Well last year I had the orthm idea of installing climate control into my 5 speed EA Spac. Anyway, it ended up with my doing something wrong and frying alot of wires and box thingys. Screw this I thought, Ghias are cool. So I obtained a set of looms out of a 3 Speed NA Fairlane. I installed them all, and got it to the point where the battery was the last thing needing installing. I wasn't very confident in my wiring, so I got data_mine to connect it, that way if anything blows up, I won't be blowing up with it.

To my suprise, data_mine didn't get blown up, and all the electrics (Climate, digi dash, etc) all work, however, when you turn the key to start, all that happens is the "Brake fail" light comes on.

This is similar to what happened to data_mine's car when he tried to start it in gear, but his shows the (!) light...

So I was thinking, looms are out of an auto, car is a manual, that would be the reason, wouldn't it?

does the light come on and stay on... or does it flicker while you are cranking the engine, and then turn off?

Yeah the light comes on when the key is pushed to start, but once it springs back it turns off.

i'm guessing the ECU needs to be tricked into thinking it's in neutral. i'm not sure if the wiring looms are all that different between auto's and manual's, but if you do the conversion that's what's needed to make it run.

You just need to find the wires that run the the neutral switch for the auto and join them together.

EA S1, so ecu's are identlcal, manual/auto wise....

hmmm, thanks jeffb, i'll look into that

I'm used to electrocution, but managed to survive the EA of DOOM!

@Selekta - didn't I tell you already - neutral switch!

Anyone know which are the wire colours for the neutral switch?

For an EL it's a Purple/LigthGreen and a Black/White wire.