In reply to Error404 :
I'm happy with my AR5. Look up FabBot Fabrication for the adapter.
Does Megasquirt not make a plug and play engine harness? I feel like you're doing this the hard way. Really any aftermarket LS harness would work, then you can make all your connections to the MS at a bulkhead plug.
Patientzero said:In reply to Error404 :
I'm happy with my AR5. Look up FabBot Fabrication for the adapter.
Does Megasquirt not make a plug and play engine harness? I feel like you're doing this the hard way. Really any aftermarket LS harness would work, then you can make all your connections to the MS at a bulkhead plug.
Plug and Play was over-budget at the time and I was signed up for a track weekend. The bad TCU put the whole car in limp mode both, suspect, by pulling timing and by capping my revs so I was constantly short-shifting. With that in mind, I wanted to fix the problem once and for all but I was on a budget and a deadline. If I had known just how many things would happen in the interim, including that weekend being canceled due to closure, I would have held out a bit longer but that's 20/20 hindsight rearing its head.
I'm curious what the Plug & Play solution would be for when it's a Fox-body LS-swapped car. Building up a complete harness for this specific car, at the car, seems like the best solution to me.
Seems like a lot of thinking and time and tedium but should be great when it's finished.
In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :
If you were terminating all the connections to connectors then yes, nothing wrong with that. But, from the pictures it looks like he is splicing the MS harness into the factory harness in random places and then is going to cover it with tape or loom. I've spent several years wiring some very nice cars professionally(and fixing other people's wiring jobs), this is not the approach I would take. It will undoubtedly cause headaches later when you have to troubleshoot something, and you will. At the very least document where all your connections are and write down all the wire colors. Basically make a schematic of what you did so you can reference it later.
Just my opinion.
A full on wiring diagram before building would be a nice way to go although there's more up-front workload that I think is more than made up for by having less questions later. Easy for me to say, it isn't my project.
I'm not a technician but I spend some time now and then creating wiring diagrams for aircraft systems. I get extremely cross with poor documentation & diagramming.
Yes, the current harness is a splice and tape job. No, it's not pretty. It's part proof of concept and part concession to the budgets (time and otherwise) that I was working with when I started it. The plan has always been to revisit this work so I haven't cut any of the MS harness, keeping it at full length for a better integration later. Ideally I'd have completely replaced the engine harness via splicing or pinning, or even going with a PnP harness, but it wasn't very possible at the outset. My mid-term plan is to revisit this harness, after working out the kinks, as a precursor to redoing the dash harness.
It's not completely random, though, as my approach was generally to splice in without disrupting existing bundles and while leaving enough wire on the connectors to have future options. The really sloppy part is near the alternator where a lot of sensor and ground wires are mixed in with both Chevy and Ford wiring, I didn't clear this out completely since I wasn't ready to commit to expanding the scope of my work.
In reply to Error404 :
Don't take what I'm saying as negative. Just offering advice from somebody that did it for a living many times. As long as you have a plan and know what you did when it's done then have at it. Eventually I'm going to strip the rest of the Ford harness out of my car and build one from scratch.
In reply to Patientzero :
No worries, it's a bit of a sore subject right now. It's a bit of a "1 step up 2 steps back" kind of thing with the car this week.
Well... Another setback today. I wasn't thinking things through back when I ordered a Lokar go pedal and go cable. The pedal would need more fabrication than I can do to be viable, it's just too short, and the universal cable is universally not going to fit on my throttle body. So, I might get the car to start but I won't be able to drive it.
On the plus side, I did spend $50 at Autozone for a non-crud TPS, so I have that in the car.
Edit: So the cable problem is my fault. It's a universal throttle cable*. I did go out and buy a universal throttle cable** from AutoZone, no luck there either. I could get the pedal mounted, it would be 3" above and forward of the brake pedal plane so not good for downshifting but I could probably do it. Even if I do, I don't have a cable that will actuate my throttle body so Tuesday is out of the question.
*fits carbureters
**fits carbureters (not mentioned on external packaging)
Progress was made. I accepted an offer of assistance from an older gearhead who knew how to make throttle cables work from experience and not internet reading, so that should work. We fab'd a temp bracket to hold it and then worked out a throttle pedal mount that ought to work. The car doesn't crank, though. We see no RPMs on TunerStudio and nothing happens when the fuel pump relay is plugged in, obviously. Crank and cam sensors are plugged in, even reversed the signal and power wires on both, but we're getting "RPM not synced" on TunerStudio. So, tonight is research.
Edit: A search with very specific search terms yielded a 2016 forum thread wherein I might have discovered the very root of today's problem. Gen4 58x reluctor 5V crank and cam sensors need a 1k ohm pull up resistor to generate the 0-5V signal, the Gen3 24x reluctor 12V sensors did not need a pull up resistor. I'm currently enjoying a taste of mezcal and a relaxing sit but I'll go out in a bit and put resistors on each and see if that gets me closer.
Just a quick "No Progress" update: I added in the resistor like I said previously, No Go. I didn't haul out the laptop, it was a quick crimp and key turn type of test as everything else previously checked out, but I feel comfortable saying that I'm still not getting spark. I'm going to double check continuity to ground and hope I got a wire crossed or something simple. Is a GM crank sensor susceptible to damage if power and sensor are switched? My gut is saying that I need a new crank sensor after frying this one but I've been wrong once or twice before.
I am dedicated to getting the engine cranked before I dive in to the next step, another extensive rewire but, this time, I'll do it proper and not have such a rats nest. I don't want to start that evolution with any questions marks about wire routing or the engine cranking when I need it. I have my fingers crossed that, over the next week or so, I'll be able to get it cranked and into the garage to start the proper rewiring as well as engine bay tidying.
How did you add the resistor? One end goes to power. The other end goes to the signal wire. The signal wire should be continuous from source to destination.
Had this problem with my tach on my 3400 swap into an rx7.
I will say that if fuel pump is not running at all before cranking, something else is not happy. Like power to the ecu.
All pink wires go to ignition. All orange wires go to constant 12 v. Or, at least with every newish gm harness I have messed with.
wvumtnbkr said:I will say that if fuel pump is not running at all before cranking, something else is not happy. Like power to the ecu.
All pink wires go to ignition. All orange wires go to constant 12 v. Or, at least with every newish gm harness I have messed with.
I'm going to double check the wiring after work, if the monsoon outside lets up, but I appreciate your input. The fuel pump does turn on, although it's miswired since the MS pulls the relay low instead of high. It's fine for testing but I'll fix that proper when I get a successful crank. The other sensors check out in good in TunerStudio.
Error404 said:Is a GM crank sensor susceptible to damage if power and sensor are switched?
I would say no. I've had cam sensors that were wired wrong due to the differences in between years/models and after rewiring have been fine for years.
Does the MS have something equivalent to the "TPS autoset" in Holley software? After reflashing the ecu there is a quick procedure to program the TPS to the ecu. The car won't start without doing it (and won't register RPM) even if everything else is correct.
Patientzero said:Error404 said:Is a GM crank sensor susceptible to damage if power and sensor are switched?
I would say no. I've had cam sensors that were wired wrong due to the differences in between years/models and after rewiring have been fine for years.
Does the MS have something equivalent to the "TPS autoset" in Holley software? After reflashing the ecu there is a quick procedure to program the TPS to the ecu. The car won't start without doing it (and won't register RPM) even if everything else is correct.
Thanks, I appreciate the info. I'm going out in just a few to check things over and try again.
The TPS can be calibrated in TunerStudio, I've done it a few times and it works just fine. I think I'm just missing something with the crank sensor, that's where MS gets RPM data from and without that it doesn't supply fuel or spark.
Edit: I triple checked everything and from what I can see the only sensor that isn't Go is crank, for RPMs. Every test to date has yielded a hard 0 for RPMs on TunerStudio, even with a freshly charged battery. I did redo a loose crimp on sensor ground and I checked the 5V from TPS_Vref (4.84V) and everything is good. Well, everything except the 1kOhm resistor I was given that's about 999 ohms shy. I have a 100 pack due Saturday and I'll try again.
Well, I had an update typed out but I refreshed the page like a dumdum and lost it. The highlights are as follows:
Car no worky.
GM engineers are on my poop list
I've gone through it frontwards, backwards, upwards, and sidewards and I'm fairly sure the fault is somewhere in the MS which would make a fair bit of sense after all the wrong wiring I did on the crank and cam sensors. The sensors do appear to be working, there is a 200mV AC signal on the wires for each going to the MS (when they're wired properly) and the key is turned but TunerStudio still doesn't display any RPM and is just taunting me with the red "RPM not synced" message. My spark mode is LS1, so it's looking for the right signal pattern, and everything else is good as far as I can see. I'm actually pretty sure that there's nothing else that would inhibit displaying RPMs, that's pretty basic. All the grounds check out at ~.2 ohms with solid crimps, all pins are firmly seated in the proper positions in the connectors, and I still have nothing. I'm sending off an email to efisource tomorrow to see if I would void a warranty by opening the Gold Box, component repair is my comfort zone so I'm not worried about digging into solder work.
To summarize my thought process:
Grounds are good
Signal is good
Connections are firm and correct
Tach pattern is correct (unless the wily somethings at GM decided the truck motor needed a different pattern than the real LS engines)
MS is likely to be damaged or otherwise the source of the problem since signals are getting to it.
Edit: I'll also reload the firmware, maybe it got corrupted with bad wiring, and hope that shows positive results.
Are you using the correct sensor? Like 24x sensor on 24x crank? And I believe the 24x sensor is 12v but the 58x sensor is 5v. That good to go?
In reply to Patientzero :
I checked that, multiple times, during my period as a neurotic mess but it paid off and I believe the car will crank tomorrow. I was chased inside by lightning earlier so I didn't get to hear it today but I'll try to get something to look at tomorrow when it fires.
I was messing around with tooth logs and researching down that rabbit hole when I came across a nifty tidbit of info. Y'all might already know but I just learned that the LS1 is a Gen3 platform engine which means 24x sensors so, when the spark mode in TunerStudio is set to LS1 rather than single toothed 60-2 missing teeth wheel, it doesn't see the right crank signal pattern to register as RPM. I made that change, turned the key, and saw RPM register for the first time. Briefly. Then I got an error message about not being able to do sequential fire without cam positioning so I switched to batch fire. Then I got an error message about not being able to do anything without cam positioning and all my gauges displayed crazy values. Turns out the power wire had come loose from my temporary test connection but lightning intervened before I could test with everything hooked up.
*Fingers crossed that I didn't just jinx myself by typing that out*
Fingers crossed that you've finally got it licked.
Yup, I jinxed it. I'm back to square nothing with a lack of RPMs. I cleared the "no cam sensor" message by selecting wasted spark but this did nothing for seeing RPMs or cranking. With the message up, my RPMs are at 65000 when the MS is powered and my temp drops 90 degrees to 2°F. Wires are all connected but, so far as the computers are concerned, the sensors are dead.
I have walked away from this for the day, I've got over 50hrs into trying to get RPM synced, not to mention cranking. I sent an email to support at Efisource, I'll see what they say.
For anyone who wants to have a go at this, my crank wires are white/black, grey/black, purple/white. My cam wires are blue, brown, blue/white. I currently have power on blur and white/black with brown and grey/black as grounds, this configuration was the one that displayed a 200mV AC signal on a multimeter. No configuration has resulted in the MS showing RPMs with the exception of a unreproducable fluke yesterday.
(My 15sec scribble of the connectors and wire color. The outer cam wires actually rotate on the actual sensor)
I called tech support today and basically couldn't get a word in edge-wise without being told I didn't know anything. I did learn that a composite log would show me what I needed to know. My logs showed the following:
Which I take to mean that in no configuration do I have a crank or cam signal. The reactive part of my decision making process says to send this crapbox back and go the Flintstone route. In reality, I think I'm just gonna walk away for a few days. See y'all next week!
In reply to Error404 :
I followed this how to, wire for wire and used a base configuration from the sloppy tune cabinet. This should give you a pretty good guide to check your work against.
I do not run a cam sensor, just batch fire off the crank. Only issues I had have been self inflicted.
In reply to 1SlowVW :
I'll look at that when I'm in a more constructive mood, probably the weekend but, I very much appreciate it. I am fairly sure my issue is self inflicted but I'm going crazy trying to figure it out. I would rather run sequential, it's part of the reason I went with the MS3 over MicroSquirt. Also, knowing myself, I won't be happy until I at least have the option to do or not do what my engine is capable of doing. Right now, I can't even get batch fire to work.
In reply to Error404 :
Take a day off and breath. I fried my microsquirt using the jump start function on a battery charger. It sucked real bad and sent me chasing my tail....it happens.
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