cooling issues, and it makes sense to me that because I have had some 550s without cooling issues, there is an issue with fans getting old, drawing too much current (because of increased resistance), and ultimately weakening/burning out the fuse box.

I just had my shop install the SPAL 30102113 fans and the @Aerosurfer wiring harness from Ricambi. Only took a half day for them to do the work. It’s late June in Houston, outside temps are 95 degrees F, and I drove the car this afternoon.

Coolant temps now stay right around the 190 degree F mark, no matter how I drive the car, no matter how long it sits idle. The needle may move slightly north of 1/2 of the gauge (190), but comes down quickly.

I was worried there might be an increased amount of noise from the higher output fans, but while it may be a bit louder, it’s not really noticeable, and I would happily trade a bit of volume increase from the fans for the ability to drive my car in the middle of the summer here in Houston.

I’m ecstatic. If you’re having cooling issues with your 550, and you have ruled out the normal failure points, this appears to be the solution.

 

Glad you liked the harness and appreciate the shout out!

Still making these available thru Ricambi.

 

Just ordered a set of fans and harness from aerosurfer and going to hopefully install solo. Can anyone help out with recommendations on pulling out oem fans & installing new spal 30102113. Easiest way hopefully without removing radiator & ac.
TIA

 

Wait, I thought Brad said there is no problem with 550 cooling? Lots of "second and third hand" info here to the contrary.

 

Sorry for not replying sooner but I purchased the harness several months ago and the cooling is great and my mechanic loves it too (he worked at Ferrari for 16 years during the 550, 575 era and was quite impressed thought it was a great idea)

To not pull all the amperage through the board makes a lot of sense for the longevity of the board as well as making sure the fans can draw as many amps as they need.

Again. Thank you!!!


Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat

 

Mine actually generally runs cool even with AC in traffic around 190 but after melting the fuse board i'm overly cautious now. New harness from aerosurfer to take load off new board, while running new cables figured why not update fans as well. $350 both on amazon great deal imo. Hopefully be closer to 170 temp w new fans

 

190 is actually good when sitting and idling. Goes down as soon as you start moving.

 

Replacing old and worn out parts does not mean the car has issues. It means that 25 year old fans don’t work any longer as intended. Just like on the 355 which uses the same fans.

if you notice all that is being done here is replacing the old spal fan with the same newer design spal fan and adding wiring.

But you keep being snarky, it’s your native tongue apparently!

 

Brad- Have to try and keep up with you. Hard to be as snarky as you, but I am trying. Lots of first-hand examples of folks improving their 550 cooling. Barchetta/575 pulleys, Dave's steam line, John's experiments with water pump improvements and finding the 575 impeller did not fit in a 550 housing unmodified. 575 shroud fitting. New, innovative harness to take some load off the relay/fuse block. Hardly 2nd and 3rd hand info like you claimed. Funny, but 21-year-old fans seem to work fine.

 

We should all be a little nicer to each other. It’s the mclaren guys who are the enemy. The reality is the oem 550 system works but it is on the limit of not working under high ambients, age, and poor design. Full power coming off the fuse box works but it is not a good idea and that weak link is found quickly. There is no question the 550 system can be improved and the low hanging fruit is to always look at what is done in the 575. It just makes sense. If cooling improvement is on one’s mind the first step is getting the fans off the fuse box. That might be all you ever need. Second is to change to a modern fan with good cam flow. Third would be a larger capacity radiator like a Ron Davis or additional cooling like a second radiator and improved oil cooling. Fourth would be engine bay venting.

 

You guys are scaring me. I never had any cooling problems on my Maranello, even in 105 degree Texas heat. The faster I went, the cooler it ran.

Granted, my car had cooling problems with the ****ing plenums hoses blew.

 

Very well said on all accounts!

 

right. I have done nothing to my cooling system and still have fans off fuse box. I have modified my fuse box however and ever circuit in there can handle more current. I would say if tour system works leave it alone. If you have issues the path to improve is defined, easy, effective and cost effective.

 

Improving in and of itself is not what is happening. Parts replacement is. Open motor electric fans that the manufacture says should not last 20 years do fail. Failure is not that they stop spinning, it’s that they slow over time until they lock.

people are replacing parts that are worn with the same exact part, that happens to be updated from spal - which is the only one available as the old one was disco tinted by Spal. Oh and even spal says the fans should not last 20+ years! This is not difficult to understand. Parts wear out. Period.

our fans worked great until 1 month ago. Never had an issue in so cal or Arizona. Now they are failing and we are seeing some temp issues at idle only. Guess what - parts fail. Just like any other aspect or component of the car. Hoses fail, does that mean the system is poor? Belts fail, does that mean the car is subpar. Tires wear out over time if not worn out with use, should we say that Michelin had defective rubber?

You will just twist facts to support your “the 575 is better than the 550” argument in anyway.

I guess you just electively chose to ignore all of us that live in hot climates and have not had issues, including MBrandon, who said he has had many cars without issue and once he replaced the failing fans, his personal car is great now!

now, as it seems that you will condescend, bully and call someone names if they disagree with you, feel free. That is your choice, but it shows who you are. Just like when you claimed that H&R spacers were inferior to HE even though H&R are TUV approved. You just don’t like when anyone doesn’t agree with you. And rather than understanding you might not know everything, you attack. lol. You don’t even and never have owned the cars or the parts we have discussed! Lol. You do have a wealth of information on many topics for this platform and others you have owned, but c’mon - you are not the end all be all of every bit of information. Be a little humble and open to new facts that you may not know. Some of us just may know more than you about some things. Lol

as I have said and maintain, the 550 does not have inherent cooling issues. However, it is true that it was designed to be driven and not left idling. The engineers built it with that design goal. Our car, and many others, have lasted 20+ years in hot climates with no issues.

yes, parts can and do fail. So replaceing those parts is the right thing to do for any car owner. And you would always replace them with an updated part if possible. That is what is happening here. Spal updated the part and installing that has been well documented to restore the car to original or better cooling.

installing the wiring is more about protecting the board than increasing cooling imho. That is why we bought the harness last week. Our original board is good and there is no reason not to do what we can to keep it that way!

are there upgrades people can do from there if they want! 100% yes. And people should if they desire. It won’t hurt the performance and if it makes people feel good, I’m down with it. However, people doing more is not evidence that the original system is flawed. That is not logic, that is a leap.

 

Dude...stop poking the bear!

 

Brad- You really are a trip. With a nice short chain.

 

Sorry but this is a very flaky argument. Engineers are supposed to design cooling systems efficient under any kind of thermal stress the engine has to withstand. The 550 does have inherent cooling issue otherwise this thread and many others would not exist. If you and others are happy to let your cars run with a coolant temp nearing 115°C/240°F then make sure to budget for replacement headgaskets sooner than later and be happy to keep going through blown coolant hoses. That the owner's manual says coolant temp can happen to reach 115°C/240°F is a blatant confession that they have not been able to design the cooling system correctly, as never ever in a road car should coolant continually exceed 100°C/212°F, and we can consider ourselves fortunate that an external harness is only what it takes to get the cooling system to work as it should, all other things being equal. From this view point I will concede to you that the cooling system is well designed notwithstanding the poor fuseboard design, but on a car of that range the bottom line is that this is just not acceptable.

As for the fans wearing out after several decades, it is just that Spal fans have never been anywhere as durable as any of their German counterparts and never really supposed to be used on street cars. Spal fans are probably ok on race cars but on road cars they are junk. Let's see if they ever launch/produce the new brushless fans some of us have been waiting for.

In my case since fitting Nick's harness and Guido's fuseboard I have never seen coolant temp exceed 90°C/190°F ever again, also moving in traffic in very hot weather with the A/C running hard. I must add I fitted the 550 Barchetta smaller water pump pulley right after purchasing the car.

 

Timmo,

Appreciate your perspective. Don't agree with all of it, but I see where you are coming from.

This is not accurate, especially for supercars from the 70-90's. Ever driven a Murcie? A Diablo? An F40? An F50? etc. Non of these cars can sit at a light and not get hot. I don't think we can go back in time and (1) understand the direction or (2) complain given today's improved knowledge and parts. That is not fair, its Monday morning quarterbacking.

Now that is a flaky argument IMHO. How many people in this thread, even on this site have actually had a 550 overheat? The majority of people posting in this thread have said that their cars have never had an issue or they were concerned it might, so they proactively did the fans and or harness. The number of people who have done nothing is likely 99% of owners. Maybe .8% have done some improvement and the rest have maybe don't something more (pulleys, 575 shroud, etc). Saying there is a problem because a very small sample set have had one (or more accurately are concerned that they might have one) does not equate to there actually being a significant problem.

There are threads on every car forum saying all kinds of things, to state that a problem must exist because some small group posts it is not a logical or factual conclusion, its an assertion at best.

You even have M Brandon, a dealer, who very clearly said that it was not a universal issue, but through the many cars he has had some had issues at idle (and he asserts its the old fans, as I agree), and some that have had no issues. Many users, me included who have owned the 550 since new in SoCal and AZ, have reported no issues ever. Yes, our fans have just failed (on our 1998 car with 30K miles), and we are seeing slight increases at idle more than at anytime in the years since new.

An "inherent" problem is one that exists in all cars, without exception. I think the data disproves that.

Well, I owned a shop that serviced Ferrari and we have owned a 550 since new with 30K. Not once have we repaced a head gasket nor prematurely replaced blown water hoses. In fact, I just called our current independent who was a dealer tech for 30 years before his own shop and he also has never seen, heard of or done a head gasket on a 550.

who has had those temps continually? Some have had them only when at idel and not moving. Road supercars are not meant to be at idle. In every case that someone reported that the car got warm when not in motion, they have also said that once in motion, the temps immediately went down.

And we never heard of this with new cars or in the first few years. So, logically, when looking at the fans and seeing that the manufacture even claims limited time for optimal use, it would make sense that a fan replacement is due. Just like an old hose or belt. And lets be clear, people are replaceing them with the SAME fan, simply updated from the manufacturer.

Agree, the real issue is electrical, not cooling. It seems that we agree on this. But even this point is not universal. Many, us included, are still running 100% stock electrical. Now, we just ordered the harness, but it was an effort to protect our stock board, not improve cooling.

I don't think arguing if SPAL is a quality part is part of this discussion. I sure agree that in general German parts, especially of the 80s and 90's were a lot better than Italian ones!

That is awesome. We never exceeded those temps at idle, in traffic or moving prior to about 2 weeks ago on our 27 year old 1 owner 550 either! Its nice to have a car that you can drive!

So this is something you might not have considered. By over driving (under driving is with a larger pulley) you are moving the optimal working range of the water pump down in RPM's. So it makes sense you are getting better flow at idle. My understanding from Ferrari is that they believed that barchetta owners would be keeping the cars at lower RPMs so they made the change (but this is just 3rd hand from a tech we employed that was an ex-dealer tech when the Barch was launched and they were trained, so who knows). However, when you move the range down, you will possibly experience cavitation from the pump at higher RPMs. This might not be an issue depending on how you drive, but it is something to be aware of. When you spin impellers faster than they can move the fluid, cavitation will happen 100%. I have not done the engineering on the 550/575 to understand where this happens in the range. I did do it on various M and AMG cars, but that will not translate directly.

 

- The "because supercar" argument is a fallacy often put forward by shop owners always ready to charge gullible customers. A headgasket does not care about the type of engine it is being used in and will always require coolant to never exceed 100°C/ 212°F. Aluminium heads also warp under high temp, in case you were not aware.
- By the time the smaller WP pulley was introduced on the 550B Ferrari had certainly gathered enough feedback from the dealership network since the first 456 was introduced in 1994 to take note of cooling issues as fuseboards started give up the ghost and designing a smaller pulley must have been way cheaper than manufacturing a whole new fuseboard, especially as the flaky fuseboard design was at last going to bite the dust with the better designed electrics on the upcoming 575M.
- There is enough collective feedback on this thread bringing to the conclusion that the stock fuseboard IS a problem and a ticking time bomb for ALL 456s/550s. With a mere 30k miles your car and others have probably just had not enough driving time for the issue to start occurring, and replacing fans that never ran to their full potential because of the bottleneck that the stock fuseboard is does not make much sense to me.
- The RH side HG on my 550 was replaced a year before I purchased it, and for me another very good reason to buy this car over others as it means there is only one original HG left. HGs do age, and age even more quickly due to lack of use and ageing coolant and careless owners who do not drive their cars regularly enough make the problem worse.
- That cavitation thing is, in this application, irrelevant. If cavitation occurrs, which is highly doubtful with a 10% only smaller pulley, no one has ever reported increased coolant temp, which is what matters.

I kindly suggest you to review your angle of argumentation in case you are still bothered as so far your approach of denial using mostly fallacious arguments may not go down well with folks who have first hand experience with the issue and have successfully solved it, putting to a definitive rest an issue caused nothing more and nothing less by a poor factory design.

 

Timmo- Like beating your head on a wall arguing with him. Hope you do not make the insult list like me. Some folks really hate the truth. If your Ferrari cannot sit at idle on a hot day and not exceed 190° F water temperature, she needs some help. All my older Ferraris could do that and so can my current one.

 

JFC.... can you guys just get a room already... bring your dead horses too and take turns.

It's like you all are just trying to be the tallest dwarf among midgets. You're still not going to reach the corn flakes on the middle shelf.

Arguing over nearly 30 year old design. Who gives a damn about the why... some need improvements more than others. Any number of reasons for that. It's great the hobbyist following as well as the antiquated technology allows for sufficient, easy to install and affordable solutions. I'm still honored I have been able to give back with offering the Cooling fan harnesses. Like FBB said, it's one of the low hanging fruit that can offer tangible differences.

This thread has such great information on the first few pages, can we keep it relevant for any future new owners looking to reliability upgrade their cars.


New forum idea... can we just have a Thunderdome or battle bots page where personal attacks are OK and everyone can get their internet beat downs out, then remeber we are all a bunch of Ferrari owners and whatever %-ers that makes us.