Gold Kit still in use?

No it doesn't.

 

THANK GOD!

 

Most guys who have a heart attack were feeling just fine yesterday. Often you don't know what you don't know. People go to pot very slowly and don't realize it. It's Christmas. very get together with someone you haven't seen in a long time and just think, "Wow!...They look like he!l."

 

LOL...is this a competition?

 

Sounds like bad install not the GCK. The issue with GCK isn't does it work. It is the theoretical fretting corrosion effecting longevity. Well here we are a decade and more away from the 1st GCK installs and those cars are working perfectly with no apparent visual corrosion. I think the GCK has proven it works longer than the 1st set of tin pins from the factory. If the factory pins worked we would have never evolved to the GCK solution.

BMW's are made better or the engine bay is not as hostile environment. BMW's typically don't have water leaking on the ECU like 550's for example. I have owned several and still own a BMW. I have unclipped 10+ year old BMW plastic electrical connectors and it doesn't break. I have had many Ferrari connectors and sensors just crumble in my hand. Dave @ SRI was constantly evolving. It was cleaning, wire refresh, gold pins, positive crimp tool, and thicker rubber boots. He was just getting into sourcing the connectors too. Heat and poor quality despite being Bosch leave our connectors wiggly on the sensors. That wiggle compromises connections. The new pins were of higher quality everywhere, well coated with gold, tighter connecting, but the connector still wobbled. The next GCK iteration probably added new better fitting connector to sensors for solid BMW like connections. Every time I work on a bmw I have to fight to get the connector off. Ferrari you can just bang them with the butt of a screw driver and sometimes they pop right off. Ferrari uses the low bidder. They have no interest in making a better car. If they did we would still not have sticky interiors from 1990 in new Ferraris. Honestly, the interior in a Kia is more robust!

 

Yes, the shop sucked. You know the place. He was run out of Liberty Indiana with his tail between his legs.

The scary part is his buddy Ian is still repairing planes and hired his sorry ass. I killed a purchase of a 421 because his finger prints were on it.

There was no evolution to a GCK. It was / is all BS. My car has been spot on since pulling the crap out.

You buy what ya like. But sponsoring the nonsense that is Helm's GCK is a farce.

 

Some only drink scotch some only drink gin...

 

Hogwash.

The products Helms burped out and pitched by his minions on this forum back in the day was embarrassing.

I was stuck with the BS GCK. His silly expensive silicone hoses failed twice. Stuff is crap, whether you drink scotch, gin or whiskey to pretend it's not.

How @rob lay let Dave Helms use this forum back in the day, free of charge, to sell that crap is beyond me.

 

I was here at the beginning of Fchat when Ferrari-list finally went away and we got the bandwidth for the first pictures on Fchat. I was here and lived the problems we had with the shiny new 348 in 1990. You weren't here to experience anything about what was pitched on Fchat back in the day or the evolution of how we in the aftermarket and on Fchat fixed these cars. You are the lucky beneficiary of those who came before you. You can throw stones all you want but you are really just wrong.

 

I was only interested in the technical outcomes to make the cars better. I never paid attention to what these guys did outside the technical forum. I have always been a fan of DaveHelms. I don't know the other guys. I actually took the time to meet the man in person and see him in his shop.

In the early 80's I apprenticed as a Ferrari mechanic with Lyle Tanner's head mechanic who broke away from Lyle to start his own Ferrari service business. I got an insider look into the industry and FNA shops and became friendly with other FNA mechanics. Before there was sonic belt tension there was the staeger tensiometer to measure belt tension. When you rebuild a Ferrari motor there was a very specialized factory Ferrari tool to line hone the crank and camshaft bores. It was the best way to do that job to Ferrari specs. In all the time I worked as an apprentice and all the visits to various shops including FNA shops I never saw either of those tools and I specifically asked to see them as a curious onlooker.

So I go to meet Dave for the first time and in his engine building room those tools are sitting right on the bench. We talked about those tools. He was shocked I knew what they were and the theory to use them. There is a lot more I won't write here but DaveHelms is the real deal. His successful shop and clients who send him cars from other states supports that. Last I talked to Dave was when Colorado had some massive fires. Roads were impassable and his town cut off. He was overlanding in his FJ to get food, water and his neighbor's prescriptions filled... He is a good guy.

 

You continue to ignore that two of claims of the GCK, no fretting and greater clamping force, are completely against physics. No fretting only applies to gold on gold. Gold rubbing on tin still can result on fretting of the tin. Additionally, as I posted, greater clamping force isn't necessarily a good thing. In fact, too much results in worse fretting even with gold plated contacts because the greater friction wears through the gold plate down to the base metal which then undergoes fretting. And when one side is tin to start with there is no need to wear through the gold.

Yes, we're are a decade out from the GCK and no problems with it. That doesn't mean it was/is a good solution to any contact problem. Heck, I'm 29 years out from the build date of my car and no problem with OEM connectors. I venture to say the majority of F355s have OEM harnesses and connectors and are still out there running. Fact is, we are 24 to 29 years out from these cars being manufactured and if anything we should be seeing an up swing in contact related problems among the majority of cars which do not have the GCK installed. Where are they? I guess the OEM tin connect improved with age? (LOL). You see, as time goes by it simply proves further that the GCK was a scam, same as the silicon hose kit. Both address an invented issue. Some cars suffered problems from issues not directly related to the type of contact material and DH jumped in, took advantage, wrongly claimed the source of the problem was the contact material, and created a solution to that invented problem which never solved anything because the male side of the contacts remained tin.

This is laughable. If there is water dripping down on the connections gold on tin will under go galvanic corrosion where as tin on tin won't. Just a terrible example which shows how little you actually think about this. The solution, which you probably corrected in your car, is to eliminate the water intrusion. See this is the misdirection. Water infiltration > contact problem > conclusion = it's the contacts that are the problem. Stupid! Additionally, every example of a failed connector on a f355 that has been posted here or on DH's sight showed just that, massive intrusion of some form of contaminate. Same misdirection. Must be the contacts.

You really need to stop supporting this scam, and open your eyes to reality. The GCK 1) introduces a potential problem of galvanic corrosion, 2) Mixed metal electrical contacts are not acceptable in sensitive electronics, 3) the kit does not reduce the potential for fretting corrosion but may actually increase it due to the claimed higher clamping force, 4) There is no evidence that properly maintained electronics on a 355 suffer failure any more than other cars of the decade, 5) The parts Ferrari used were no different than those used on other cars built at the time. Time to stop you bleeding heart BS stories and face reality.

 

I suspect regardless of any of his products etc, on the specific topic of gold connector kit, The magic in the gold kit is the new jr timer pins and spades not the gold. The idea of a whole kit and tools 100% has merit however few cars needed the whole car repinned . The gold bit was more gimmick. It was the new quality connections but I do t think the gold hurt. The kit was a lot of money for what you got though but it was hassle free so that’s was also part of the value proposition.

I think a quality tin kit at 1/2 the price may have been better received perhaps. Definitely less controversial.

 

I fully experienced a GCK failure.

I fully experienced two SRI silicone hose failures.

Sorry I was late to the party.

Here was the latest one. Expensive SRI hoses using a crappy molding processes:

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There a bunch where you took crap for letting Dave sell his stuff without sponsorship fees. I never understood your willingness to do that. Heck we discussed once back in 2015? 14?

There's million of old threads like this out there: https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/posts/146599518/

Movin' on....

For the original poster, @ernie has posted electrical connection options.

Another to consider... There are more. I just do not have them handy.

https://www.customconnectorkits.com/product-listing/amp-connectors

 

Some here keep wanting to make this about the man. We may as well discuss abortion or gun control. I'm only interested in what makes our cars better. We have real problems with more than one cause. With connection failures it can be heat, corrosion, age, substandard parts who really knows. Dave came up with the best solution at the time and it is still working today. Ernie copied the concept for a fraction of the cost. The red tools were made to Dave's specs. The FBB2 took two manufacturing tries to get right. The green tool is an easily sourced tool for cheap. It is something Ernie would have found online that works but not as well as the FBB2 with better steel prongs. It's like Dave made an SKF bearing and Ernie was the chinese bearing knock off. They both work. Take your pick.

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These are problems we really have. We have factory connector pins that look like this spread open after 1 year in service. Tell me you can get a good connection with that. We have factory bosch sensors disintegrating and connections failing. We have harness failure allowing ingress of contaminates causing connection failure.

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Take apart your FI harness and you will be shocked at the poor construction. I beta tested Dave's harness too. It had milspec wire, quality connections, and an amazing cladding way better than anything from Ferrari. It was a thing of beauty.

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Hey Carl, do you know why the JPT gold plated connectors aren't gold plated at the crimp end, but remain tin? Care to guess?

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That comparison isn't even close. But whatever.

I have a professional set of terminal tools and have been building / repairing wire looms since I was 16.
There's is no 'magic tool'. These are simple, common, widely used connectors....... but there you go again... "Dave's specs". hahahahahaha.

It's about the products being kinda crappy. In the end though, it is about the man who seems to endlessly defend his over-rated, over-priced products.

Hell, I called Dave last year about the failed heat exchanger hose. He said I must have done something wrong ( ) and offered to sell me a new set for....wait for it.... $1,000.

Look, You aren't going to change my mind. I have failed Dave Helms, Scuderia Rampante products sitting on my bench to prove it....and some phone calls (and posts from him here) to tell me I am wrong somehow. Crappy, cold molded hoses that fail is my fault? WTF?

To the OP: Get a great set of terminal tools and find a solid source for connectors, pins, and boots and all will be fine. Take the money you saved and buy something nice for your wife / girlfriend. That way you'll get ****ed and at least get something out of it.

 

Merry Christmas to all. First I'll say sorry to Rob. I really was not aware of the depth of the sh!tstorm you navigate while providing this place for us. I Thank You for that! So this will be my last post in this thread.

John, I'm not an engineer but I "can" guess. Why isn't the body of the whole pin gold? Each metal has properties. For example malleability. Complete gold would not work here. Cost! Gold is $2000/troy oz while a pound of Tin is 10 bucks. Don't use gold where you don't need it. Fretting corrosion. You get it with the micro movement of the parts. A quality crimp is supposed to be as good as solder and prevents that micro movement. Crimp vs. solder is whole discussion by itself. A quality crimp joins the material so that it is air tight to minimize corrosion. Our Ferrari's and a BMW have crimped pins. BMW crimps with a quality machine and the results show in BMW longevity. Remove our badly crimped factory pins only a couple years in service and you can brush the copper wire and the corrosion dust will surprise you. That's why Dave tried a bunch of crimp tools before he got a decent hand crimper for the kit. I must have tested 3 of them for him. You don't need gold at the crimp end of the pin. You need appropriately sized wire for the pin, a quality crimp tool and a person who can use it. As Mitchel says this is all moot because the kit is not available. The take away is our wiring harness is terrible and there are sound principals and a known path to improve it.
Bruce Lee — 'It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.'

 

Well, you should read my posts.

The reason is simple. As I noted before, depends on use. See this spec below? Look at the spec circled in red. These are tin and gold JPT but also, one is spec for tin at the wire crimp, the other is spec as gold plated at the wire crimp. You can get gold contacts with with tin at the crimp as well. The reason is the same as the contact surface. The one with tin at the crimp end is supposed to be used with tin plated wires. The one with gold is to be used with gold plated wires.

Now, I'll give you that Ferrari did use unplated copper wires which isn't the best thing to do, however, the electro chemical potential difference between tin and copper is only 0.48 mv where as the difference between gold and tin is 1.82 mv. This (tin on copper) is the probably reason you found corrosion at the crimp. Even with the GCK, assuming the crimp area is tin, the copper to tin issue remains but there is a much greater potential for galvanic corrosion at the connection to a sensor or injector where you have gold on tin. Still, copper/tin> tin corrodes. If the connector has gold at the crimp, copper/gold > the copper corrodes. And copper alone is not particularly resistant to corrosion if wet.

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Also, I don't se that the original Ferrari connectors are of poor quality or poorly crimped. I just took this picture today from my car. The connector appear similar to what is available today. Obviously mine have been kept dry.

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Anyway, these discussions are always fun. I'll take the side of science.

 

Just adding a data point for anyone who might be interested. Over a decade ago my 328 was the first to have an SRI GCK installed. I included pre/post GCK dyno testing which, like this thread, brought with it a fair amount of debate (A 328 Love Story: Scuderia Rampante Gold Connector Kit | FerrariChat). Over a decade later the car runs incredibly well without any issues. Included are close up photos of several of the plug terminals. While I can not prove lack of microsopic dissimilar metal irregularities, to the naked eye there is no apparent corrosion. I also installed the kit on my 355F1 approximately 5 years ago and the car works flawlessly. Again, I share this only as a data point from someone who is satisfied with the results.

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I'm glad you cars is running fine and you have no problems. But you are still missing the point. No electronics manufacture in the world, whether building quantum computers or washing machines, or anything in between, would mix metals at contacts. It's just not done in any electronic devise that is properly engineered. Accept that. If you feel you need to keep defending this because you bought into the scam and it makes you feel better about it, OK. But posting pictures like these is like a 50 year chain smoker posting pictures of his lung X rays and saying, "See, I don't have any lung cancer".

 

John, I completely agree that someone is missing the point here I'm not defending anyone or anything, I was responding to the original poster who noted that that they hadn't seen much information recently on the GCK so I added my experience. In the thread that I referenced from 2013 (post #40) I also committed to reporting back on my experience, in particular, the health of the replaced connectors both visually and with an oscilloscope, monitoring TDC/Tach sensor signals along with frequency valve duty cycle measurements. While the visual inspection was recent, the last time I scoped the sensors was about a year ago while I was performing a major service which showed no abnormalities.

On a separate note, as a PSA for anyone who may be a chain smoker and is concerned about lung cancer I would recommend annual low dose CT scan for screening rather than standard chest X-ray. Individuals who are candidates for screening along with the risks and benefits are discussed here: Who Should Be Screened for Lung Cancer? | CDC