SMECing an 87 CSX

985 Views 22 Replies 10 Participants Last post by stinger, May 20, 2005

Stratman

Discussion Starter · May 11, 2005

Hey guys,
I'm about to install a SMEC into an 87 CSX and need to know if there are any issues with using a complete wiring harness from the 88 Daytona. I did a search and didn't find anything specific. I'm sure there are a few connectors that might need to be swapped also. Any info would be appreciated.

1 - 20 of 23 Posts

jonnyb

· #2 · May 11, 2005

I'm sure there are a few connectors that might need to be swapped also

- There will be more than a "few"...

The daytona uses a bulkhead connector on the firewall, while the shadow's harness passes right through the firewall and does not use a bulkhead. You will have to remove every single wire from the daytona bulkhead connector and splice it into the csx's wiring loom right before where the wires go through the firewall. Since you're talking about a numbered car here, you might want to try and find an 88/89 shadow harness and use that instead of the daytona harness. The csx harness is one off modified by shelby, so instead of cutting into it and destroying it, you would have a much easier time just swapping another shadow harness in, and saving the stock csx harness for later restoration or selling to another member who needs one.

Good luck!

Stratman

Discussion Starter · #3 · May 11, 2005

Thank you Jonny,

The 88 harness through the firewall is strait through also, I have put quite a few wires through the gromet in the past year. I don't know what year they stopped that. Desrtoying and cutting the CSX harness is definately not an option to me either.

jonnyb said:
- There will be more than a "few"...

The daytona uses a bulkhead connector on the firewall, while the shadow's harness passes right through the firewall and does not use a bulkhead. You will have to remove every single wire from the daytona bulkhead connector and splice it into the csx's wiring loom right before where the wires go through the firewall. Since you're talking about a numbered car here, you might want to try and find an 88/89 shadow harness and use that instead of the daytona harness. The csx harness is one off modified by shelby, so instead of cutting into it and destroying it, you would have a much easier time just swapping another shadow harness in, and saving the stock csx harness for later restoration or selling to another member who needs one.

Good luck!

85lebaront2

· #4 · May 11, 2005

Would an H body 88 LeBaron harness work?

GLHNSLHT2

· #5 · May 11, 2005

I just did the 87 ShelbyZ to 88 ShelbyZ smec harness swap. What a pain. If I were you I'd do like JohnnyB suggested and look for an 88 Shadow, then add the wires you need. Probably a lot easier in the long run. It's amazing what they changed just between years on the same car. I couldn't fathom trying to do a year and body swap. Nice thing is the Shadows have always had the plugs under the dash. An 88 Shadow harness might be a direct swap. Access to a set of FSM's from each year is also helpful. I'm glad I had both FSM's.

iTurbo

· #6 · May 11, 2005

I'm still in the learning/planning stages of converting my '87 Shelby Lancer to SMEC. I'll be using an '88 TII Lancer Shelby underhood harness and SMEC.

So far the swap looks pretty straightforward. The hardest part will be making a 50-pin bulkhead gender-changer adapter. Another thing I'm not sure about is some of the plugs under the dash that connect to the steering column. On the '87, those plugs are part of the underdash harness. In '88, they are part of the underhood harness. It looks like I might have some redundant plugs when I'm done; still not sure how it will all turn out. GLHNSLHT2, did you encouter this situation on your conversion?

GLHNSLHT2

· #7 · May 12, 2005

Sounds like you've got a pretty good grasp of it iTurbo. They ran those wires through the bulkhead in 87 and around it in 88. You have to figure out where they go in the bulkhead. What I did was cut all the wires on the 88 harness at the bulkhead connector, shorten them to the right length (they're still a little long) and then solder and shrink tube them onto the 87 bulkhead connector. My subharness' were trashed on the 88 setup so I tried using the 87 ones. The plug on the front harness was different and the starter wiring is different on the back harness. I made it work and it looks factory but it was just a road block in the process. The plug for the CTS was a different shape, and the wiper motor plug was a different shape too. Oh and 88Z's are wired for Fog lights the same as 89's If you have a little green plug with nothing to it but a yellow ignition wire jumped across it that's for Fogs. Why they jumped the ignition wire across it I don't know. Why they changed any of it is beyond me. Fine move the bulkhead under the dash but keep the sexes the same and run all the wires through it. To do what they did sounded like a bored engineer that was trying to justify his job at the factory. I've seen a pic of a Euro Daytona ShelbyZ with Fog either molded or cut into the nose just below the turn indicators and am pretty sure this was what the fogs were for. US cars don't have as many lighting requirements so they just left the fogs out. Now it would be cool to know if the nose and ground f/x were molded different or if they just fabbed up a bracket and cut it out. Anyway if you have any questions iTurbo pm or email me and I'll try to get back to you asap. Hopefully a Shadow swap is easier as they had 88 style wiring under the dash.

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DblTrbl

· #8 · May 12, 2005

I just did a SMEC conversion on an 86 SC. I left the original 86 harness in place. However, I cut off the two 25 pin LM connectors and wired in 60 pin connector so half my smec is in the passenger area. In the engine bay, I cut off the 2 power module connector and wired in a 14 pin SMEC connector. So the other half (power module) of the SMEC is now in the engine bay. The SMEC power module does not have an ASD built in, so I added a seperate relay for this in the engine bay.

I created a spreadsheet with all of the wiring equivalents for the SMEC, 86 and 87. There were alot of wires to connect and also a few that had to be added, but it seemed easier than replacing the harness for me. If you want to go this route, let me know and I can Email you a copy of my spreadsheet. Here's how it looks. The extra wires are for my logging.

Carl

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Stratman

Discussion Starter · #9 · May 12, 2005

Thank you very much for that photo! That takes me a different direction now. Since I have so many LM's laying around as of last week, I will just use the connectors from one that way I won't have to spice anything. I had the thought a long time ago about separating the to boards. This will make it soooooo much easier to hook up the EPROM emmulator and be able to keep it inside the car out of the weather instead of under the hood where it is now. Anymore ideas??

DblTrbl said:
I just did a SMEC conversion on an 86 SC. I left the original 86 harness in place. However, I cut off the two 25 pin LM connectors and wired in 60 pin connector so half my smec is in the passenger area. In the engine bay, I cut off the 2 power module connector and wired in a 14 pin SMEC connector. So the other half (power module) of the SMEC is now in the engine bay. The SMEC power module does not have an ASD built in, so I added a seperate relay for this in the engine bay.

I created a spreadsheet with all of the wiring equivalents for the SMEC, 86 and 87. There were alot of wires to connect and also a few that had to be added, but it seemed easier than replacing the harness for me. If you want to go this route, let me know and I can Email you a copy of my spreadsheet. Here's how it looks. The extra wires are for my logging.

Carl

DblTrbl

· #10 · May 12, 2005

Stratman said:
Thank you very much for that photo! That takes me a different direction now. Since I have so many LM's laying around as of last week, I will just use the connectors from one that way I won't have to spice anything. I had the thought a long time ago about separating the to boards. This will make it soooooo much easier to hook up the EPROM emmulator and be able to keep it inside the car out of the weather instead of under the hood where it is now. Anymore ideas??

Keep the vaccum hose to the map sensor (I use 3bar) as short as possible. The computer likes to see changes in the map reading at all times. Since you're already at 87 spec, you won't need to add the extra 2 AIS wires like I did. When you cut the 60 pin connecter of some old harness, try to get as much length as possible.

The setup you see works great. I spray alcohol at boost, so unlike most folks who try to add more gasoline under boost, I lowered WOT tables to bring the mix of gas and alcohol to the desired A/F ratio since I can't tune the alcohol.

It's nice having the chip so accessible. I would have converted to flash by now had this not been so convenient.

Here's more info on the car. Carl's SC

Carl

Stratman

Discussion Starter · #11 · May 12, 2005

DblTrbl said:
Keep the vaccum hose to the map sensor (I use 3bar) as short as possible. The computer likes to see changes in the map reading at all times.

Preachin' to the choir

It's nice having the chip so accessible. I would have converted to flash by now had this not been so convenient.

I built up a Flash SMEC and loved it since I no longer had to fight with pulling the case apart and installing everything over and over, but no matter what the car had to be turned off to flash. Now with the EPROM emmulators so cheap everything is changed real time, great for the dyno.

DblTrbl

· #12 · May 13, 2005

Stratman said:
Thank you very much for that photo! That takes me a different direction now. Since I have so many LM's laying around as of last week, I will just use the connectors from one that way I won't have to spice anything.

I considered the connector route instead of the splicing route. It should work well in the LM area, but I woudln't bother in the power module area since there are fewer pins to splice and some heavier gauge wires.

Stratman

Discussion Starter · #13 · May 13, 2005

DblTrbl said:
I created a spreadsheet with all of the wiring equivalents for the SMEC, 86 and 87. There were alot of wires to connect and also a few that had to be added, but it seemed easier than replacing the harness for me. If you want to go this route, let me know and I can Email you a copy of my spreadsheet. Here's how it looks. The extra wires are for my logging.
wires.

I just went back and read this. That would be great! Will you please send it to [email protected]. Would you happen to have the SMEC wire diagram? Do you have any pics of what you did at the Power Module area also?

Stratman

Discussion Starter · #14 · May 15, 2005

I just noticed that the 87 CSX has a mechanical speedometer cable to the trans unlike the 88 which has only a connector from the wire harness. Did they make a speed distance sensor that had the wire connection and the speedo cable connection?

NICK A.

· #15 · May 15, 2005

Yes the 89 ES T1 shadow came thru with a cable driven speedo as well, I will be using this harness in my 87 CSX.

Nick A.

NICK A.

· #16 · May 15, 2005

Heck even my 88 CSXt has a cable driven speedo.

Nick a

Stratman

Discussion Starter · #17 · May 15, 2005

Really! The Daytona isn't.

NICK A. said:
Heck even my 88 CSXt has a cable driven speedo.

Nick a

NICK A.

· #18 · May 15, 2005

I don't think I've seen a daytona with a cable since 86ish. I think it has to do with the clusters, the shadow was the same since 86-94 I beleive. The daytonas had some different set ups.

Nick A.

Stratman

Discussion Starter · #19 · May 15, 2005

Ok. Do you know what part number the sensor is? Do you happen to have a pic of one?

NICK A. said:
I don't think I've seen a daytona with a cable since 86ish. I think it has to do with the clusters, the shadow was the same since 86-94 I beleive. The daytonas had some different set ups.

Nick A.

matthew

· #20 · May 15, 2005

harness

Please sent me spreadsheet to [email protected]

thank you
matthew

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