So who's played with Haltechs?

[Norbie]

Update time! Wiring is mostly done, the reluctor trigger appears to work (when I spin the distributor by hand I get an RPM signal anyway), the new TPS is installed, fuel pump and main power feeds are in... basically all I need to do now is lock up the distributor advance mechanism and see if I can get it started.

[Ben Wilson]

Sounds good - let the merryment begin!

[Norbie]

Kudos and much love for teh Witzl who taught me in the ways of Toyota ignitors. I'm now up to the point where turning the distributor by hand makes the coil spark like crazy and the injectors click. Hooray, nearly there!

I think all I need to do now is get the advance mechanism in the distributor locked solid, then it should hopefully turn over. Good times!!

[takai]

If you get weird things happening with your spark, like it suddenly sparkign all coils then check the earths. And possibly isolate the ECU.

[Norbie]

Thanks for the tip, I'll certainly keep that in mind. I've been burned by bad earths enough times before, so I've got earth points all over the place - hopefully it will be all good!

I just remembered I still need to mount the air temp sensor. Where is the best place to put this? I was thinking about drilling and tapping the hole in the plenum where the cold start injector used to be, but is it better to have it pre-throttle? I'm thinking it wouldn't make a whole lot of difference, air temps should be pretty much the same on either side.

[JustCallMeOrlando]

Mine is going where my cold start injector used to reside. I figured what better place than in the inlet manifold to measure the air into the engine.

[gearb0x]

Ya ive seen it done that way plenty of times, if the holes big enough without tapping just make an adapter plate that bolts on ala cold start injector

[takai]

Closer to the valves the better, in this case the plenum would be an ideal location for the sensor.

Also, if you shake your Haltech around does the PCB rattle at all? Mine does, and i think thats why it shorted out on the casing.

[Ben Wilson]

A friend mounted his inlet air temp sensor post throttle on a quad TB setup and had all sorts of issues with temperature fluctuations due to lack of airflow at closed throttle.

[The Witzl]

A friend mounted his inlet air temp sensor post throttle on a quad TB setup and had all sorts of issues with temperature fluctuations due to lack of airflow at closed throttle.

Bear in mind that this will eventually be a turbocharged engine, thus plenum is the best location for the air temp sensor. Also, your mate would've had problems with an ITB setup due to the airflow for one cylinder as opposed to all four at once..... plenum mount is no problem for several of Toyota's engines.

[thechuckster]

agreed - post-throttle is ideal for turbos.

open-cage sensors (you can find these in the back of v6 commode manifolds) are more responsive to temp changes - which happens quickly in turbos) but are prone to vibration damage.

[Hydra]

AdapTronic stuff

Looks nice I might have to think about this one for my 1G!

[chris_rg]

agreed - post-throttle is ideal for turbos.

open-cage sensors (you can find these in the back of v6 commode manifolds) are more responsive to temp changes - which happens quickly in turbos) but are prone to vibration damage.

i'll second prone to vibration damage, i had one of these open cage ones on mine and i've broken two of them now. Next one i'm going to put a blob of silicon in the cage, since i'm N/A anyway.

BTW: I seem to remember reading somewhere that the dizzy from a mitsu L300 van (with multi point injection) could be used to make a hybrid with the 18rg dizzy. The L300 dizzy has one trigger with 4 signals, and another 'home' trigger. This can be hooked up directly to the Haltech. I know this because my mate has a starion that runs this dizzy and a haltech.

I wish i could remember where i got this idea from. I never checked it out. But it would be worth checking out if you want COP without bothering with the whole crank wheel thing.

Cheers
Chris

[RA23]

I'd love to run a crank wheel but have no idea how to go about it. Is it possible to buy generic aftermarket ones or is this something you have to fab up yourself?

I designed one some time ago and had a few laser cut, it will bolt straight onto the front of the pulley (using the 4 M8 holes) with 10mm spacers. Next project is making a bracket for the Ford VR sensor. I am using the Ford EDIS system (wasted spark). You should probably be able to use the same system with the Haltech.
Unfortunately it is hard to get these bits in Oz, I got the EDIS bits through ebay for about $60, VR sensor $10 and wheel cost me about $30 (from memory).

[Norbie]

OK, so I re-assembled the engine and had a go at starting it. Much to my annoyance, the Haltech refused to register a signal from the reluctor trigger while cranking. It worked when I spun the distributor by hand, but only if I spun it fast enough - so I'm thinking the signal may be too weak at cranking speed?

This is starting to get annoying. If I don't have this sorted out soon I'm going to bite the bullet and bodge up some sort of crank trigger. I notice Motec sell generic trigger wheels which should do the job nicely:
http://www.motec.com.au/pdf/MoTeC_Catalog.pdf

Add some sort of optical sensor and it should be easy enough, I guess?