F1 relay replacement

I understand ......as I'm so tired of my 360 Modena trasmission's problems that I 'm thinking to put my car for sale on Ebay !

 

well make sure and tell me what one is yours so I can avoid it



my F-1 has been nothing but perfect, I have converted some "6 speed only" guys

 

one of my stradales has a 30 amp F1 relay and the other has a 50 amp F1 relay. i heard that ferrari went to the 50 amp relay for stradales apparently because the 30 amp relay could fail under extreme race-like conditions. if it fails it could leave the F1 pump running which could burn out the pump. but you'd probably hear the pump running constantly so you could use the battery kill switch to save the F1 pump until you could replace the relay. also, the 30 amp relay and 50 amp relay are not "pin-to-pin" interchangeable so it would be a hassle to change over to a 50 amp relay. i'm not going to bother trying to change my 30 amp relay to a 50 amp relay. if i tracked the car every weekend then i "might" go to the hassle

 

Petr,

I had my F1 pump relay replaced last year just as a preventive maintenance measure and I used the 30A from Ricambi. After reading some of the threads were the relay failed and burned up F1 pumps I didn't want to take the chance. So, count me in for a new one every 2 years.

There was a thread on upgrading to the 50a on here about a year ago. More than I wanted to tackle.


Robert

 

You can easily check the condition of your relay by prying open the plastic dust cover on it with small jewller type screwdriver. Check to see if the silver contact points are pitted badly by arcing. And you should also check the resistance across the points with an ohm meter. As an emergency temporary fix you can try to file the points to clean them up, but then you should replace the bad relay ASAP.

Switching from a 30A to 50A Stradale relay is not that difficult if you don't mind cutting the OEM wiring harness. You just need to buy a new relay socket with the bigger blade type sockets from electronic parts supplier. Oh by the way the 30A is a 5 blade while the 50A is a 4 blade setup. The extra blade is just a ground.

If the relay is good, then you need a SD2 or SD3 to properly diagnose your problem. You need to check for pump pressure, solenoid valve leakage etc. If pump pressure is too low then you probably need a new pump. If your valve leakage is high, then you might need a QPV valve. In worst case you might need an entirely new control valve and/or actuator assembly. If you think the F1 pump is expensive wait till you price these parts.

The two position sensors may also be at fault. Again these are jaw dropping expensive parts.

The TCU is also known to not switch on the F1 pump sufficiently often enough to maintain the system hydraulic pressure when ambient and engine temperature is very high and you are shifting very often as in racing or track day type situation. Sympton is missed shifts and have to wait for system pressure to build up. If this is your case then the only cure is to wire in a custom made control system in parallel to the TCU.

Bottom line is this. If the problem is not the relay or lack of F1 fluid, you best leave this job to some one who knows this system.

 

SD3 costs close to $30,000 and someone has to teach you how to use it. It is NOT user friendly to say the least.

Take your car to a professional who is familiar with the F1 system. You will save money by not replacing many parts by trial and error.

If you are a very good mechanic, then you can try to manually force the relay to trigger the F1 pump for 3 to 5 seconds. If by doing so you can then shift, then most likely your problem is low system hydraulic pressure. F1 works only if the system pressure is about 42Bar to 60 Bar.

If you manually force the F1 pump to work for longer than 3-5 seconds, then you may over pressure the system and may damage the F1 pump. In fact this is what happens when the relay fails. The points weld themselves together, so the pump is on continuously. Pressure shoots to over 60 Bars, and eventually the pump stalls and burns out the small electric motor.

 

If the position sensor is defective, then the car will not shift. It tells the TCU if the actuators are in their proper position. With an SD2 or SD3 you can turn the sensor by hand and see if the values are within range. If you see spike values out of range then you know your sensor is defective. Since your unit's cover is missing, there is high chance it has been damaged or the electronics have corroded.

Like I said before, it's a repair job best left to a professional who knows this system and has the SD2/SD3. Otherwise you run the risk of replacing a lot of expensive parts unnecessarily and still not fix the problem.

Our race team spent 3 years problem solving this F1 system's various failure modes, so it's not something DIY beyond the obvious relay & pump problem.

 

The most common F1 shift problems we encountered were temperature related. Cold is fine but after engine warm up and say 3 hot laps on the track then F1 system starts to miss shifts occasionally then gets progressively worse as the engine bay temperature gets hotter. If you wait long enough between shifts say 10 to 20 seconds then can usually shift. So if you have a marginally working component, such as a pump, sensor, solenoid valve that is affected by temperature you end up with this type of failure.

If you have a broken part, then typically no shift regardless of temperature.

If manually forcing the relay to turn on pump immediately solves your no shift problem then it's probably not the position sensor but low hydraulic pressure. So you then have to check if its a weak pump, a leaky solenoid valve, a bad pressure sensor, air in the hydraulic lines or actuator.....

 

From looking at the service records on my car from the previous owner he had a similar problem and got worse on hot weather.. The service shop determined that the hydraulic pressure was below minimum pressure and ended up replacing the F1 pump and the relay.

Good luck.

 

Hi guys,

Updating this post more as a reference should someone try to upgrade their F1 pump relay to a 50Amp from the 30Amp version.

I bought a 70 Amp relay holder and the standard 50 Amp relay so have to reconnect the wires to the new relay holder (and combine the 2 neutrals as explained by Aldousvoice: https://aldousvoice.com/2015/10/15/ferrari-360-f1-relay-upgrade/).

Although the description explains that the guy cut his wire, I was reluctant to do that so tried to remove the wires from the 30Amp relay holder and faced massive frustration for a good hour. Although I was able to push down the retaining metallic clips, clearly there was something additional blocking the connectors from being removed from the holder.

I then had an Alleluhiah moment when I realized that at the bottom of the holder there was a tiny plastic piece blocking the metallic connector inside => I then realized that the holder itself has 2 positions: 1 OPEN position and 1 CLOSED position.

As per the pictures attached, before being able to remove the wires, you need to push the grey plastic piece out by c. 2mm and this will move the "tiny plastic piece blocking the metallic connector inside", leading the connector to be removable as long as the usual metallic tab is pressed down (standard way of removing these connectors).

That was the good news which hopefully will allow people to stop being soooo frustrated.

The bad news is that the new relay has much wider metallic pads so you will need anyway to remove the current metallic connectors at the end of each wire, to replace them with the proper size metallic connectors. However, doing it this way will allow avoiding cutting these wires and keeping the original length of the wires (so saves a good 3cm in length,

Hope that helps

 

A simpler solution is to just buy the upgraded V23134-B57-X266 relay with hardened contacts. BMW part number 61.36-8 366 646/01. Exact fit and mine has been going strong for a decade.

 

Thank for this tazandjan. Looking at the 266, the fact it has a fly back diode (always wondered why this is not ststematically added to relays used for relatively important loads as costs nothing and is tyhe bext way to protect a circuit) is a great plus over what I was looking to do. Hopefully I can figure out which of the 2 black wires was connected to which terminal (since I have disconnected all wires from the relay holder) :-(

Have ordered one at the local BMW shop.

 

The original wiring should look like this:

Image Unavailable, Please Login
Both black wires go to the same earth, so unless the gauge is different, it shouldn't matter. NB: The graphic shows the socket side of the relay holder (not the wire side).

socket 4 will be the relay coil, so shouldn't need a large wire.

 

Actually the 2 grounds have different connectors (one large and a narrower one) so fit in slots of different sizes in the holder. It was therefore easier than thought to put back in place.

 

Will this relay work for a 360 Modena? I assume so, but just wanted to be sure.

 

Affirmative, all those built before the change-over to 50 amp relays in Fall/Winter 2003.