Hi guys,

I want to prepare my car for the EL engine swap, manual conversion, and I have a few questions. (car can't be off the road for long periods.)

1. Will an EL auto ECU run the log manifold as an interim measure? I know it won't be optimal, but will it work?

2. I want to do the resister trick on the auto wiring as detailed n voxace's tech doc directly behind the ECU plug... does anyone know the pins to do it across?

3. My EA has a TCM running the box now.. Can I install the EL ECU, do the auto/manual resister trick and leave the TCM running the auto for now so I can still drive it? (ie how does the TCM connect to the ECU and will it work with the ECU swapped and the new one thinking its always in Neutral?)

Sorry for all the questions, but if I am lucky, I'll be coming home with an EL ECU today and would like to start hooking it all up.

In short, I have to: (I think)

- Take pins from EL ECU plug and put into EA plug.
- Wire in the smartlock bypass module.
- Do the auto/manual resister mod.
- Run wire though firewall to ECU pin for BBM swapover.
- Find a EL Ghia ECU and hopefully swap that in later.

Have I forgotten anything?


Oh, also, when I took the EL motor, I basically cut the wiring look off near the firewall of the EL....
I was thinking of taking advantage of that by using the EL engine look and putting the EA/ED plugs on the firewall end of the EL loom where I cut it off the EL. In essence, making an EL to ED adapter... can anyone see any potential problems with that approach?

Any tips to make the transition smoother would be great.. this is my ride to work and my wife would shoot me if it was down for too long. (cos I'd have to use her car and she has a 7 month old baby and can't be without a car I'm told)

cheers

Rgds

Franki
(Who can't wait to update profile to say EL motor and manual. )

Hi frankieh. As no-one was answering your post, I thought I'd have a go. I'm waiting to see how you go with this before I attempt an ECU swap (and the ridicule from my wife when my car doesn't start). Have you read Troyman's excellent writeup. Here's the link:

http://www.fordmods.com/forums/viewtopi ... u%20manual

Troyman & 66 coupe have the expertise you're after. If they don't see this post perhaps you could PM them.

1. I think you'll have problems with the log manifold fitting on the EL motor as the aircon compressor is in the way. Some of the the guys have modified brackets or used spacers to clear the manifold. Depends on how long you plan to use it.

2. See Troyman's article, half way down. Quite detailed.

3. You may need to put the EL ECU/Smartlock Bypass in first and have all the extra wires ready to hook up when the motor and manual box go in. I think once the EL ECU is hooked up, the EA TCM is no longer usable as new ECU directly controls the gearbox. Can a temporary loom be made up from the EL ECU to the EA TCM to operate all the auto solenoids till the manual gearbox goes in?

Installing a plug and socket to join the looms seems like a good idea if you don't want to pull your dash apart. Have you got the accelerator cable from the EL as it's different to the EA's?

These are just my thoughts after reading a lot of the posts on swapping ECUs.

Thanks Shortshift..

I don't want to put the log manifold on the EL motor.. I currently have a nice ED motor in the car.. I want to add the EL ECU to run that motor, and on that ECU, bypass the smartlock and auto control. (because it will have a manual in it soon enough anyway) If the TCM can carry on controlling the tranny while the EL ECU thinks it is in neutral because of the resistor mod... then I can do all the wiring and testing before I pull out the ED motor and tranny.

That way when the motor swap time comes,, all I need to do is swap the motors, plug in my new adaptor and connection the BBM wire.

In otherwords, I want to get the electronics out of the way so I can concentrate on the mechanicles when the time comes to swap in the EL motor and 5 spd gb.

If I can, I'd like to avoid having to wire up the EL ECU to the tranny since it will be pulled back out again not long thereafter.

rgds

Frank

An adaptor seems like it might be a good idea but I bet it'd just end up being a great pain.

Heres a unified guide I've been working on while wiring my own car.

1. Take lots of pictures of all the connectors you can see on both engines, make sure you put the pictures of the relevant engines in two seperate folders, I didn't exactly do this but at least I took some pictures. eg.



2. Remove the EF/EL/AU harness.

3. Cut off the ICS/TPS and manifold air temperature sensor connectors from the removed EF/EL/AU harness, it is now considered a donor harness.

Before.


4. Unwrap your EA-ED harness from the TPS/ICS end, move the wires to the centre of the harness and cut the original connectors off at a decent length, replace them with the salvaged EF/EL/AU items and solder then heatshrink them... the colours should match if not make sure you have the right connector.

Hey Presto, After


5. The manifold air temperature sensor connector is one thing BenJ discovered that had not been mentioned before, you need to lengthen this... the connectors are the same and I like to keep my solder joins to a minimum so instead of lengthening the wires, I used the donor plug from the other harness.

6. Retape the harness and install, everything will line back up the same as it came out of the EB.



7. The vacuum switch for the bbm is something I am yet to do and I'm still working on it, but heres a Troyman pic for you to look at.



8. Smartlock bypass is a peice of piss, new connector in pin 4 solder it up the green wire, the red wire goes to ignition on, the black wire to earth... next.

9. Knock sensor, not quite sure if the knock sensors are on all EF/EL/AU's but theres one on my EF motor (with EL distributor), the yellow/red wire from the connector goes to another new pin added to the empty number 23 on the ecu plug... the yellow wire goes to signal ground on pin 46

Thats about it really.

Links:
http://www.fordmods.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=40806 TROYMAN's thread.
http://www.fordmods.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=61171 BenJ's thread.

All information is gathered from Troyman and BenJ with a little bit of my own personal experience thrown in... All pictures are property of Troyman, BenJ, knowsfords and Fordmods.com

Sweet, thanks dude...

still need to find out if I can use the EL ECU and the EA TCM at the same time... don't suppose you know.......

im guessing no

the el ecu will run you auto but will need to be connected
no idea how
then u can get rid of the tcm

Hi Mate

I did try running the EL ECU for a couple of days on the EB Engine with the log manifold the week before my conversion. The main purpose of this was to ensure the Smartlock Bypass worked correctly.

What I found was, that while the engine ran, it felt 'off', not quite right. I attributed this to the fact the fuel and ignition maps are designed for the BBM manifold.

In my opinion there is no benefit from using the EL ECU without the extras it is designed to run.

BenJ

Moved to the ECU forums guys. cheers!

Give it more ignition timing

I'm assuming you mean advance Mr 66coupe?

I guess what my question boils down to, is this:

"In the EA Ghia 4spd auto setup with TCM, is the TCM connected to or controlled by the ECU... if it is then I won't be able to leave it in place till I get the manual in place, if it is not, then I should be able to change the ECU out for newer one, and bypass it's tranny control.

Yeah, more advance...

You can plug in an EL ecu + smartlock bypass into your EA and it will run, however for reliable engine operation, you will need to trick the EL ECU (presuming auto ECU) so that it see's the correct voltages on the gear position switch and trans temp sender.

The trans will pretty much "stand alone" with the TCM in the EA's

Sweet..!!!!!!

Thats just what I wanted to know MR 66Coupe..

I have an ED auto ECU here I can use to practise.. if I blow it.. no great loss..

figured if I did the smartlock bypass and tricked the ED ECU into thinking it's in neutral, I could pop it in and leave the tranny to the TCM..

That means I can get the ball rolling on the electronics and still use my car while waiting on the other bits.
(I have the motor, but need the manual and the front end from EL. (going to put all the EL front struts/crossmembers/steering etc into the EA as well and later the diff as well.. basically it will be an EL in an EA shell. (which will later have an EL xr6 front end too.)

just for something different, but long story short, I don't want to put the motor in till I have the other bits ready as it would be much easier to change the front end when there wasn't a motor in it.

sweet... soon as I get a block plug I'm there....