Biturbo electrical system.

Turbo scroll:
| Headlights | windscreen washer | starter | fuses | hidden relays |
| MABC, Ignition and Injection ECU's

Much has been said about the electrical system of this car, and other italian cars. Most of the tales are not nice, but remember it's always the bad news you get. The good news goes unnoticed.

If you install an alarm, a radio, or whatever, route a new cable directly from the battery. It is mine (and many other's) experience that this will lessen the likelihood of future problems. If you don't do it this way, at least use only proper terminating methods of same or better quality than the original. Using insulation-piercing cable taps, or current-thieves as we call them are begging for trouble.

This will however not insure that everything works well, as the Italians just could not resist building in some riddles for us to solve. Since I regularily helps my mother solving her crossword puzzles, and enjoys it, I'll also give you some of the hidden keys to the Biturbo puzzles.
Top of page.

The dizzy headlight connection.

I'm sure a lot of thought must have gone into making this fault possible:
If your headlight goes out, and no fuses are blown, change the cooling fan relay. No, I'm not pulling your leg! The headlight relay gets voltage to 30 through the two 87 contacts of the fan relay. If you put in a fan relay that has only one 87 contact, or the socket contacts of this relay are bad, your headlights will not work. I discovered this as I was reassigning the foglight relay to drive the aircon solenoid, and had this relay group up in the open.

You should also know that the contact pattern of the relays are different from the more common Bosch type relays. Try other italian or french manufacturers for replacements.
Top of page.

Windscreen washer.

The windscreen washer bottle lives under the car just behind the bumper on the left side. And the pump motor is on the very front and at the bottom. Perfectly situated for picking up spray from the car in front of you. So the connector supplying it with power, as well as the motor itself, will be one of the first to suffer from contact problems. Clean the contact with a good tuner spray. If the pump motor is stuck, get one from a Fiat Ritmo. It's the same, even the rubber seal ring fits.
Top of page.

Starter.

If you need to activate the starter while working in the engine room, take off the white capsule covering on the cable nearby the battery positive terminal. Connect it to the positive terminal to activate starter. You must be sure the gear is in neutral before doing this for obvious reasons. If your car refuses to start, this is also a way to check where the fault is. If the starter runs when you do this, the starter and solenoid is working OK.

If your starter rotor breaks down, and you need a replacement. Take it to someone who renovates starters. There is a Fiat starter that uses the same rotor assembly, except it has a different cogwheel assembly. The renovator can move your old cogwheel to the new/renovated rotor in 5 minutes to get you going. And much cheaper than a Maserati part too. To avoid trouble with the starter, do not run it for more than 10 seconds continously. Down to 1-2 seconds / attempt if the engine is hot and will not start. Leave longer pauses between attempts the more of them you need. The starter lives in a very hot place in the bottom of the V of the engine, and it will melt the soldered connections if you are too persistent. If the engine really refuses to start, find the problem and fix it before your starter goes. (Push-start if necessary)
Top of page.

The flakey fusebox.

The fusebox is removeable as a complete unit. This is nice, so you don't need to keep crawling underneath the dashboard for extended periods while checking fuses. Just be sure it is pushed fully home when you put it back. If your passenger is of the kind that kicks everything not in sight, and one or more electrical problems occurs. Check the fusebox again. It is not enough to visually inspect it, you can't see if it's fully seated.
The same goes for the fuses. It is not always possible to see that a fuse is blown until you take it out, and it falls apart. You should also remember that some of the relays in the engine room have integrated fuses under a transparent lid. Take off the lid, and take out the fuse to check it.
Top of page.

Hidden relays.

At the outside of the footwell on the passenger side, there are some relays you probably could have trouble locating. It's the overrev inhibitor relay and the fuel pump relay. The fuel pump relay will deny starting if not properly seated. (Or if it's in in your pocket when parking in questionable neighbourhoods.)
Top of page.

The MABC, ignition and injection controller systems.

 Sorry. Nothing here yet. I do have a lot of detail info on these. But I haven't gotten around to systemizing it in web readable format. If you really like to know, you can affect my priorities by mailing me.

I will give you some though: Most of the components in these are standard components, meaning they are repairable. (If you have a dead one, I would be interested in it, as I am pretty sure I can fix most problems with them.)

And the MABC used in carburetted Biturbos, has no micro processor, it's a purely analog design. You'll find the same box and knock sensor in a pre-86 SAAB turbo. There it's called APC, and the calibration of the box is probably not the same.