Maserati 3200 Idle problem

[rodrayner]

Hi all...

I have a 3200 GT Asseta Corsa ( 67 / 75 ) and just recently the idle has gone up to around 1500 rpm and sometime alot higher until you blip the throttle. Also when sitting in Park the Idle seems to "pulse" between 1k and 1.5k

Has anyone else had this problem and if so is it serious...Going to try an get the car to Gray Paul in Nottingham tommorow so they can lighten my wallet probabully

Any comments would be appreciated.

Thanks...Rod

[Nigelo]

Sorry this may be late for you but resetting throttle (see my hypersensitive throttle thread) and/or cleaning throttle body may hopefully be all that's required. Would be interested in your final resolution.

HTH

[bath of kylies]

Mines into the dealer tomorrow with the same problem. Variable idle speed, then some times pulsing. They re-programmed the throttle last time, but no change. This time it's replace the throttle bodies. I'll let you know how it gets on.

[maserati3200.com]

I had this problem a number of times quite recently and its been in garages a few times. On a number of occassions it got stuck on 3.5 to 4k revs.

See these pictures


and this


and this


It went to three separate garages and despite repeated engine management resets, £3000 new parts added, new gaskets because of possible air leak etc etc etc the problem eventually kept coming back. It was eventually (and after 25 days out of 30 days in garages) someone with a proper brain discovered it was something else.

Something so simple...

...earth wire!

Hard to believe, but it appeared the management system was not happy with just one earth wire. By adding another one the unexpected high revs and the occassional high pulsing effect (which varied from 1 to 1.5K when warm) vanished. Over the last couple of weeks my engine pulsed slightly only when starting from cold which is expected. When warm it may on the odd occassion pulse very slighly (0.9 to 1.1), but usually after a hard run.

I am very impressed and this is my second Maserati 3200, the first I owned since new and for the three years I lived with the pulsing effects (1k to 1.3k) and thought that was normal!

[Nigelo]

That's interesting and although the first time I've heard of earthing resistance probs on 3200s, the older V6 biturbos suffered a fair bit sometimes to the point of reducing power output.

Since a quick check (engine to body; management units to both engine and body etc) with a decent multimeter costs bugger-all, it makes sense to do (or get done) that first. Resistance, in all cases should be close to zero and is easily remedied by (after isolating battery) breaking, cleaning and remaking the defective earthing points.

HTH

[bath of kylies]

Had mine back a day now and the problem is solved (or at least gone away...)

From what I was told, the idle level was down to the fly-by-wire throttle needing re-programming and the pulsing was due to an incorrect gas charge in the air conditioning.

Bit more about the pulsing explanation - I was told if the charge is wrong, by as little as 10%, then the pump in the air conditioning can repeatedly turn on and off trying to compensate. This loads the engine and hence the pulsing. Simple test if this is the cause on yours - when it's pulsing turn the air conditioning off. If the pulsing stops (or the AC wasn't on in the first place) then it's not this.

Good luck.