Installing Ecliptech Shift-i shift-light (daft questions fro

hamx5ter · Postby **hamx5ter** » Thu May 26, 2011 11:58 am

Ok, so i bought a shift-i off greenmachine and decided to give installing a go

Admittedly i know absolutely NOTHING about cars.

Did ask around on pm but couldn't work this out, so here's the post for mitchf1 when it's time for him to give the installation a go..

So far..
cluster cover off (tense moments while I wondered if it was bolted down..

Unscrewed the cluster and unplugged the 3 connectors at the back.

but couldn't make sense of the wiring diagram that came with the shift-i..

THE QUESTIONS

Do i just figure out which are the ground, power & tach terminals on ONE of the connectors and wire up the 3 shift-i wires to ONE of them.

OR

Do I have to run each of the 3 wires to each of the three connectors (so each connector is dealing with GROUND, POWER & TACH and all the wires are the different instruments connecting to them)...

Is there a problem if i remove the terminals and squish in the shift-i wire (so one terminal is connected to two instruments)?

If not, I'll have to get 3 little terminal clips too I guess.

Sorry about the super n00b question..

I didn't fiddle too much with it, since I had no idea what I was doing, but also because I realised I will need some more wire to splice together with the ones from the shift-i which are too short to reach around to the back of the cluster..

mitch_f1 · Postby **mitch_f1** » Fri May 27, 2011 1:31 pm

Not sure if you have found this, and the pictures are a bit crap, but it is better than nothing.

http://www.ecliptech.com.au/downloads/s ... _miata.pdf

hamx5ter · Postby **hamx5ter** » Fri May 27, 2011 3:46 pm

Thanks Mitch, i'll have a look at it tomorrow and see how it goes.. Thanks for the heads-up..

Gee.. This is turning out to be quite a odyssey. Woulda thought all those gauge fanatics would've been able to clear it up quickly..

Oh well.. Friday awaits!

deviant · Postby **deviant** » Fri May 27, 2011 4:30 pm

hamx5ter wrote:Thanks Mitch, i'll have a look at it tomorrow and see how it goes.. Thanks for the heads-up..

Gee.. This is turning out to be quite a odyssey. Woulda thought all those gauge fanatics would've been able to clear it up quickly..

Oh well.. Friday awaits!

Everybody wants gauges but then I think they give up when they realise how fiddly it is to just 'take a signal from any sensor' or some such thing that they all say on the box.

Locutus · Postby **Locutus** » Fri May 27, 2011 4:53 pm

you are thinking too much. from what you've described it's simple from an electronics perspective.

you have 3 wires
- power (+12v)
- ground
- tach

ground is simple - hook it to any constant ground source, or ground it to the chassis
power should connect to any 12v source that is constant when the ignition is in the ON position
tach hooks up to a tach signal, easiest source probably being the back of the instrument cluster

it is not necessary to hook up all 3 wires to the back of the cluster, but it's likely to be neater & more convenient that way.

hamx5ter · Postby **hamx5ter** » Fri May 27, 2011 5:09 pm

finally.... a victim... :mrgreen:

easy enough.. he says.. from an electronics perspective...

now try that as a photographer! :oops:

Sounds like good advice, James... but my confusion is much more basic than that, though..

Do the three connectors handle PWR, GND & TACH separately? That means I just need to know which connector does what and shove (each of the three) wires in there (the appropriate connector).,.. 3 wires to 3 connectors.

OR

Do the connectors each have some sort of fixed pin-out (technical term there), so I need to read Mitch diagram to find out just which terminals are GND, PWR & TACH (in each connector) and put the three wires into the appropriate terminal... 3 wires into 1 connector.

If you can please clarify this, I'll have a look at it tomorrow, and Mitch's wiring diagram and see what happens..

Remember that this is a big step for me.. My technical skills barely cover changing the tyre..(honest) The great thing about a forum like this is that you have a nickname, and you can ask all your questions, confident in your anonymity. If they don't know who you are.. how will they humiliate you?... :beer:

Sailor · Postby **Sailor** » Fri May 27, 2011 5:35 pm

Hamster, I was installing a Shifti a while back and was as confused as you.
I went to their website and fired off a 'help'.
A full and complete answer arrived within 30 minutes...even on a weekend.

Give it a go

hamx5ter · Postby **hamx5ter** » Fri May 27, 2011 5:42 pm

You wouldn't still have the email around somewhere, would you?

I just gave Tony \ Eclipetech a call and he pointed me to the installation page on their website. That's the same pdf that Mitch has referred me to. When I get home, I'll have a look at it with the car & shift-i in front of me, and see if I can make sense out of it.

Good to know the support is good, and you managed to work it out easily enough.

Locutus · Postby **Locutus** » Fri May 27, 2011 5:44 pm

i'm not sure what you mean by option A.

yes, the connectors have a fixed pin-out.

it doesn't matter which or how many connectors you use, provided you are tapping into the correct circuits. you will probably find that only 1 wire out of all connectors carries the tach signal. that doesn't mean you need to connect all 3 wires to this connector, nor does it mean you need to tap the other 2 wires into each of the 2 other connectors.

Locutus · Postby **Locutus** » Fri May 27, 2011 6:01 pm

look at the last page of the ecliptech doc mitch_f1 linked, and page 17 of the NB8A wiring diagram - they seem to match up
http://neomiata.com/garage/Wiring%20Dia ... agrams.pdf

power to pin C of connector 1
tach to pin K of connector 2
ground to pin J of connector 3

i would check with a multimeter first, though.

hamx5ter · Postby **hamx5ter** » Fri May 27, 2011 8:01 pm

Locutus wrote:i'm not sure what you mean by option A.

yes, the connectors have a fixed pin-out.

it doesn't matter which or how many connectors you use, provided you are tapping into the correct circuits. you will probably find that only 1 wire out of all connectors carries the tach signal. that doesn't mean you need to connect all 3 wires to this connector, nor does it mean you need to tap the other 2 wires into each of the 2 other connectors.

awesome... this and the following post clears it up completely for me. ... i think...

Just got home and had a look at the mitch diagram and it seems all straight-forward now.. :mrgreen:

LOL

Will give it a go tomorrow and will report.

Thanks JT!

Postby **Okibi** » Fri May 27, 2011 11:57 pm

Try and shoot some video once it's running. :mrgreen:

hamx5ter · Postby **hamx5ter** » Sat May 28, 2011 5:29 pm

lol... it took me about as long to figure out how to get the file out of my camera,
convert it and upload it to youtube as it took to actually put the thing together! :oops:

This is just lame... i uploaded gavin's john cleese video with no trouble,
and now seem to have forgotten how to work a computer...
methinks a touch of russ is in the air :evil:

So here is... my first truly diy mod..

Postby **Okibi** » Sat May 28, 2011 9:04 pm

Thanks for sharing, glad you didnt bounce it off the limiter with a cold engine.

I'll be interesting to see what you think if it and where you place it so it doesn't kill your night vision driving at night.

hamx5ter · Postby **hamx5ter** » Sun May 29, 2011 7:33 am

I'll leave it as it now (maybe just put a bit of blu-tack to keep it in place) for a bit (just under the tach and to the right a little), until I drive the car around for a while. I'll have a better idea where maybe next w/e.

1. right in the middle, on top of the steering column
2. to the left of the odo (just under the tach), where it is in the video
3. stuck to the top of the binnacle (underneath the binnacle, just slightly obscuring the indicators)

You don't have to have it on for the full range of the tach. Mine is set presently to start 5000rpm and flash at 6750rpm, so when i drive around on the city roads, it shouldn't really come on except for a very short bit, and only the left-most light.

I prefer quiet interiors generally; the only chrome in the car is the brushed metal knob.. so I'm not keen on lights flashing away for no reason at all. Once I know how it works (I might put the flash-point to something lower, so I can learn how long it takes to shift once it flashes, etc), I'll quite likely set the points to 5500 / 6750.

It also has a few display modes - cumulative, single-dot, shift-point only and OFF :lol:

You can also adjust the brightness map, so it can be dimmed quite a way down for night-time driving.

This shift-i is a blue:red combo. I would have preferred a green:yellow:red, so I'll probably see if I can stick some gels over the left 3 lights to make them green. That would make them green:blue:red and will also have the additional effect of making them slightly darker. Will post up if I ever get to it