Rebuilding Our Abandoned FERRARI F355! (Gated Manual) – Part 1

Throtl Video Transcript

This is our abandoned Ferrari f355 that we traded up from a $1,000 BMW finally did it there’s a Ferrari in here oh the Ferrari sat for 10 years untouched with the windows down when I first saw the car there was no joke a bunny right here I thought it was dead

We detailed the car inside and out and we pulled the engine out for complete inspection and diagnosis now it’s the moment of truth cuz we’re going to put a socket on the front crank PL and see if this motor actually spins wa no weight that’s a really good

Sign now we have a complete engine harness that isn’t shoot up we have new belts on the way let’s get to repairing this engine so we can fire it up for the first time in a long time this engine harness is not just bolted to the engine like in most cars

Because the entire back half of the Ferrari drops out all at once the harness can be fastened to the engine transmission and the subframe luckily Ferrari uses standard PE Clips here which I can easily unbolt and remove as opposed to like an old plastic push clip getting the harness off the subframe

Rear assembly is the first step to getting this harness replaced I’ve got we got our harness off of the rear structure here a lot of this stuff is kind of just mounted up to the sides and these are the things that like this is your ECU connector a lot of the points

That connect to the chassis side of the car so now we’ve got that all free and tucked up over here so now we’re going to start working into the engine itself and actually unplugging all this stuff which is going to be pretty trick cuz I’ve got a lot of connectors down there

And all the harnesses are kind of routed down underneath a lot of uh coolant lines and hard lines and like oil lines and stuff so it’s going to be pretty tricky to get this some of the stuff out this is why we’re replacing it cuz some

Rat just came in here and was like oh thanks giving and now we don’t have a Ferrari harness anymore got some grounds down there we need grab my trusty wrench we’re going to go for this injector inside the valley of this V8 is packed with coolant channels oil lines

And throttle linkages giving me very little room to maneuver a harness through so I’ve got most of the harnesses in the center in the valley pretty much unplugged and now we have to move to kind of the front of the engine get the alternator unplugged get the uh

Cam position and crank position sensors undone and get all of these harnesses off and then start feeding things so that it can come through and then out the back of the engine yeah the current harness I’m taking off is a power distribution harness and this is one of

The easier harnesses to take off that’s one harness one out of four let’s go there it is Black Friday deals are live right now guys sales on intakes exhausts Wheels suspension body kits interior parts lights and even merchandise we just dropped some fresh new merch we got

Super clean teas we got new hats we got new hoodies check it out every dollar you spend is going to get you entry to win our Liberty Walk 2023 Nissan Z Plus $20,000 in cash get entered guys yeah there’s a Bluetooth connector right there oh there’s two Bluetooth connector

Means there’s no wires connecting it it means it’s cut a rat ate it and now it’s not a piece of the harness anymore and so we can’t use it which means it’s smoked harness number two is this one even bad no this one’s fine this one’s actually fine we didn’t even need to

Replace this one so one thing about this setup up was when I got the new harness I started realizing is like it’s not just one engine harness it’s considered the engine harness but it’s actually like four different harnesses So see they put this oil line in a horrible spot and it makes it really difficult to pull this through like how hard would it have been to just put the harness on top of this little oil line here doesn’t make any sense you like how is this connector going to fit through

This this is the driver side Bank except it’s still attached to this harness cuz it’s got a PE clip down there so we got to fish that sucker out but technically this is the engine harness for the driver’s side so that’s out now so now we got one more harness to get out

Finish him if you haven’t already make sure to subscribe to the throttle YouTube channel and turn on the Bell notification so you don’t miss a thing we’ve got the complete old engine harness off now we’re going to start making sense of our our new harness and we’ve got four distinct harnesses going

On the Ferrari is a super weird setup so obviously it’s a V8 but from the engine management side it has two ecus it’s pretty much like one ECU runs this bank as like a standalone four cylinder and then we have another four cylinder look like you have two ecus running two four

Cylinders that happen to be on a shared crank making it a V8 so it’s a really weird setup and so the harnesses reflect that so we’ve got like one ECU side for like the driver’s side and we’ve got a completely separate harness set for the passenger side so really kind of weird

Setup I don’t know where it like comes together cuz none of these harnesses attach it must come together in the body harness but it kind of plays like two different complete engine harnesses which is really weird so got a power distribution harness and then I’ve got like a miscellaneous harness this has

Like a coolant temp on it it’s got like reverse and oil pressure and like a starter wire so I don’t know if this is like an accessory harness we’ve got like a whole bunch of different harnesses going together and the only thing that really sucks about this is when they

Took this off they took all my little metal pins and clips so normally you’ll have like I already put this one on this one with this little metal retention clip that holds it on so you like plug it in it goes that nice little satisfying snap they took all of them

They didn’t give it to us so I got to transfer all those from the other Hornets all of our retention Clips are on the new harnesses time to get them in I’m going to start with this one cuz I’m holding it already the harness I’m installing currently is the accessory

Harness and it runs part of the gauge cluster the starter alternator controls the air conditioning and reverse lights the reason I started with this harness specifically is cuz this one is kind of the most chaotic cuz it’s all over the place so I’ve got a connector for the

Alternator which is here I’ve got a connector for the AC compressor which is here and then it’s got like a bunch of transmission connectors on it so it’s kind of all over the engine bay at the same time and this gives me the most room to kind of lay this one out cuz

It’s the most difficult and then we’ll do the power harness then we’ll get to our individual Banks last one in the valley on this harness is so that guy and it’s upside down there we go so now I can kind of give this a pull back cuz everything’s

Plugged in up here and that’ll kind of give us where we want to sit so this guy kind of comes up and like sits over here like that so we’re going to hold that there let’s figure out where the rest of these go so that is for the

Starter last thing I got to plug in on this harness is these right here I believe this is an old pressure sensor or switch or something this might be for the dash I’m not sure the ones that are on there are broken obious eily cuz they’re not attached to a harness and

These ones are attached to a harness we’re going to put it on I’m assuming it goes like that I don’t know these things are so damaged I can’t identify which wire was supposed to be which one so we’re just going to throw it on we got a

50/50 shot of getting it right we’re going to find out that’s kind of the way it wants to be moving on harness number two we’re going for the main power harness now this is the main power distribution harness and is responsible for getting high amperage current to the starter and

The alternator this main power wire is directly connected to the car’s 12vt battery it right there there grab it that’s you I got it pull her on pull her on through yeah behind the time Bo it is weird that’s alter wi yes this one hangs up here this distribution block hangs like here

That’s the old one this is the new one the new one that’s the old one’s over there it actually bolts you can see the flange right up there yeah I see it it kind of hangs out oh yeah power distribution harness is on we got our accessory harness on

Now we’re going to go for our First Bank harness so I believe this is the driver side harness cuz it’s got where is it it’s got this thing on it and that is on that side which means it was on the side of the motor so we’re going to throw

This on this style of engine harness is completely different than anything I’ve ever dealt with before in the past and it’s probably the most 90s thing about this car having two separate ecus to control one engine because it has two ecus this car has multiples of the same

Sensors this F engine has two throttle position sensors three independent coolant temp sensors and two crank sensors we got the the body of the harness positioned in the valley where it needs to be so I’ve got it kind of mock PE clip down so we’re going to

Start plugging everything in I’ve got a few solenoids I’ve got the TPS on this side I’ve got two grounds I got to do Mickey’s working on the crank sensor and I think we’re going to get the injectors kind of in the space where they need to

Be we’re not actually going to plug them in cuz I want to all prime the engine before we fire this thing Off our harness is like 95% done on this side so we’re going to take our ignition box here and actually get this bolted down cuz this was never bolted down so it goes here and I’ve got some fresh hardware for it and then we can plug

These two things in and then this side of the harness will be done now it’s time for The Other Side the other bay this is the passenger side and it has a really long crank sensor so we’re going to start with that then we’ll have it

Done the passenger bank is a bit easier to install than the driver side was but it’s still tricky to run making sure this harness is properly secured is a make or break for this car as the harness runs between the cylinder heads and the timing belt on both engine bangs

If if the wiring harness is not properly secured it can wind up getting sucked into the timing belt as there is no rear timing cover which would be no more Ferrari engine for us so aside from this PE clip that’s it for pretty much this section of the engine forward we got all

This we need to PE clip up and retain and then we got to plug our coil pack and set up get that all dialed in over here and then pretty much will’ll be finished with the wiring so once we’re done with that we have quite a few

Vacuum lines that need to be replaced so we’re going to move into that wiring harness is completely replaced we’re good baby so all the connectors are here now we’re going to go by and replace a bunch of vacuum lines like this line right here it’s super crusty

And that’s not it obviously there’s been some rats look at that there’s literally chew marks on that and then this one’s broken and that one’s broken and they’re all broken so this is pretty much worthless for having being in a car we’re going to replace it with some

Fresh new vacuum line that actually does its job correctly I’m replacing these with a silicone vacuum line that be much more durable than a factory rubber would ever be measuring and trimming them gives these new vacuum lines an oem looking Fit freshy vacuum line proper next up we’re going to need Ferrari Steve cuz we’re going to knock out these timing belts I brought Steve back so he helped me pull this engine out he’s a Ferrari expert I’m not I don’t want to get this wrong cuz if we get it wrong it’s an

Expensive motor to damage apparently you have to take the valve covers off first cuz the timing marks are underneath there so we’re going to stop by ripping the valve cover off let’s get to It so we’ve got the valve covers off the Ferrari engine and there’s there’s some weird observations first of all the timing marks are underneath the valve cover so this little Notch here and then the white line so we’re actually pretty freaking close to TDC already which is interesting but it is interesting that

They put it underneath the valve c another thing I noticed is it makes sense thinking about it now this is a small displacement V8 most engines that we work on and that we build here you’ll notice the cam cap is in between the two cam loes on that cylinder but here

They’re they’re independent and it’s because the cylinders are some much smaller if you look at the gap between the cam loes I don’t know if you could fit that cap in between that super weird very interesting stuff man really cool setup so now we’re going to set this to

TDC another thing is this engine spins clockwise so the tensioners are on the leading side of the timing belt versus most of the other setups we do the tensioner will be on the trailing side of the belt so the belt will essentially be pulling on the tensioner on the setup

Which is really weird that’s why I have Steve here helping me out cuz I don’t know any of this stuff and this is regular for him so I’m learning about this the first first time it’s really cool so let’s keep going let’s do it you’re pretty much there almost there

Just a we bit more yeah so we’re going to use some business cards to lock the cams in apparently somehow I’ve never seen this trick before we’re going to do it we’re going to do it yeah let me get some gloves you’re just going to sandwich it

In there and it’s just going to it locks it place not too tight though how funny is that So next upep we have to recompress the tensioners so we’re going to pull these off stick them in a vice we’ll compress them down and I got to stick a little Allen key through that hole through that hole so we’re going to push it down and

Then go and then it’ll hold it compress where we need it to so let’s get them both off We’ve got new timing belts here they’re made by Deco but have the FY logo right on them so they’re special so ready to throw these on do it all right let’s go Timing belts are on they’re tension properly so now we’re going to spin the engine twice to make sure the cams are timed and everything stays where it needs to our fry engine is is on time Everything feels good we’ve got good tension on both belts so now we’re going to pull the

Pins Ferrari genuine valve cover gasket let’s get these valve covers on the car so I don’t know if this is normal practice for these cars but like it came as one piece even though it doesn’t go in the valve cover at one piece you supposed to trim them from every set you

Get yeah you had to trim them every Time while Steve and I were working on the timing belt Mickey and Ricky went ahead and got our valve covers repainted in the signature Ferrari wrinkle red with the valve covers fully installed we can now install our fresh brand new set of spark plug wires and mock install our

Plug covers to finish out this portion of Maintenance our valve covers are on we still do have a few things to do so one uh when we go to start this engine for the first time I want to oil Prime everything which means we’re going to

Have the spark plugs out to get the load off of the connecting rod bearings until we have good oil pressure cuz this thing hasn’t ran in 10 years I don’t want to risk starting it up and just spinning a bearing immediately because it has no

Oil in it and we got a fresh go to paint on the covers which look really nice so now we’re going to dress the front of the engine get our covers back on and get this thing finished up the final things to install is our crankshaft front pulley we can bolt down our

Freshly clean tiny Bel covers and install a brand new set of serpentin belts to finish out our Ferrari Maintenance so that is it our Ferrari service is complete we’ve got all new rubber all the way around new belts new timing belts serpentine belts and we’ve got a new wiring harness so it is not chewed up by rats anymore we should have a good running engine when we get this

Thing back in the car so in top of that it looks beautiful we cleaned and detailed this thing we got some new paint on the valve covers in the next episode we’re going to get this thing back in the Ferrari we still have quite a bit to do despite the engine being

Completely finished we still have to drain the fuel tank and do some other things like that but in the next episode we’re going to try and get this thing fired up for the first time in 10 years and hopefully we have a good running Ferrari pretty soon so thank you guys so

Much for watching huge thank you to Stephen for coming down from SD Exotics to help me fiddle with this thing there’s a lot on this engine that I’ve never dealt with before so it was fun having you here fun yeah so thank you guys so much for watching as always

Don’t forget to like comment subscribe drop a comment down below and how you think this engine is going to turn out we’ll see you guys in the next episode