Have a fault code that i cannot clear can someone help out code P11552/active camshaft control unit circuit open is this easy to change?also is it safe still to drive as the engine came on today and drove 25 miles gentley would this have an effect on the engine many thanks Chris
The code that you have has too many digits, It is probably P1552/ active camshaft control, circuit open. The F430 engine has four electric solenoid valves that the fuel injection ECU's operate. These valves send oil pressure to the camshaft actuators, which changes the cam timing of each of the four camshafts (two inlet/two exhaust) for optimum power and emissions. Unfortunately these solenoid valves have a very high failure rate. They are supposed to be sealed units, but over time engine oil gets pumped up through the wiring harness of the sensor and into the connector were it connects to the engine harness. The "open circuit" failure code indicates that the fuel injection ECU is not seeing the proper resistance of the solenoid relay coil. This could be due to a few things: The connector is full of oil from a bad solenoid and is not making contact, or the solenoid connector has come unplugged, finally the connector sockets for the solenoid valves in the engine wiring harness are not connected to the main wires in the harness very well (they only have tiny crimp connectors holding the two wires together that are not very robust). It is still safe to drive the car. It will just have slightly reduced power, but will not damage anything. It should be fixed, as long term use with the cam timing off may cause failure of the catalytic converters. The typical recommendation is to replace all four solenoids at the same time. It is not an inexpensive repair. The entire rear sub-frame must come out, both cam covers come off (all cam cover seals get replaced) and then the cam actuator solenoids get replaced. The solenoids are around $1000 each and there is roughly 15 hours of labor required to change them, so depending on where you live and what your repair shop charges, you are looking at a $7000+ bill. Before I blindly throw new actuator solenoids at a car, I disconnect each injection ECU (there are two of them, one for each bank of the motor). I then connect a break-out box to the injection wiring harnesses and measure the resistance of each actuator (before I even touch the actuator connector) to confirm the open circuit on the actuator, Then I trace what the cause of the open circuit is (oil in connector, disconnected/poor connector, or problem in the wiring harness). The connection can be very sensitive and even the slightest touch can make it good or bad, and I like to know without a doubt what the cause of the error is. I have seen other shops blindly throw new solenoids at cars when there was actually a problem inside the wiring harness. That said, if there is oil leaking on top of the cam covers from the solenoid harnesses, then all four solenoids probably need replacement.
Thank you, Motob. We finally have a professional Ferrari tech that's actually willing to share detailed repair information on this website!
