So I was cruising around the dump shop today and came across a broad band manifold which I got along with some other stuff for $15. I've been thinking of getting the log manifold off for a while so this is a start.



I've been reading the conversion threads but I'm getting pretty confused with which parts apply cause I've got a manual 98 XHII and I know there's bits of everything in them. There is nothing wrong with the engine at all and I'm keen to keep it rather than put a used other engine in. I've made a bit of a parts list and was wondering if I was missing anything (I'm sure I am).

- EF/EL pedal
- EF/EL throttle cable
- EF/EL rocker cover to hold the cables
- BBM gasket
- EF/EL airbox and intake pipes
- EL vacuum lines and bits

Do I need a different ECU and wiring loom?
Can I use my XH snorkel?

I want to make sure I have everything before I start, its getting pretty cold to ride the motorbike with a car in pieces. Any help would be great.

you will also need the heater hose pipes, one from water pump that runs behind the engine under the manifold and the pipe from the thermostat housing..

cool. what about the ECU and wiring loom?

Hi, you dont have to do anything with your ecu. You could use a frequency switch from Jaycar or such to activate the runners in the bbm. The switch could run off a tacho signal and be set at 3800rpm for the runners in the manifold to activate. If you wanted to run thermos as well then i would look at a different ecu to do both.

I gave the manifold a good clean and it looks alright. The throttle body is in the soda blasting shop and should come up well apparently.


The casting doesn't seem to be of amazing quality, but there is a tiny crack in the injector housing for the rear cylinder. Will this be a problem?


I've got some gaskets and the throttle cable on order, and going to the wreckers later in the week hopefully to pick up
- heater hoses
- pedal
- air box and pipe
- rocker cover
- vacuum shizz
- BBM solenoid


If this refers to the fans then I already have them, they are good.

I'll look into the tach signal for activating the runners, hopefully this is the only thing my current ECU doesn't do.

With the wiring loom, I'm banking on just extending some of the wires to reach the new positions, but is there any other wiring part that I'll need (other than the runner activating bit)? The wreckers are a fair drive from where I am so I'm keen to get it all at once.

Thanks for the replies.

When u say "EL Vacuum bits" - does that include the vacuum solenoid that actuates the BBM? - if not, make sure you get that because it'll be the best way to operate it - ie. then whatever switching you come up with can operate that solenoid.

From memory that solenoid is behind the windscreen washer bottle? - and don't miss the check valve that's in the vac line for it.

And also from memory there's something odd about it - ie. like it's powered constantly in the below 3800rpm range and switching at 3800 is by ground being cut - ie. ground circuit being opened in the ECU in the factory fit (that's odd to me anyway - it's normally done the opposite way in aeroplanes - you don't send power anywhere until and unless it's needed). I remember thinking I don't like that, because it means the solenoid is running hot powered for the majority of time (and it even runs physically hot too like that). Wiring wise it means kicking off by finding a power source for one of the leads to the solenoid that's constantly live 12v from when ignition is turned on - in my ED sedan I found an unused single female blade connecter type wire near the washer bottle that was 12v when ignition was on (pretty sure it was something for Wagon washer system - unused in the sedan of course - the two must share the same loom tho - ute might be same? ). The other lead from the solenoid then goes to whatever switching mechanism u use - ie. it's closed circuit below 3800rpm and made to open circuit at 3800rpm. The solenoid (which is on a bracket) I just hung off one of the threaded studs that comes thru the firewall behind the manifold - near the heater spiggots - but you can of course fit it wherever and run vac and electrics to it.

In my ED I did eventually fit an EL ECU - and just ran the ground wire from that solenoid to the relevant pin in the ECU connector - ie. in the ED that connector socket was of course unpopulated - so I got a few ECU connector sockets with few inches of wire on them - they slip into an empty socket hole in the connector from the back and click into place - they may even be just std molex females - but not sure about that - used one for the BBM circuit and onother for the Knock sensor - both available in the EL ECU of course but unpopulated in the ED connector even tho its same as the EL one).

If you set up your own switching circuit you can of course power it however you want - ie. you can do it so the solenoid is hard grounded and power is switched on and off from your switching mechanism etc. - the powered solenoid / open / closed ground circuit is critical only for the factory fit running thru an ECU.

Interstingly enough, I physically fitted the BBM to my ED a few years before I got round to sourcing an EL ECU and doing the proper hookups to that for both Knock sensor and BBM switching. Up to then I just ran the BBM locked in short path position.

The interesting thing is the reason why I was running it on short path: that was because with the BBM just bolted on but all else otherwise just std ED, on long path the car had absolutely AMAZING bottom end and off idle response and pickup - TOTAL tyre fryer off the line and head snapping response to throttle stabbing when moving - BUT - that was all well and good only up to about 2000rpm - at that point, too much throttle caused TERRIBLE pinging and subsequent loss of power - so it was perfectly possible to drive it in the long path position, but the wonderful performance was only available in very limited degree - and for any driving above 2000rpm very soft throttle application was necessary - at above 60kph forget about rapid acceleration - had to very gently pedal her up to 80 or 100. Round town it was fantastic - with careful throttle management - for snapping off the line and up to 60 etc. - but again, forget about winding out and just pissing off down the road. Locked on short path the car ran very similarly to how it did with the log manifold across the board but with a predicatable improvement in top end. The thing that surprised me was that it didn't lose as much in the bottom compared to the log manifold as I expected - and that's why I was quite happy to run it for maybe 3 years locked on short path - not worrying about an external rpm switch or anything - until I got round to doing the EL ECU thing.

Once the EL ECU went in, I got some improvement to bottom end and top end was same as it had been of course just with the ED ecu and BBM locked on short path. The surprising thing is that the bottom end with the EL ECU and BBM switching all working factory style etc. was NOT as snappy and amazing as long path with the ED ECU. For a long time my intention was to get a chiptorque module for the EL ECU but programmed with ED ignition and fuel maps up to 1800rpm or so (that was all pre TI Performance J3 of course). I think ECU designed to run with the BBM is "knobbled" to limit torque flow in the bottom end - maybe to stop punters liting up the tyres and losing control left right and centre. Now that I have an EF I'm still contemplating speaking to TI Performance about one of their custom programs with ED ignition and fuel mapping up to 1800 or so...

Last edited by Greenmachine on Sun Jun 03, 2012 10:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

What is the car in the background? Looks like an early Jag or Bentley.

Greenmachine - interesting setup! It'd be fun around town but I'm trying to do this for overall improvement over the log manifold and trying to get my fuel consumption down. I think it will be easiest to get it all hooked up and running 'factory', then play around with it, otherwise I can see myself going around in circles with nowhere to base any changes off.

On Friday I managed to get all the gaskets, the throttle cable, accelerator pedal, the airbox and piping from an EL. I need the heater hoses, vac stuff including solenoid and maybe some wiring connectors. I'm going to see if I can keep the XH rocker cover cause if the only thing a different one does is hold the throttle cable in place then it might save me a cover and some new spark leads by modifying the XH one (if I even need to).


Are you a LAME?

I got a few bits together and painted yesterday so I'll update once I get everything I need and am looking at swapping it out, hopefully end of the week. I'm sure I'll run into problems that Fordmods can answer!


1963 Jag Mark 2. It's a straight six 3.8 and it's awesome. It's interesting cause the engine in size and design is quite similar to the falcon but the exhaust note is completely different (it has no cats and a twin exhaust, one manifold on cyl 1-3 and one on 4-6). It has a triangular engine bay though and is a real pain to work on. Jag makes mechanics out of drivers as the joke goes.

To be clear, my ED ended up being same same enginewise as a factory EL - ie. with EL ECU (which is straight plug in for the ED ECU) and then with the BBM and Knock sensor wiring run to the ED connector - which has those pinouts empty to start with. I also had EF thermofans - but they weren't run thru the ECU - instead I was using the BPT setup which is independent of the ECU.

Even with the BBM switching working, I was having issues with pinging at various times - which is why I found it necessary to also wire up the knock sensor.

Overall in that final form it ran very nicely and indeed you'll have overall improvement in both economy and performance - HOWEVER - the bottom end will not be as much improved as you'd expect - which is disappointing and from what I can see is a product of ECU programming rather than mechanical potential - ie. BBM on long path with ED ECU = absolutely startling bottom end, but BBM on long path with EL ECU feels only a tiny bit better than ED ECU with log manifold - go figure

People have always poo'd me when I say this, but IMO the BBM on short path behaved very similarly to the original log manifold in otherwise stock ED (people seem to think long path is the same as the log manifold - I frankly question that) - but as I've indicated, the long path was AMAZING in the bottom end but with serious issues. Chuck in a BBM ECU and the serious issues are gone - but so is the amazing performance that the ED ECU gives you a taste of.

Try it yourself - ie. just bolt you new BBM on and then try it with the current ECU (manually tying it in long and short path) and see if you get the same effect.

Now having tried a factory EF I've confirmed that it wasn't a problem with the EL ECU I was using (which was always the other possibility - ie. that outright or possibly an issue with a mismatch in ignition systems even tho the EL dizzy setup is meant to be the same as ED one) - ie. the EF feels similar to my ED with the BBM + EL ECU setup so it seems to simply be the way they're programmed - like I say: maybe to stop punters ending up wrapped round trees and posts?.

I still want to try getting a J3 mapped with the ED bottom end fuel and ignition - it would be terrific to have that utterly startling off the line and rolling snap acceleration for low down but without the pinging and other crap once the revs reach 1800 or so.

Yep, I'm a LAME god help me... - mechanical trades only tho - very limited in electrical / avionics skills / knowledge.

F**k fair bit of misinformation in this thread
dont have time or the care to correct so much s**t though...

does anyone know if an XH ECU with a J3 chip with EL tune will run a BBM setup?

Another example of Ford's nice simple and standardised design methodology making modding SO easy!

Last edited by Greenmachine on Sun Oct 27, 2013 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

You ok mate?

Was being cheeky about how Ford makes things so even veteran mechs with lots of experience can still come across stuff and situations that leave you headscratching and WTF!! (much fun I had with putting AU3 coilpack into my EF comes to mind - as well as the question of exactly what IS going on with the BBM solenoid switching) - and there's just SO MUCH clear info around as well (not). Was on my way to bed and in a hurry so yeah this morning I realise it doesn't quite read that way I'll go fix it

In direct answer I'm afraid all I can offer is what you prolly already know - ie. that the "native" ECU needs to have BBM switching inbuilt. Is XH engine same as ED? - so just use an EL ECU?

I've got an el ecu but its doing some strange s**t so wanted to use the xh ecu to do some testing.

Ill just plug it in anyway. Cant drive it with the way its running.

He's probably right - the XH ECU mightn't have the BBM circuitry/drivers, but then, the XH XR6's would've.
Ford might've just used EF/EL EECV ECU's with BBM switching turned off in these. Ranga's done some work on the XH binaries - should look in Tunerpro and see if BBM is an on/off flag.

As you know, there's not too much difference between the XH and EL EEC V - only spark, fuel, BBM would be the major diffs.

It should work, and if the BBM works, then the hardware must be in place.

Be a nice thing to know.