Sandrail Engine swap

[Kayos]

I find wiring both frustrating and rewarding

When I used to do daft things to Vauxhall’s they always had a separate engine loom, even if you had to separate it from the main loom, about 5 wires to be connected to the new car and that was it

 

[Wightsparks]

This one is not too bad. The engine and ecu are on one loom with a 30 pin connection. The battery/alt/starter are on another with the main fuse box. Then unfortunately there are a few ecu inputs that come through the general loom with everything else.
Must resist the urge to start cutting!

 

[jpmillermatic]

resist! I hear ya....nothing like soldering wires back in place that you cut unnecessarily.....



JP

 

[PhillipM]

I wish the honda had had a loom like that, the bloody thing tee-d off in about 96 places into loads of little ring-main type setups. I ended up just giving up and chopping off the connectors I couldn't buy and binning the rest

 

[Wightsparks]

All getting a bit "Mad Max"

 

[Wightsparks]

It... it... it's.... ALIVE!!

 

[Wightsparks]

Opened the loom.
Seemed like a good idea at the time

 

[Wightsparks]

Gave up trying to remove the circuits I don't need and just looked at the wiring loom/ECU plug and the main fuse plug and identified what I needed. Removed everything else in one go! -
Unfortunately the 03 US wiring diagram I had was not completely the same and a lot of stuff changed 02-03. Resulting in a stressed few hours trying to figure out why the ECU was not turning on the main relay - only to discover with a slightly different diagram that I had removed the earth for the main relay coil thinking it was for the headlight adjuster - which it was as well



What's left over



Now it runs but idle is low and slightly erratic so off on a sensor hunt - though I have not actually removed any except the speed sensor so that might be it.

Edit - yep the speed sensor, runs as before now

 

[jpmillermatic]

glad you found it quickly.....nice to have only removed one sensor!


JP

 

[Wightsparks]

Removed a few, but that was the only one between running properly with full loom and running badly with the cut down loom.
It's an odd one as it is a gearbox driven VR type that goes to the odometer computer to have its nasty signal cleaned up, then output as a nice square wave to the ECU and speedo.
As I don't have the gearbox to drive it from I will need to see if I can get away with feeding a square wave in from a wheel sensor of some description, probably through an Arduino - if not I will need to hack the instrument panel tracks...

Thinking about it I have the ABS rings on the Porsche back end, along with the sensors somewhere, that might be do-able, could even make my life easy and use one of these http://www.dakotadigital.com/index....ct_id=126/category_id=-1/mode=prod/prd126.htm

 

[Wightsparks]

... Still wiring...




Make it up as I go along loom...

 

[jpmillermatic]

yes, but you make it up from a place of knowledge!

you should see what I make up over here.....

JP

 

[Wightsparks]

Found a neat solution for the Neutral switch. Unfortunately the thread on the switch is M14 very coarse thread that I could not find a bolt or tap for anywhere - so I cut out the bit of Ali gearbox it went into to hold it onto a bracket. Ground a groove in the shaft. Fine adjustment with shims... OK.. a washer and a flap disc



Then to my absolute amazement I switched it on, and so far it ALL works, lights, horn indicators, back lights, engine, fuel gauge. Fingers crossed for the clutch and shaft/bearings when I get that all spun up!





- Though it does have an odd mix of coloured bulbs for back lighting..

Then I "carefully" removed the handbrake as it was original - That's next to fix!




And in other news.. It's Official ! The DVLA sent me a new V5 with the new engine noted on it

 

[Wightsparks]

Got to love kit car insurance. 45hp Beetle engine ---> 135hp MX5 engine, premium increase ... £16.60

 

[PhillipM]

To be fair it's less likely to leak oil all over the tyres, so....

 

[Wightsparks]

And it now has an immobiliser, rather than a Beetle engine, which, on reflection is pretty much the same thing.

 

[Wightsparks]

Done. Goes forwards, backwards and stops - but it's raining so no proper test yet. Awaiting split conduit for wiring tidy and need a better throttle cable solution but that's it for now...

 

[Wightsparks]

Took it out for a tentative drive and nothing blew up, fell off or disintegrated so that's a plus! Goes like stink too

I worked out the conversion factor for the SGI-5E to convert the Porsche ABS ---> Speedo conversion and it seems to be bang on - need to check with GPS

Need to re-locate the mirrors, adjust the handbrake and find something else just as interesting to do in the evenings or I will go mad!

 

[Ruffian]

Turbo??
Or
Supercharger??

 

[PhillipM]

Don't worry, as soon as you do a few hundred miles there'll be plenty of work to do in the evenings