Blenderhead
Well-Known LVC Member
How are those 4.10s working out for you?
Mark VIII T45 swap?
- Thread starter Blenderhead
- Start date
How are those 4.10s working out for you?
Lonnie
LVC Member
About 2 years ago before JW left SCT he added the correct parameters in the data bases so that we can now properly change the settings in the EEC so that it does work with the newer reluctor rings. This saves you from having to install a Speed Cal device. But if you are going to run more than 4.10s your best bet would be to install the Speed Cal.
I don't know who people are here on this site by their sign in names but I know of 5 Mark 8s that I've tuned with the manual swap. After the last couple of OBD II swaps I did on Marks extending wires is childs play. I wouldn't bother with a Cobra EEC though, more trouble than it's worth.
Just don't do a hack job. The last guy I did similar to this put a Mark DOHC and T-56 in his Tbird. He had a shop install it and said it was totally professional. When it wouldn't run and I started getting the flack I asked for pics of the whole setup and wiring. I never seen so many bare wires and tie wraps and scotch tape in my life, it was bad.
96mark8
Dedicated LVC Member
read the post that i made on this thread http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/showthread.php?t=43701 when i was quoting AbrahamLincoln about what i did with my ECM it is a road you might want to take. there are pics if the setup if you scoll down on the other thread. it has worken out good so far.
Blenderhead
Well-Known LVC Member
Lonnie, I won't be doing a hack job of it. The car is too nice to do that. Why do you say don't bother with the cobra ecm swap? Would it not work? The only reason I was going to do it was to keep the swap on the cheap, since I can get a cobra ecm for under $100, and the car is completely stock otherwise, so a tune probably wouldn't net me enough to be worth it at this point. Later on down the line if I do some major stuff to the car, then I'll get a tune, but for now if I can save $250 by using the cobra ecm, I'll do it that way. If the cobra ecm would also need a tune for some reason to run the mark motor, then I won't bother, but I looked at the wiring diagrams for both cars, and there are only a few wires that would need to be changed.
Blenderhead
Well-Known LVC Member
Well the swap is on within the next couple weeks. I already ordered the chip (thanks Lonnie), and now the question of the day...
Do the mark motors have a 6-bolt or 8-bolt flywheel?
Do the mark motors have a 6-bolt or 8-bolt flywheel?
96mark8
Dedicated LVC Member
6 you need a Mustang GT flywheel
Blenderhead
Well-Known LVC Member
OK, next question. I'm sitting in my kitchen today making the extension harness. I'm actually going to be making 2 of them since someone on tccoa wants one too. He's going to mount his ECM in the center console area, and not have much storage room left in there. For mine, I'm going to remove the section of HVAC tubing under the airbag, basically rendering the vent all the way on the passenger side of the dash useless, and then I'll mount the ECM inside the dash up in there above the glove box. Anyway, onto the question. On the junkyard harnesses that I cut apart to make these new ones, there were a few wires that had shielding and one of the harnesses had a twisted pair of wires too. For those who have done a relocation harness for an OBD2 mark before, are there any wires that need to be twisted together in this extension harness, and are there any wires that need to be shielded, or will the shielding on the factory harness be enough to prevent any interference? Thanks.
Mike
Mike
chicken
SHEOOOOOOOOT
i kinda ran into this while making the thundermark engine harness, basically i just kept the twisted/shielded wires twisted/shielded, and just went that way, as for shielding just use tin foil
Blenderhead
Well-Known LVC Member
Yes, but what wires need to be twisted and shielded? I already twisted together the + and - wires for the VSS, CPS, and Bus, but what circuits, if any, need the foil shielding?
94m5
Dmaup's Daddy
just the ones that are already shielded.
Blenderhead
Well-Known LVC Member
Ok, let me try to explain this better. I have not touched the harness in my car. I have no intention of ever touching the harness in my car. Since I will never tear my harness apart, I have no way of knowing what wires are already shielded. The harness I am making will plug into the factory harness on one end, and the computer on the other end, so all I will do is plug in 2 connectors and go. For those of you who have cut apart the MarkVIII harness to do this, which circuits were shielded? If someone can tell me that, I will know what pins on my computer correspond to those same circuits, and that way I will know what wires to run shielding on.
chicken
SHEOOOOOOOOT
oic didnt realize you were actually making a replacement harness vs just cutting into yours
Blenderhead
Well-Known LVC Member
I'm not making a replacement harness either. I am making a plug-and-play extension. It has the same connector as the stock computer and the stock harness, so I can just unplug the computer, plug this harness into the factory one, and then at the other end, plug the computer into this harness. Think of it like an extension cord, only it has 78 wires in it instead of 3. The advantage of this is that if I ever want to put it back to stock for any reason, the factory harness will be completely untouched, and if there is ever a problem with the extension, it will be very easy to diagnose since all I would have to do is unplug the 2 ends.
94m5
Dmaup's Daddy
Hope this helps, I have full resolution pics I can E-mail if you need to look closer. They were taken with a 12MP camera. The only other thing I can tell you, is to take your harness out and pull some tape off and look for yourself.
Mike
Mike
Blenderhead
Well-Known LVC Member
Do you happen to know the colors or the pin locations of the wires that were shielded on yours? Cause if you know that, I can look up a wiring diagram for a 94 and figure it out from there.
Blenderhead
Well-Known LVC Member
By the way, here's a few pics of what I have so far.
And some pics of the connectors at both ends
And some pics of what my mom's kitchen looks like right now. Luckily she's in Georgia, and I have the house to myself till mid-november.
And some pics of the connectors at both ends
And some pics of what my mom's kitchen looks like right now. Luckily she's in Georgia, and I have the house to myself till mid-november.
94m5
Dmaup's Daddy
Looks familiar 
Where are you mounting the computer again?
Where are you mounting the computer again?
Blenderhead
Well-Known LVC Member
In the dash, basically right above the glove box. There is an HVAC tube going through that area out to the vent on the far right side of the dash. With that tube gone, it will leave enough room to mount the computer. I was also considering mounting it on the floor basically right in front of where the auto shifter is right now. There would be enough room to fit it there, but I want to be able to access it without having to pull the whole dash apart. Now I just need to figure out how to secure it so it doesn't bounce around, but I'll do that while the dash is out of the car. The car is getting torn down starting this weekend, so I'll post pics of where the computer will sit once I have the dash sitting on the shop floor.
Blenderhead
Well-Known LVC Member
Made some progress...
On monday I basically just pulled the 4R70 out, and didn't do much of anything else. I did find one kind of scary thing though...
One of the pieces of insulation between the floor and the gas tank had come unclipped, and it was rubbing on the driveshaft, and apparently that was enough to put some serious gouges into it. It's about 1/4" narrower where it was rubbing than it is where nothing was touching it. Luckily the CVPI driveshaft right next to it is ready to replace it. I'm just glad I had the garbage 2-piece driveshaft in there and not a 93 shaft.
This weekend I pulled the interior apart and started some more serious stuff on the swap. Here's the final bracket for the slave cylinder on the T45
The dash out, and me cursing the guy who invented jute, as I cut away the stuff where the clutch pedal needs to go.
Now is when things got complicated. Here is the clutch pedal bolted in place
As you can see, the clutch pedal blocks off the 2 holes where the wiring harnesses come into the car. I was only able to use 2 of the 3 studs where the pedal goes through the firewall, because there just wasn't any metal behind where the other one was supposed to go. I do have it securely bolted to the top cross piece though, so hopefully it won't flex too much. My firewall is pretty much screwed though.
Here is the plug that did go up against that square hole in the upper left corner of the firewall.
Unfortunately since the clutch pedal covers part of that hole up, I will have to instead shove the dash harness side through into the engine bay, connect to that large black connector, and just shove that back down into that small space in there between the firewall and the shock tower. In that above pic you can sort of see where the clutch pedal bracket is blocking off that hole for that connector. Also this unfortunately means that since the connector will just be shoved down in there and not clipped to the firewall, it will take up more room and I won't be able to fit the clutch reservoir on the shock tower where it is supposed to go, so I'll have to figure out exactly where to mount that. Maybe I'll zip-tie it to the brake master cylinder or something, I don't know yet.
Here's the hole in the trans tunnel extended forward so that the shifter can come up into the car.
I'll make a plate to block off where the auto shifter originally sat, and then just use a boot to cover up where the stock T45 shifter comes in, and then bolt up my extension mechanism, and hide it all under the console.
After all that, we were pretty much wiped and out of time (I was running on about 2 hours of sleep saturday night, before getting up and doing this all day sunday, so by about 7:30PM on sunday, I was shot), so we put the dash back in the car temporarily so we could steer and pushed it out of the shop.
Here is the ECM sitting where it will be permanently mounted.
Once I got the dash out of the car, there wasn't as much room as I thought where that HVAC tube was. Instead I found that it fits perfectly in front of the bracket where the center of the dash bolts in place at the bottom. You can sort of see the ECM in this pic through where the HVAC controls will later go. I had to trim one tiny piece of metal for it to sit perfectly, and I also had to cut off the vent for the rear heat where it is supposed to mate with the tube in the console. The good aspect of this is that the only thing that won't work anymore is the rear heat, but that never really worked anyway, plus I hardly ever have anyone in the back seat anyway. The only downside is that if I ever need to get the ECM out of the car, the whole dash will have to come out. I will have enough room to access the chip so I can remove that fairly easily if I need to for a re-tune or something.
I also replaced the blend door actuator while I was in there. I also found out that I had to also replace the grey arm, so I ordered one of those today. I also need to replace the metal rod that connects the 2 together, since mine is completely missing. Unfortunately that part is obsolete, and no dealer in the entire country has one, so unless anyone happens to have one laying around, I think I'll have to just make a new one from sheetmetal, which kind of sucks. Anyway, I think most of the hard stuff is done now. My goals for this week are to finish making my extension harness now that I know exactly how long it has to be, make the hydraulic line to go between the master and slave cylinders, and install the pilot bearing, flywheel, clutch, trans, and new driveshaft into the car. Then next weekend we pull the dash out again, replace that other arm for the heat, permanetly mount the ECM and extension harness, fit all 10lbs of **** into the 5lb bag that is under my dashboard and engine bay now, and then fully re-install the dash into the car, and HOPEFULLY the car should drive out of the shop on sunday.
On monday I basically just pulled the 4R70 out, and didn't do much of anything else. I did find one kind of scary thing though...
One of the pieces of insulation between the floor and the gas tank had come unclipped, and it was rubbing on the driveshaft, and apparently that was enough to put some serious gouges into it. It's about 1/4" narrower where it was rubbing than it is where nothing was touching it. Luckily the CVPI driveshaft right next to it is ready to replace it. I'm just glad I had the garbage 2-piece driveshaft in there and not a 93 shaft.
This weekend I pulled the interior apart and started some more serious stuff on the swap. Here's the final bracket for the slave cylinder on the T45
The dash out, and me cursing the guy who invented jute, as I cut away the stuff where the clutch pedal needs to go.
Now is when things got complicated. Here is the clutch pedal bolted in place
As you can see, the clutch pedal blocks off the 2 holes where the wiring harnesses come into the car. I was only able to use 2 of the 3 studs where the pedal goes through the firewall, because there just wasn't any metal behind where the other one was supposed to go. I do have it securely bolted to the top cross piece though, so hopefully it won't flex too much. My firewall is pretty much screwed though.
Here is the plug that did go up against that square hole in the upper left corner of the firewall.
Unfortunately since the clutch pedal covers part of that hole up, I will have to instead shove the dash harness side through into the engine bay, connect to that large black connector, and just shove that back down into that small space in there between the firewall and the shock tower. In that above pic you can sort of see where the clutch pedal bracket is blocking off that hole for that connector. Also this unfortunately means that since the connector will just be shoved down in there and not clipped to the firewall, it will take up more room and I won't be able to fit the clutch reservoir on the shock tower where it is supposed to go, so I'll have to figure out exactly where to mount that. Maybe I'll zip-tie it to the brake master cylinder or something, I don't know yet.
Here's the hole in the trans tunnel extended forward so that the shifter can come up into the car.
I'll make a plate to block off where the auto shifter originally sat, and then just use a boot to cover up where the stock T45 shifter comes in, and then bolt up my extension mechanism, and hide it all under the console.
After all that, we were pretty much wiped and out of time (I was running on about 2 hours of sleep saturday night, before getting up and doing this all day sunday, so by about 7:30PM on sunday, I was shot), so we put the dash back in the car temporarily so we could steer and pushed it out of the shop.
Here is the ECM sitting where it will be permanently mounted.
Once I got the dash out of the car, there wasn't as much room as I thought where that HVAC tube was. Instead I found that it fits perfectly in front of the bracket where the center of the dash bolts in place at the bottom. You can sort of see the ECM in this pic through where the HVAC controls will later go. I had to trim one tiny piece of metal for it to sit perfectly, and I also had to cut off the vent for the rear heat where it is supposed to mate with the tube in the console. The good aspect of this is that the only thing that won't work anymore is the rear heat, but that never really worked anyway, plus I hardly ever have anyone in the back seat anyway. The only downside is that if I ever need to get the ECM out of the car, the whole dash will have to come out. I will have enough room to access the chip so I can remove that fairly easily if I need to for a re-tune or something.
I also replaced the blend door actuator while I was in there. I also found out that I had to also replace the grey arm, so I ordered one of those today. I also need to replace the metal rod that connects the 2 together, since mine is completely missing. Unfortunately that part is obsolete, and no dealer in the entire country has one, so unless anyone happens to have one laying around, I think I'll have to just make a new one from sheetmetal, which kind of sucks. Anyway, I think most of the hard stuff is done now. My goals for this week are to finish making my extension harness now that I know exactly how long it has to be, make the hydraulic line to go between the master and slave cylinders, and install the pilot bearing, flywheel, clutch, trans, and new driveshaft into the car. Then next weekend we pull the dash out again, replace that other arm for the heat, permanetly mount the ECM and extension harness, fit all 10lbs of **** into the 5lb bag that is under my dashboard and engine bay now, and then fully re-install the dash into the car, and HOPEFULLY the car should drive out of the shop on sunday.
kustomizingkid
Dedicated LVC Member
Damn.... you are really busting your ass on this project, looks good!
94m5
Dmaup's Daddy
What the eff is that big gouge you cut into the trans tunnel?
94m5
Dmaup's Daddy
I also just looked at your slave bracket. Your gonna rip that little bolt apart that is screwed in to the bellhousing face. I highly reccomend you do something similar to mine and go off of both machining tabs on the side of the tranny.
96mark8
Dedicated LVC Member
looks great
Blenderhead
Well-Known LVC Member
The hole in the trans tunnel is basically just extending forward of where the auto shifter hole was. Since the mustang shifter comes up about 6" forward of where it needs to be, that will give it enough room to come up into the car, and then I'll make a plate to block off where the auto shifter was, and the extension mechanism will be hidden under the center console. As for the slave bracket, that is almost identical to the one I had on my 94 cougar T45 swap, and there was never any problems with it. The bolt is actually threaded into the piece of plate steel that I'm using for the face of the bracket, not the aluminum of the bell housing.
94m5
Dmaup's Daddy
Can you send me some pictures of this extension mechanism for the shifter?
I am VERY interested in what your doing with that. I may be forcedto buy one off of you.
Mike
EDIT
camaro97383@gmail.com <---------------E mail
I am VERY interested in what your doing with that. I may be forcedto buy one off of you.
Mike
EDIT
camaro97383@gmail.com <---------------E mail