My Smog woes

My pump on my 97 runs for about as long as yours does. A couple minutes or so, then never again till the next cold start - near as I can tell.

 

I am sorry to hear this. I had this exact issue with my 2000 550 Maranello. The car drove perfectly but secondary air pump monitor would not set. The pump was replaced and worked fine, but the software would not set. Replaced part after part - ECU's, sending units, O2 sensors (thousands of dollars) and performed countless drive cycles which consisted of hundreds of unenjoyable, wasted miles due to the prescribed format. My problem was never solved and I no longer own the car. Since you are local, you should discuss with Gianfranco at Ferrari of Silicon Valley. He worked on my car for months trying to solve this and may have some new ideas to offer. I think the 20 year old Italian software is just not going to work properly in some cases. My car could not be registered in California. I moved on to a gated 575M and have had no issues at all with it. My advice if you want to keep the car, and have no CEL's or drivability issues, is to register the car in another state. It will pass just about anywhere else even if smog is required.

 

I don’t have any answers but I do have a working car. If You need any data I could provide let me know.

 

Isn’t the lambda sensors sensing the mixture and gives a signal if something is wrong? It is wrong if the combustion is not right. Due to a bad spark plug, ignition wires, coil pack, injectors, wrong fuel pressure etc. I have heared that the exhaust can be more «out if tune» while the engine is warming up, but not too far. Maybe something is wrong there...? If water temp is low for example the car gets a much richer mixture. If the sensor is bad, or the thermostat is a bit open, it might not be warm as fast as the car / ECU is used to. I am just quessing. The gauge has another sensor than the ECU which has two. If I remember right. Is the CEL on after the car is completely warm? And does it run perfectly smooth on all twelve cylinders warm and cold? The ECUs is German Bosch and seems to be quite dependable...

 

Sounds like smog tech was right if you got no code unplugged but then you still fail because the monitor is not set. Someone needs to find the VW engineer who found the special way to fix the diesels to fix our Ferraris.

The evap exemption is only because of the shear number of cars that fail.

California just sucks! The weather is great by the beach and everything else I can do without. There has to be somewhere else in the world where the temp is 70F +/- 15?

 

I could not agree with you more...this state is simply beautiful to see but living here is a whole other talk show..!
They are ripping peoples heads off with vehicle regs on old cars and trying to push them off the road by pushing very tight smog thresholds.
Don't get me wrong I completely understand the clean air motivation but just be reasonable about it.
Sorry boys just had to get that out...

Ferraridriver-Below are the facts on your CEL and monitors:
1-If there is a fault code pending or permanent within the ECM you will never be able to forfill that portion of the monitoring system simply because the ECM is NOT happy with its feedback....So
2-If your ECM is happy....NO fault codes at all then you are simply at the mercy of the ECM and that particular portion of the system to self check and complete the readiness flag or as some call the monitor for that part of the ECM...this could be a painful process because as you have learned the engineers have programed a certain driving sequence to check that box....this applies to all modern day vehicles.
3-Note: disconnecting your battery will always bring you back to square one with ALL readiness or monitors.
Good luck with your vehicle.

 

What would it take to have the car registered in another state? And have those plates on the car in Cali?

 

ECU's are in the driver and passenger footwell. Just for ****s and grins take out the passenger ECU and look carefully at the pins. 100% of 550's somehow leak water that trickles down the wiring into the connector and into the ECU pins and corrodes them. 1st there is no know way to stop the leak. 2nd there is no good way to make a drip loop. While these cars function perfect in the rain I avoid rain and avoid direct waterhose washing of the RF A piller area.

Could you get lucky and just clean out the ECU connector and connector area and win? Also I'm not sure on ECU swap left to right. isn't there something taboo on that because of the immobilizer imprinting? If true then you can't swap and it is one more reason we should try to figure out Trev360's way of deleting the imobilo on the 5.2 motronics.

 

I said footwell but it is footwell behind the side panel kickplate area

 

Wow. My car is due in May and you have me thinking I'd be wise to pre-emptively remove the SAP to check for crud before I find myself in the same position.

 

They both store codes. They can be swapped provided both have spent their life in that car.

There are a number of people who reprogram Motronic boxes to subvert various monitors for modified cars so they'll pass. Might talk to some of them to see if they can help you out. .

 

Sorry Dave...hope with all this input things work out !

 

Like Brian said, each Motronic ECU runs 6 cylinders and each has pretty much the same capabilities. The right ECU stores the alarm PIN while the left one does not. As noted by Brian, you can swap them and then the new ECU will also memorize the alarm PIN. This will make both now unusable in another 550, which is not an issue for you.

 

What would be cool is if you remove the immobilizer and swap the ECU's so the new ECU never gets imprinted with an immobilizer. If the car then started and ran it would be a very very good day! But I'm sure life is just not that convenient.

 

The Mercedes Benz version of the SD2/3 has the ability to erase that imprint so a unit can be plugged in for testing/diagnosis so it is possible in Motronic architecture but Ferrari chose to not give us that ability. They are in the parts selling business and not the service business. Interesting considering most diagnostic procedures at some point say to "Substitute with a known good unit". Ferrari just expects that to be permanent and not just a test.

 

Trev360 broke into the 360 motronic and found the hidden spot in that hecdex mess that fingers the immobilizer. He is able on 360's motronics (I forget 7.2 motronic?) to excise that piece of code and the ECU is none the wiser. We need a 355, 456 or 550 guy with that level of computer know how to follow Trev's path and free us of our pain. I have many other ways to make my car immobile and the last thing I need is wonkey Ferrari immobilizer. It has been the only thing to strand me in my 550.

 

I am pretty sure Specialized ECU Repair is already offering that service.

 

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FWIW Dave this is what I see from my generic kiwi OBD2 phone based reader ignition off. I have found Ferraris in general to be hit and miss with setting monitors. You can have 2 550s do the same drive cycle and have different monitors set vs the other car. Weird. My current 550 seems to set monitors easy but because all the problems I have had to solve with other people's cars I am fearful. I no longer use the battery kill switch. I use trickle chargers but turn them off for 2 weeks then on for 2 weeks and the cycling seems to enhance battery life. When I change Ferrari batteries I put minimal 12V power to keep power in the system so that there is no reset needed of the monitors. Your thread is scary and my smog check comes due in the next couple months. I'm thankful for my screenshot above and no MIL codes so I get a free pass for 2 years. My car is 2001. My sold 2000 took twice the drive cycle to get all monitors to set. Go figure!

 

I’m probably missing something but if the problem is the pump not running at the right time why not activate it off the ignition with a relay? Have it run all the time? Get you through the test?

 

Yes they made a bypass module but the Ferrari system still needed to be in place and a few other things (I forget now researched it once) made their solution a bit unfinished. Trev's solution goes to the heart of the matter and changes the Motronic ECU coding. Trev's is a much more elegant solution. But for the most part we don't worry too much about the immobilizer until we are bitten by it.

 

Not just Ferrari. My Ford Lightning wouldn't set cat monitor after about 10 tries at the drive cycle. I just ignored it. About 500 miles later it was fine. I have had 550's set all the monitors idling in the shop, never moved off the rack. I figured out how to run a 360 cycle driving the car on the hoist. The drive cycle stuff is a load and no, it doesn't need to be done in order, it is just a set of circumstances where if everything is right all should set. I had a 360 that I picked out one part of the drive cycle and could set the o2 monitor at will.

 

It isn't a matter of the pump running. The computer needs to be looking for the response from the O2 sensors. Can never happen during normal pump operation.