Preparing for Major: add'l service + pre-track inspection items

I'd highly suggest you do heavy research before you cut up your wiring harnesses installing connectors you don't need. Look to the experts in the electronic industry that state gold on tin is a mistake. Papers have been written on this topic by engineers and scientists.

 

Gothspeed CV boot shield may not be sufficient of an answer
Fuel pump gasket, that is a sleeping dog
Definitely water pump and t-stat
Gold connector kit, oh well, it's your car
Check suspension crack and weld up
Engine mounts
All coolant hoses including the radiator hoses
Radiator fans, probably close to being gone after all these years
CV boots
Temp sensor
Thermal switch
O2 sensors

 

If you have a professional dealer they are most capable of meeting ferrari standards. We are keyboard warriors with limited experience on our own cars. Often for everyone who gives one piece of advice there is another who disagrees. Dave does not like the GCK and he has good reasons. I love the GCK used it on several ferraris and I am 5 years I think and counting and still no failures.

A trackday tech is very easy to pass. A car that does not pass really is not street road worthy. Those guys may have saved your Ferrari and maybe your life. I have a friend who oiled himself on track spun off and rolled. There is a nice video of a friend on track capturing a CV axle flying toward him falling out the bottom of the 911 racecar ahead of him. Yeah the FNA dealer knows what your car needs. I would go with that.

 

Simply put, the GCK is a red herring. Cost of the kit is some 10 x the value of the parts at retail and it's a labor intensive install. If you check your wiring harness you will see that where there are gold pins on the components (throttle position sensor as I recall) Ferrari already had gold connectors.

Do as you like but Jaguar, Volvo and BMW have all, in the past, issued recalls or service bulletins to correct issues where wiring harnesses mistakenly had gold contacts in connectors mating with sensors with tin pins.

This is what mating gold to tin can do (connection on right). Sure, electrically it still works but try to get it apart without destroying something. In this case the tin female jack had to be removed and replaced from the equipment it was mounted on. This could be what happens to your MAF, TPS, Injectors, coil packs, ignition modules, ECU, .... It has nothing to do with what you like or don't like. This is the risk you take. Is it worth it?
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mshobe,

fwiw, I think the belt service may well be the LEAST important part of the engine out service. You have already been warned about a number of other issues that will be easier to fix with the engine out.

I bought my car three years after an engine out service, which I thought was perfect. I planned to do another in two years after I knew the car better. But more important I knew that I could get EVERYTHING brought up to snuff, not just the belt change that many do to sell a "fresh" car. I took it to a shop with older mechs who knew these cars since day one. This shop has a "standard" engine out belt change which includes a number of "while we're in there" items for X dollars. I figured if I got out for 1.5 time X, both the car & I would be happy. I missed that goal by $30. But we're both happy!

 

mshobe, congratulations on your 355, I think we acquired our cars around the same time and I too am due for an engine out service soon which I plan on performing myself. I will be installing a gold connector kit on my 355 based on my favorable experience with it on my 328 which has now been in service on that car for 3 and a half years. I appreciate the dissimilar metal argument which has been discussed many times here, however, I also appreciate the real world observations from those that have installed the kit. Approximately 1/3 of the original tin terminals on my 328 were showing corrosion similar to what John demonstrated in the photo from post #5, however, these were on the original tin on tin connections. The first two photos show what the harness side of the TDC sensor plug terminals looked like on my 328. The corresponding sensor plug showed similar corrosion and I ended up replacing that sensor as well as several others due to these findings. In the 3 and half years that I've had the kit installed on the 328 I've inspected the plugs at least yearly (I had been performing inspections more frequently but I spaced those out given the relative stability observed). The third and fourth photos show what the post GKC TDC and tach sensor plugs looked like at last check. I have also been performing yearly oscilloscope readings on the TDC and tach sensors during operation and have found continued stability. The car is an absolute pleasure to drive and although it has been some time since the connector swap, I can still appreciate the difference pre/post GCK (I drove the 328 regularly for 5 years prior to installing the SRI kit). So there you go, one more data point to include with the others. At the end of the day only you can decide what is right for your car. It looks like I may be local to you so please let me know if there's anything I can do to help. My first project on the 355 was replacement of the passenger side inner CV boot which it sounds like is on your list of "To Do's."
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Great comparison, 30 years to 3 1/2. Most examples of corrosion of connectors which have been discussed are a result of moisture infiltration. Tin on tin will not corrode in a dry environment. The same can be said to gold on tin. However, the galvanic differences between gold and tin make the corrosion due to moisture infiltration much more rapid and severe. The corrosion on the tin/gold audio connection occurred in a few years. Sure, with the GCK you may not have a problem, immediately. But the galvanic differences will, over time, result in the consumption of the tin plating in the pins of the sensors and injectors.

Now, aside from galvanic corrosion you still have to deal with fretting corrosion which is the primary cause of poor long term electric contact in automotive connectors. It is well documented that fretting corrosion is significantly worse for gold on tin than tin on tin. FYI, fretting corrosion is the result of microscopic motion between the surfaces of the two metals in contact, primarily induced by vibration. Much has been said about increased clamping force of the GCK parts. However, this has never been documented. But, increased clamping force is actually another double edged sword. It may reduce the relative motion of the contact surfaces but, due to the increased loading or clamping, any motion would result in increased fretting. Additionally, most fretting issues can be solved by cleaning the contacts. This does not mean spraying contact cleaner on them, but rather actually lightly scraping or mechanically cleaning the surfaces to removed any build up of dislodged material. See attached figure below.

Thus, you have your choices:

1) Tin on tin -- minimizes fretting corrosion but still subject to oxidation in a damp/wet environment.

2) Gold on gold -- minimizes fretting corrosion and eliminate most environmental effects.

3) Gold on tin -- increases fretting corrosion and enhances corrosion of the tin side of the connection due to environmental effect.

Those are facts.

Note that one thing never get emphasized is that while you replace the female side of the connection with gold plated contacts all the tin sensors pins remain tin. If a car that has gold on tin contacts and one that has tin on tin are subjected to the same environment and use, you will find that the tin male pins on the sensors will corrode faster on the car with gold on tin than they will on the car with tin on tin. While this example of a 328 may have suffered corrosion it was most certainly an environmental issue. In contrast, my 1985 308, which I have owned since new, has never suffered an electrical issue and they are no signs of corrosion on any of the contacts. Obviously these two car have seen different environments, care and maintenance. If you have a corrosion problem due to environmental effects where you see a build up of oxide and greenish junk on the contact you need to you need to eliminate the source of moisture infiltration as that is the source of the problem.

In either case, environmental corrosion or fretting, if it has progressed too far you may need to replace both the connectors and the sensors. In such cases, new tin with the elimination of environmental contamination is a better choice than mixed metals. Of course you can always install gold contacts at points where new sensors which have gold pins can be substituted for the old ones with tin pins. An example would be the coolant temp sensor which can be had with tin or gold plated contacts. Obviously the gold ones are to be used on cars which have a gold connector at that point on the wiring harness. Go figure.

Progression of fretting:
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John, that was an excellent, very articulated post. That really sums up the topic and why I feel as I do from a technical standpoint.

 

Fair enough John. Only 3 1/2 years under my belt but I'm in it for the long haul and I'm committed to reporting and documenting my experience as this progresses. As stated, real world experience is what matters to me. I'm not sure why your tin/gold audio connection example showed corrosion after a "few years" yet 3 1/2 years into the GCK I have none. It's certainly not because the car stays in the garage on rainy days as I drive the car rain or shine.

 

Hi Ettore - hope you are well

Let me add one other point that I think I've made prior....

Dave Helms was certainly on to issues with poor connections - I don't take that away from him - his great experience lead him to that.

Putting cost aside, if his kit had tin connectors, I'd see more value. I'd also bet the same real world results would have been experienced.

I believe the success is the replacement of corroded pins with fresh ones - I don't believe gold has any bearing on that success.

The other troubling thing for me about the kit is many folks purchase and install before then need it and that has often created more problems.

I considered the kit for my car as an early owner. Mind you, my car has no issues - none, nada, zip.

Installing this to my car, especially with the engine in, IMO, would have been foolish and likely a waste of time and money (on my car with no issues).

 

No problem, but just remember, you haven't replaced all the tin contacts in your car, 328 or 355. Just the contacts in the female connectors. You still have tin in most of the sensors and in the ECUs. If they stay dry you probably won't see any visible corrosion. But you would not see that with tin either. Problem is with these older cars the current owners have little knowledge of the life of the car and what environment it lived in. So when some one shows you environmentally corroded connectors and says it's because of the tin you can argue that it is, but it's also a function of the environment the car lived it. And also remember that only the contact surface itself is gold plated. The remainder is the base metal which can still corrode as can the copper wire at the junction between wire and connector. On the other hand, I can show you the 31 year old contacts in my 1985 308 and they will not have any corrosion. I know it's history since I've owned it from new.

 

Good post John, I agree. Didn't someone have a source for stock replacement tin connectors?

If needed I can't imagine not just going that route and it's fine for the next 20+ years.

 

Hi Dave! I appreciate your thoughts including your concerns regarding owners purchasing and installing a kit like this before they need it. The "needing it" part is challenging to define. I had driven my 328 for 5 years and thought it ran great Pre GCK. I had driven two other 328's in that time period and felt that my car ran as well or better than those cars. I went so far as to perform a baseline pre GCK dyno on my car and found that it was putting out some of the best HP/torque numbers ever documented (at least online) for a naturally aspirated 328. Based on all of this I think it was pretty clear that I really didn't "need" the GKC. I still decided to proceed with it because I knew that some of the terminals were showing significant corrosion and I suspected the car could run even better than it already did. Definitely a questionable decision at the time but one that I am very glad I made. No need to go any further than that, the specific details of what I found better both subjectively and objectively has all been documented on the forum and there are pages upon pages from all of us regarding what one gets and doesn't get with the SRI kit vs. sourcing the components yourself, the merits of tin vs. gold, expense, etc.

By the way, I want to personally thank you for the great products/tools that you are producing for us DIY'ers. With the exception of the skid plates, which my 355 already came with, I think I have purchased everyone of your items and I am really excited to put them to use this winter on the 355!

 

Your support is very much respected and greatly appreciated, Ettore

Thank you sir.