430 Airbag ECU connections

You have to remove the center console. The airbag ecu is under the front center console. IMPORTANT.. Before unplugging an airbag connection make sure you shut off power to the car utilizing the battery cut off switch
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The ECU has pretty heavy duty connectors and not easy to get to

If you suspect a wire or connection I would def start with under the seats, connectors are much more fragile and there is seat movement

If you're US based, you'll also need to check the COPD (weight sensor pad) in the passenger seat

Is there any particular time it's coming on? Something that is triggering it?

 

Just taking shots I'm the dark here, but if that is the pattern, maybe something to do with the COPD, since the seat is the only thing that would be affected by an increase in cabin temp, maybe there is some swelling in the seat that caused it to be impacted, again, just a guess.

Have you tried turning the airbag off with the key switch in the right door jamb just to see if that makes any difference?

 

Interesting. I was under the impression that airbag system lights were non- auto resetting. i.e. once the lamp was illuminated due to a fault, it stayed on and Ferrari SD tools were required to extinguish the lamp.

Experts…. Does the light extinguish if you pull the Airbag fuse or does the instrument panel need to see an ok signal from a powered ECU before it extinguishes the light? Is it possible that the lamp circuit itself is intermittent?

 

I think i would be pulling the battery if messing about with that.

 

It’s interesting to see that the Airbag System is only powered by the ignition, but I think I’d be playing it safe by at least turning off the battery and waiting for the capacitors to discharge.

 

I dont have much faith in a switch in the negative line

 

Given the number of components in the system, the difficulty in accessing these components and the lethality of these components, wouldn’t it be best just to take the car to someone with the proper diagnostic tools?

Airbag lights can be caused by:

ECU
Lamp circuit failure (intermittent or otherwise)
Passenger seat COPD
LH Seat belt pretensioner
RH Seat belt pretensioner
Driver's airbag (including clockspring)
Passenger airbag

 

Some quick digging lead to this:

https://www.berlingoforum.com/thread-13088.html

https://www.6speedonline.com/forums/cayenne-958/412704-driver-s-side-airbag-stage-1-2-limit-value-exceeded-anyone-ever-fixed.html

Both issues correlate the other thread you found citing clock spring.

I realize those are both not Ferrari but likely use similar components being Euro vehicles and would in turn have similar issues.

I'd start there.

 

Don’t know what 1st stage is, but there are only 2 wires going to the airbag from the ECU (basically for trigger power and an earth). Since the ECU is difficult to get to, rather than doing resistance checks between the ECU and the airbag, perhaps, as suggested in the links, put a resistor across the pins of the plug going to the airbag. But what I don't understand is how the airbag light can be intermittent. I thought airbag lights were latched on if faults were detected.

Here's an F430 clockspring with what looks like a broken 2 pin airbag connector.

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The yellow/orange sheathed wiring is for the airbag. The black 8 pin plug goes to the manettino module (for horn, start and manettino functions).

Here are some other views of unbroken airbag connectors, but it's not clear what kind of latching mechanism they have. Given that the first photo shows a broken plug, they may be difficult to remove (?)

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I don't know how accessible the outer 12 (?) pin plug is to allow you to do wiring checks of the clockspring itself (when fitted to the car). The wiring diagrams suggest that the airbag wiring going to the clockspring outer plug is brown and blue (and the wires are on pins 9 and 10). It looks like the wires are different colours when they come out of the clockspring (going the airbag). Yellow and pink? Or white and red?

You could do a resistance check across the airbag itself. When doing the checks, maybe insert a known value resistor in series with the airbag wiring to reduce the test voltage going to the airbag from the ohmmeter.

 

Great tip, thanks. So 1.6 ~1.9 ohms sounds like a good target value for the self-shorting connector.

Seems like an improvement on earlier Ferraris. Maybe only certain airbag faults are non-resettable.


Was the purple/yellow connector easy to remove?

The Ferrari F430 airbag wiring diagrams only include the wiring to the car side connector anyway

 

I see now that photos of the spring contacts inside the plug confirm the pin numbering system of the plug. Pins 9 & 10 short via the spring contacts. The correlates to the limited information in the wiring diagrams.

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It's a pity you didn't do any other wiring checks to see which pins on the 12 pin plug on the car side (D072) of the clock spring match the 8 & 2 pin plugs on the wheel side (EM37 and airbag plug). Pins 1~8 on the 12 pin plug may not correspond to pins 1~8 on the 8 pin plug.

The are noticeable wire colour changes going in and coming out.

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e.g. pins 9 and 10 (airbag wires) on D072 are white/blue and brown/white going in and white and pink coming out. I don't know which corresponds to which.