Amazing the things we put up with! Passion I guess.....
How do you press the button? Do you A, just really tap it to get it started or do you B, hold it in for a while? If A, then do B. If B, try doing it longer. If C (B doesnt work) then well remember it is a Ferrari and thus built like a joke and try B some more.
the CS manual makes mention of not holding this button down too long (though it doesn't provide time guidelines). this suggests to me that it sends a continuous electronic message to the ignition along the lines of turning and holding the key in a mechanical ignition. fwiw, doody.
Mine too! Actually, the problem just started about 1 month ago. Before that, it would start right up. Now sometimes, when cold, it does as described above. I have to turn it off and back on - then everything is fine. Something changed in the car for it to act like it does now. I was going to have FoS check it out during my next service. :-| Tim
You may be on to something...There is a limp mode where the ECU puts the ignition and fuel in a predetermined state and static timing in case there is catastrphic failure to be able to drive the car to a service station. In any case, this should not happen, there has got to be fix for it... Has anyone contacted FNA?
I've experienced what you described with my 360CS -- will try holding the start button down longer. And I agree -- gas doesn't matter -- it happens on 91 (crappy California gas), 100 race gas, and mixtures between the two.
that is the reason I am convinced the engine is stuck in the start-up mode the injectors (amount of fuel) between 30-640 RPM are controlled by the ECU program and not by the accelerator opening the throttle will stall the engine since the air/fuel mixture will be off I don't think the ECU programmers ever envisoned the engine stuck in that mode on a positive note I rather have this problem than the hot start problems with P cars caused by bubbles in the fuel line - that really put me off
if you start too early after turning the key, the fuel pump is unable to generate suffcient pressure. try waiting longer
This is what I am thinking and thus advised holding the button down more. In 'normal' car terms it kinda is like cranking the car too little. Yes holding it down too long will be bad too (ie overcranking)
Thomas may have something here, sort of. All start signals, (as well as many other signals) are only sent to the to the ECU for 1/4 (right) bank of cylinders and then relayed to the 5/8 (left) bank. It sounds like 5/8 ain't gettin the message. At least until the motor is no longer dependant on the start info and is "seeing" the run info. Thats where Thomas's comments come in. On MANY 360's the connectors at the ECU's had debris in the female ends causing problems. If you have never seen the plug at the ECU end of the 360 there are so many tiny male ends they look like hair, and a little resistance goes a long way. At one of the schools we were given very specific instructions that on any driveability problems we were to clean those and specifically how to do it. On a proper running 360 the motor should explode to life. With the proper equipment it should be easy to narrow down quite a bit with the exception of two things, #1 getting it to do it consistantly (could be a real problem) and #2 finding a dealership that will do it knowing that they won't get paid by Ferrari for it (last I heard Ferrari still wasn't paying for diagnosis time)
Interesting; I get it it could be also related to a grounding problem one should be able to see that pretty quickly with the SD2 - the left bank should not fire at all if the car is stuck in that state On the other side the two ECUs talk through a CAN bus so one would expect that more things are broken if connectivity is compromises - such as the gearbox ECU to engine ECU communication
Check this out: http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26167 Someone just posted a similar problem with an F355 and was told it was the sensors in the cat... Interesting!
My Stradale behaves similarly. It starts at real low RPM... giving gas during this time will stall it. It then bumps the RPM to an elevated 1200 or so... this continues for 20-80secs depending upon how cold it is. It then lowers the RPMs down to normal idle in a few steps. (My Modena was a bit different in its startup ritual... but same general idea.) It is my understanding that part of this start-up ritual is related to a different air mixture designed to reduce emissions at startup until the cats get warm. Anyway, I make sure not to push the start button until I see "Check OK"; then I don't touch the accelerator until the RPMs at least start stepping down to normal idle. BTW, one time I did have it only fire up one bank. That time when I started the car, the idle was really REALLY low... like it didn't even register on the tach! In fact, I was tremendously confused as I could feel the engine was doing something, but the tach wasn't moving. That caused me to hesitate a few seconds, at which point it bumped up to the normal low 500 rpms or so, running real rough (coughing a bit I think from being a bit flooded), then bumped on up like normal. That ended up setting my Check Engine light... the error code indicating mis-fire on all cylinders of one bank. That has only happened once so far. It is possible that I pushed the start button too quick that time (not waiting for Check OK). FWIW.
That's interesting that it sounds like the modern ECUs are programmed to emulated the old "crank it up and hold it a 3000RPM until the plugs all clean up" method of Ferrari starting!
Statement "A" yes. It could be as simple as that "B" No, it takes several seconds for the SD2 to initialize after the Motronic is on for it to read out, and by then by your description the problem is gone. "C" Not necessarily. Of the many connections, it could be only one that is causing trouble.
My 04 Modena just started doing this in the last week. The dealer said to leave the ignition on for 30 seconds before starting. Long after "Engine OK" light comes on. Any thoughts?
Can't think of what good that will do. The fuel pumps only run while cranking or while engine is running and as for the rest, well electricity travels at or about the speed of light so we don't have to wait for it now do we?
you know how round-about those italian engineers can be - maybe there's 5 or 10 million miles of wires in the car doody.
is it difficult and/or time consuming for a dealer to check/clean these ECU connectors? my point is that IF it's relatively quick/cheap then maybe it would be worth asking the dealer (even if it isn't covered by warranty) to check/clean the ECU connectors hoping that this will eliminate the oddball startup problem that is being described by so many 360 owners.
It is not all that time consuming to ck./clean those. The grounds are another story. You should by all means pursue it with your dealer, any warranty reimbursement problems are not yours, they are his. I have a certain amount of sympathy for their position from having been there but the remedy for the warranty problems are for the dealers to remedy, they have just not done it. You should begin a paper trail, don't let them blow you off, make sure a repair order is generated and you get a copy every time you complain. You paid a hell of a lot of money for the car and should not rest until the car is "Commercially acceptable".
thanks. btw, i guess i'm in the minority (it seems) in that neither of my stradales have experienced this oddball startup problem. but i've made a mental note of the symtoms and a possible cure if/when it ever happens to me. thanks.
I've had this problem on both my old 360 and my CS - but only when they were parked outside overnight. I figured it was because there was some dampness in the (german) electronics. I reckon that some gremlin in Germany has a little toggle switch to make the electronics just that bit less reliable when assembled in Italy
I also have this problem but not when the car was new (1 month). I have also notice that when left, the car does drain the battery somewhat and if I were to connect the charger overhight, the problem does not occur. It may be that a minimum amount of voltage is required to get all the electronics going before the start sequence. For what's it's worth, my 2000 360 also did this but the problem also went away when I got into a habit of pluging the charger up when I put the car away. Anyone else found this to be true? Albert
