My '93 JZX90 Toyota Chaser

Yesterday was a lot more work than I expected trying to get the car side of the wiring done. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to get the brake pedal signal into the ECU as a digital input, as I'll need that for canceling cruise control. I also had to swap around a few things with the speedometer signal, as I'm having the ECU process it before it goes to the speedometer, which was unnecessarily complicated. That said, I have everything setup correctly now after shuffling around some of the ECU inputs and outputs to make a bit more sense.

Today's wiring work should be just running and looming wires under the dash once I get the ECU in place. I'll also need to connect up the EBC solenoids and at least route the wires for the clutch pressure sensor. I may be stuck waiting on parts for that, as I need a -3AN fitting on one end for the hydraulic release bearing, but I currently have an M10 end on my clutch hose(s). I'm still gonna send it and get the clutch on, the trans on, and get this damn engine in the car VERY soon

I ordered some new tires yesterday; (4) of these for $1k out the door from my local parts guy: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/tyt-104520

I also ordered new harnesses earlier this week as well. I'll be going with (2) of these, in blue: https://www.schrothracing.com/item/rallye-4-asm/tuning-Harnesses

very cool project. Semper Fi!

In reply to cdchris12 :

When you used "gong show" correctly, I had my suspicions...

Welcome to the forum, and cool car! (NGL, I was trying to figure out what make of car a Toyota chaser was...)

It's been a few days, and I've made quite a bit of progress!

After getting the engine off the stand, I realized I was missing a pilot bearing, so I had to pick one of those up locally. After that was in place, I was able to mount up the clutch with no problems.

Connecting the trans took a bit of time, as there were no instructions on how to clearance (or install) the new hydraulic release bearing. I eventually realized that I didn't need any shims and was able to mate the engine and trans without much fuss.

This picture might _look_ like the motor is in, but that's not the case. It's just resting on top of the motor mounts, about a half an inch too far to the left to bolt up. The gigantic intake doesn't clear the fuse panel in the engine compartment nor the battery. this was our stopping point for that day, as I took this picture around 3 am :P

This picture shows the engine and trans both mounted in and bolted up. My next big project will be more wiring (I'm so sick of wiring) to move the fuse panel into the glove box and run some welding cable from the starter back to the trunk for the planned battery relocation.

Here's another wrinkle; the charge pipe is totally wrong for this application. Even after removing the battery tray and fuse panel, there's no way that's gonna fit. I contacted a local fab shop to see what they can do for me, and they will be coming by on Friday to take a look, figure out a solution, and weld me up some pipe. They're also going to take care of fabbing the exhaust from the WG flange into the DP and from the DP into the cat-back as well.

I don't have a picture, but the ECU is partially into the car now as well. I had to do some cutting to make the ECU mount work, and I quickly realized that there isn't enough room to connect or disconnect any ECU plugs while the ECU is installed in it's final mounted position. Since the fuse panel wiring will be using the same entry point as the ECU connectors, I'll have to get that resolved and buttoned up before I can finish wiring in the ECU.

I still need to measure, cut, and put ends on all the various hoses between the car and the engine as well; vacuum, fuel, coolant, and oil. I'm not looking forward to the cramped spaces the oil cooler lines have to go into, as that's going to be a proper nightmare, but that's a nightmare for tomorrow me :P

The local fab shop was a bit of a bust; they're backed up until October :(

I hit up a buddy of mine who can weld, and he's going to be doing my fab work this weekend. That means I've gotta get the fuel lines, the air lines, the oil lines, and the power steering lines all sorted by then. I also need to get going on the fuse panel relocation project, but it's a BEAST. I'm also stuck waiting on Metra-Pak connectors that are delayed in shipment. :/

I tried to get the battery relocation to the trunk done, but the battery box I ordered didn't even kind of fit anywhere in the trunk. I ended up ordering a different battery box ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08QTLSGHK ), which will fit perfectly on the left hand side of the trunk. If my math isn't off, I should also still be able to put plywood "floor" sections above the new Optima battery I ordered ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000MSBUA4 ) to fit in that battery holder. At least the welding cable I ran for that was easily able to fit in the channel by the doors on the driver's side. At first, I was thinking I might just wrap the E36 M3 out of it, double loom it, and zip tie it to the fuel lines... I'm super happy I didn't go with that option :P 

There's no going back now (not that I was ever going to look back at that 1JZ anyway) ; the old motor is #sold as of this morning!

It's only been 10 days, and it feels a lot longer. I've put in many very late nights trying to get this car ready.

This is the aftermath from adding wires to relocate the fusebox from the engine compartment into the glove box. Fishing those wires was SUCH a project!

With those wires fished and the engine mounted, I could finally connect up the rest of the engine harness... Only to find out that it was about a foot too short because of how it's routed around the new, massive intake. So, I spent Saturday extending those wires and getting the ECU connected as it should be.

With the ECU connected, I could put most of the plastic panels back in place. After that was all done and dusted, I vacuumed the carpet and got to work installing the new Corbeau seats and Schroth Racing harnesses. I was really worried about how the red would clash with the mostly blue theme of the car so far, but it's subtle enough to work oddly well.

On Tuesday, I took the spare set of rims to get the new Toyo R888R Proxy tires I bought a while back mounted on them. They look nice, and they're SUPER sticky :D

I was worried about me fitting in the car because of how high the seats sit, so I test fit myself in the seat and the harness while wearing a helmet. There isn't a ton of room above the helmet, but there is enough :) 

On Wednesday night, I tamed the beast of wires flowing from the glove box. I know this looks bizarre (and like a fire hazard), but it's only temporary. I need to get this engine broken in, then I can work on non critical things like designing a new fuse / relay board that doesn't look like it's gonna burn the car down if I take a corner too hard.

I wanted to take one last "before" pic before the car went to my side job's shop for charge cooler and exhaust piping fabrication.

This _should_ be the one and only time this car leaves my garage not under its own power :D

Last night, I fixed a fuel leak, installed new DW 1500 injectors, and got a start on fabbing up the aluminum mount for my new thin radiator fans.

There's not much left from this point until I can turn the key. I still need to:
- Fab intake charge piping
- Fab Exhaust piping to match DP to cat back exhaust
- Finish the aluminum radiator mount and build a harness
- Finish running the vacuum hoses on the engine and to the wastegate / QSV
- Mount the battery in the trunk (the wiring is already in place, I literally just need to bolt the mount down)
- Mount the battery cable junction box on the frame rail
- Run a wire from the junction box to the starter
- Plumb the radiator into the engine
- Increase the front ride height about an inch or so
- Add fluids (oil, P/S fluid, gear oil for the trans, and water for the radiator)

I'll be taking a day off tonight, but stay tuned for another update on Saturday night. I should have most, if not all, of that list knocked out by then!

What a long, strange weekend it has been...

This is where we sat after working all day Saturday. The charge cooling pipes weren't quite complete, but many other things got dealt with. Most notably, the radiator fan shroud is done and dusted. Heater hoses also got plumbed, and we realized the radiator hoses were totally wrong. 

The battery relocation got done on Saturday as well. It was a bit of a pain, but it's SOLIDLY secured back there.

Sunday was another hard day of work. We finished the intake charge piping, fabbed up some stuff to make the CCV system work, figured out how to plumb the cooling system, put fluid in the transmission... We also discovered that the steering rack's high pressure side was fubar. Somehow, the threads were very slightly off center, so the crush washer wouldn't seal against even gravity pressure. So that's gonna stop any further progress on the engine getting broken in for at least a week while I wait on shipping.

Literally the only things left are:
- Get the downpipe fab finished
- Swap the new P/S rack in
- Write the startup tune (which I have in hand)
- Calibrate the DBW components
- Mount the PCV catch can and route its hoses
- Increase the front ride height a bit

I'll probably take a bit of time to do some cable management this week and also try to take a stab at dealing with that spaghetti E36 M3mess that is the fuse panel relocation. I'm hoping I can make that look a LOT more clean when I'm done, but we'll see.

I spent some time taking the old P/S rack off last night, so I could see how bad the carnage was... Let me be the first to say, those threads didn't just leave the building, they left the GALAXY, lol!

I did manage to get the old P/S rack back on the car, but it's WAY too short to work with the extended LCAs and short outer tie rods I'm currently using; the toe in is extreme! It also needs to be resealed badly, as it seeps fluid inside the bellows and from one of the hard lines. That said, it'll at least hold pressure from the pump long enough to start the engine!

I've got a buddy coming by to take measurements and do some welding to finish the downpipe job this evening, hopefully. After that... It's just a matter of finishing the PCV system, writing the tune, calibrating the DBW components, and turning that key :D

I took some time to write the tune and give the sensors a good once over last night... As it turns out, the throttle body is DOA; only the Sub output works. The Main output just stays at zero volts. I was concerned it might be a wiring mistake, but the inputs are wired correctly, and jumping 5V into those input channels results in 5V read at the ECU. So I'm down until I can replace that, too. :(

In other news, I may have configured the water and oil temp sensors incorrectly (or they just don't like being surrounded by air instead of fluid), as they just report a steady 4.99V. According to the calibration chart, that is like -50F or something? I'm still gonna fill those fluids and see if that helps. If not... I guess I'll burn that bridge when I get there, I suppose.

Also... the dashboard lights up like an actual Christmas tree when you turn the key to "Run". It's wild how many lights are on, lol

I'm so over this damn power steering rack and all its issues. The "new" (used) rack I ordered to replace the rack I screwed up (the exact same item, from the exact same seller on ebay), is NOT the same rack as the one I received originally.

The "new" rack is on top, old one is on the bottom. Notice how the steering gear bolt locations are totally different? As it turns out, the "new" rack is _actually_ from an SXE10 Altezza, while the "old" rack is from an Aristo. The SXE10 rack housing is about 3 to 4 inches shorter, and that's not a difference I can make up with different inner tie rods, that I'm aware of. The silver lining is that the parts to rebuild an Aristo rack are just as available as the parts to rebuild an SXE10 rack, so that's nice at least. 

As for the "old" rack, the local machine shop said they can weld some aluminum 6AN fittings onto the old banjo bolt holes, which should make things nice and easy for me, and make the old one reusable. Those parts arrive on Thursday, and I'll hopefully have the refurbished steering gear back in hand on Monday if I'm lucky.

In other news, I found a local refinery that's willing to sell me almost straight ethanol for about $2.75 a gallon. I'm bringing (2) 55 gallon drums with me on my trip to Minnesota this weekend, and I plan to get them both filled up on the way. I'm sure 110 gallons of basically e98 will last me a while :D 

It still kinda blows my mind that you can just go to a 60 million gallon per year refinery, pay them $300, and drive away with 110 gallons of almost straight ethanol. I took a picture tio remember the occasion :D 

In other news, the machine shop has the repairs done on the steering gear, so I'll go grab that tomorrow. My buddy is coming by after work tomorrow to take measurements for the wastegate flange extension and dump tube inlet to the downpipe. Once I get the steering gear back on, I'll only be waiting on the exhaust fab work before I can turn that key!

I got the steering gear back, and the welds look good. This is where I'd love to post a pic, but I didn't take one before actually putting it in the car :/

We got the exhaust figured out finally as well. It's hacky and the welds look like garbage, but they'll hold.

Now that I'm finally to the point of being able to crank the motor over, I found that it doesn't want to start at all. The ECU was complaining about a trigger error, which led me to realize that my wiring schematic was exactly backwards from the correct Link ECU pin numbers. The Toyota connectors have 1-10 from left to right, and the Link ECU labels those wires as 1-10 from right to left.

If you're ever wondering what a bad signal looks like, the proper crank signal is on the bottom and the top is literally just noise.

Once I figured that out, I repinned the harness, and things got slightly better. I now have a decent crank signal, but the cam signal is kinda E36 M3ty. I ran a new crank signal wire, which didn't help much. I still need to run a new cam sensor cable as well to see if I can deal with some of the noise I'm seeing on the Link's internal oscilliscope.

I've also been trying to figure out why the Link ECU's ethrottle control goes haywire when cranking, reporting that it has hit its maximum clamp (duty cycle) even though the throttle plate doesn't move at all. I honestly have no real idea on that one, as the signal wires all look decent, have no resistance to current flow, and aren't grounding out.

I ALSO chased many grounding issues over the weekend. Since I've got 2/0 welding cable from the battery to the distribution block in the engine bay, I assumed that power wasn't my issue. I also saw some weirdness in the ECU around signal strength when it was bolted down vs not, which led me to realize that I had wired the signal grounds incorrectly. I ran new signal grounds and a new 2/0 ground cable to one of the rear seatbelt mounting points, and many of the weird voltage sag issues have been resolved in the ECU at least. The voltage sag is from ~12.7v down to ~10.5V during cranking according to the ECU, which _should_ be okay.

The Innovate ECF-1 gauge also complains about low voltage on EVERY. SINGLE. CRANK. CYCLE, so I will probably have to run a dedicated relay up from the junction block for that at some point.

I also seem to have wired the coolant temp sensor and the coolant gauge output backwards, so I'll have to track that down and resolve it. :(

The current issue I'm facing is that the ECU "sees" a trigger signal, but only intermittently. One thought on this could be interference due to a E36 M3ty signal wire, which I'll rule out by running a new wire later this evening. If that's not the case, then the base timing is probably totally off. I'll also check that this evening as well.

If those things don't fix the problems I'm having... E36 M3, I don't know what else to look at.

Another day, another update. The car still does not run, due to "trigger errors" coming from the ECU somehow.

I dug into the harness, and ran entirely new signal wires for both the crank and cam triggers. I also fixed some signal ground misconfigurations, found some bad splices, and found some internally broken wires. I fixed all that, and I STILL have noise on the cam and crank signals according to the ECU.

Fixing the signal ground issue seems to have helped massively with the ECF-1 gauge getting low voltage errors during crank, which is nice. The ECT sensor had an internally broken wire AND a bad splice, so I resolved those. I also found that three of the ignition coil trigger wires were internally broken and / or had bad splices. I fixed those as well.

Despite all these fixes, the trigger issues remain. My only option at this point is to break out the oscilliscope and measure the signals coming from my cam and crank reluctors to see if the interference is coming from the sensor, the wiring, or internal to the ECU somehow. I'm expecting to do that on Friday or Saturday.

I've been in contact with Link Support, and they have recommended numerous things for me to try, none of which have solved these damn trigger errors. They are available and willing to help me work through things, though, which I sincerely appreciate.

I finally got my new oscilliscope in the mail today... I only have more questions now :/

This is the cam signal, at the ECU connector; perfectly clean.

This is the Crank signal, at the ECU connector

This is the crank signal, at the sensor's connector pins

What is going on with that crank signal?! I even tried a different sensor, with no real luck:

At this point, the absolute only thing left is the crank trigger wheel having some kind of issue. I'm gonna hit up my parts guy tomorrow and get a PHR billet timing gear on the way. Hopefully, I can get that and a new Gates tensioner by the weekend. If so, I can probably get those installed Saturday afternoon and be ready to try turning that key one more time

I had a chat with the folks at Real Street yesterday. They recommended I try a new billet timing wheel, along with making the switch to hall sensors from reluctors. It cost me a damn pretty penny, but they're on the way and should be here by Friday. I should hopefully have time to put them in on Saturday afternoon, then we can try this whole shebang _again_.

Stay tuned, I guess.  :/

Tough luck, but just think-  once you get the car to fire, you're pretty much 'done'!  It's not a matter of if, just when... Keep at it, great work! 

Well... The hall sensors did their job, and the trigger issues are no more. Gotta say that I'm quite happy about that. There's good news and bad news now though.

Good news: it starts, kinda. It lugs for a while then eventually fires up, revs up to 3k rpm quickly, then shuts off (because that's where the kill limit is set to for break in)

Bad news: The cause of that runaway is almost certainly the fact that the ethrottle wiring is berkeleyed somehow. At crank, the TPS signals change, even though the commanded throttle position doesn't change. That causes the ethrottle IC to draw max current trying to move the throttle back to wherever it needs to be, which has a knock on effect of causing the throttle motor relay voltage output to drop to 4.6 volts (from 12 volts).

I already ordered a new connector and pins for the ethrottle, and I'll just run entirely new wires for that once I have those in hand. If that doesn't fix it, I'm very seriously considering ordering a brand new, custom made wiring harness. At this point, it would be well worth the money, imo.

Good news, everyone! It runs! https://photos.app.goo.gl/U4Z7n7TSTShH91WPA

I've gotten the VE dialed in a bit at idle, but I'm gonna wait to hear back from the tuner before I drop it off the jackstands and try to take it for a cruise.

I'm still seeing low voltage errors, though. Even the lambda controller is complaining occasionally, so I guess I need to deal with that. I have the parts and a plan to redo the fire hazard that is the current fusebox, but that's a weekend project that I need to sit down and properly plan out.

I'm getting real tired of chasing wiring gremlins, so I've made the decision to completely remake the wiring harness. I learned a ton from the last time doing it, so at least I now know what _not_ to do. I ordered a couple bulkhead connectors from Mouser Electronics, along with a few hundred feet of wire, and a few hundred crimp terminals yesterday. This is gonna look professional AF! :D

For anyone following along at home, these terminals fit the Chaser's pin slots well:

• Larger sockets (mostly used in the body harness for thicker wires): 175269-1‎, https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/te-connectivity-amp-connectors/175269-1/2054240
• Smaller sockets (used all over, but a ton in the ECU): 1674311-7, https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/te-connectivity-amp-connectors/1674311-7/15902834

I will need to design an adapter to mate these to the firewall, which I can then 3D print in ASA. Given that I'm expecting my parts just before the four day weekend for the 4th of July, I get the feeling that whole weekend is going to be dedicated to the new harness. I'm sure I can get this design done by then 

Also of note, the turbo I'm using has a 2.75 inch vband flange, but my downpipe has a 3 inch vband flange, which has lead to a massive exhaust leak at the turbo outlet. I did a bunch of reasearch, and it seems like Vibrant makes the flange I need, part number 19886 (https://vibrantperformance.com/stainless-steel-turbo-outlet-flange-for-garrett-gtx29-gt30-gtx30-gt35-gtx35-gt40-gtx40-90mm-o-d-flange-with-81mm-diameter-mating-ring-suits-3-o-d-tubing-19886/). They also make a vband clamp to fit as well, part number 1415C (https://vibrantperformance.com/v-band-clamps/?sku=1415C). Gotta love paying $30 in shipping for $60 in parts, lolol.

There is good news, anyway... The break in oil change is done, and there was no major metal in the filter. I only had a single leak, from one of the oil cooler lines, but tightening it a bit fixed that right up. The exhaust fab is mostly done (except for the turbo flange that I'll need to have welded on, but that is a one day job at the local welding shop, I'd assume).

Anyway, there's a car show happening in town today, so I'm gonna go cruise the swap meet, have some food truck food, and chat with other car enthusiasts. Stay tuned for the results of the fusebox work (assuming it gets done :P ).

It's been about a week since the last update, and things are progressing nicely. The local welding shop got the new flange TIG welded on for $42, and it looks great.

I designed the new mounting flange and got the new connectors mounted in place today. I've gotta say, running those wires was one of the most tedious things I've ever done, especially since they are ALL white. I also realized while cabling some of the connectors that I had been reading pin numbers incorrectly, so that's probably why the temp gauge and tachometer never worked.

Tomorrow starts the remake of the engine side of the new wiring harness. I'm hoping to "tuck" most of the wires this time around so that they aren't so prominent and on display. Obviously, there will still be some wires, but I can probably make most of them blend in well, if not disappear totally. I also need to redo the deutsch connector situation coming from the expansion harnesses out of the ECU. That's probably going to be a E36 M3show all its own, but that's tomorrow's E36 M3show.

Oh man... What a long, strange week it's been.

I finally got the engine side of the harness finished, which was substantially more difficult that I had planed. Note for future me; don't use the same. color. wire. for every single connector. The journey to get that done was interesting...

I managed to accidentally wire injector 1 such that it was open anytime the ignition was on; that was fun. Fuel was leaking from the damn vacuum lines, even. I only realized it when I hydrolocked the motor, lol. I was able to remove the spark plugs and spray fuel all over, but the motor seems relatively fine otherwise once I fixed the wiring issue.

Another wiring issue was wiring the cam and crank sensors to the 5V supply line and signal return instead of +12V and engine block ground. That was a difficult one to figure out, but I got that taken care of as well.

I think the oil pressure signal is somehow messed up as well. I have a functional dummy light to monitor, so I think I'll be fine for the time being. I'll probably have to deal with that at some point, but right now is not that point.

I found and fixed my coolant leak... The heater hose connecting to the back of the head was slightly not seated all the way onto its nipple. I slid it down, and it no longer pukes coolant.

Speaking of coolant... The motor overheated BADLY when I first started it up with this new harness. I didn't push it, but I had to investigate that. Turns out my idiot self put the thermostat in backwards. Oops.

As for current issues:

• When the ECU triggers the e-fans, the RPMs go into the stratosphere. I have nfi why that is and neither my tuner nor Link's tech support line will pick up the phone to talk to me about it, so I started a forum post about it on Link's help forum here: https://forums.linkecu.com/topic/24401-hitting-the-rev-limiter-when-the-engine-fan-kicks-on/
• The acceleration enrichment is totally fubar. When I push the gas pedal slowly, it just wants to bog down and hesitate. If I push it quickly, it works a bit better, but it's damn near impossible to drive currently.
• The A/C request doesn't seem to work, but I can manually enable the A/C clutch from my laptop. The A/C does work when manually enabled. I suppose I'll have to figure out what the signal is that's coming from the A/C computer and why the ECU doesn't pick it up.
• I still need to deal with the glovebox fuse panel project, but that will be on hold until I get the Chaser running and driving at least.

She runs, and she runs WELL! 

Video here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/p7b6zbs4fNdxANay6

I got the e-fan issue figured out. Turns out that there was a whole raft of settings I had totally missed. Turns out that the ECU was adding 5% to the throttle blade position whenever the e-fans kicked on.... I adjusted that down to about 0.5%, and things magically started working.

Acceleration enrichment was a can of worms, but I think it was all related to bad fueling in the beginning. My tuner finally got back to me with an updated fuel map, and things are MUCH better now.

A/C is still weird. Hitting Google tells me that this could be a rather common issue with the Link ECU on the JZX90 platform. That said, the A/C _DID_ work with the OEM engine, so there has to be something I'm missing. I've poured over the diagrams, and I see that the A/C computer gets a tach signal directly from the ignitor. My guess is that the tach signal I'm outputting from the ECU doesn't have the same power level as the ignitor had, so the A/C computer doesn't think the engine is running. If the engine isn't running, according to the A/C computer, it makes sense that it isn't sending an A/C request signal to the ECU.

All my "fixes" to drive the tach have failed as well, so I ordered up an MSD 8920 tach adapter at the local parts store. It'll be here on Monday, and it'll be simple to install, as I've got a 4-pin deutsch connector already wired up. Hopefully, this will get two birds stoned at once and fix both the A/C issues and the tachometer.

I want to start work on the glovebox fusebox project, but I've got a bunch of stuff planned for the weekend yet. I might be able to get it done in the coming week, but idk.

Currently, I'm working on getting slightly into boost and testing the waters of the magic that is forced induction. I can make it to about 0.75 bar before I get big time knock on this current tune. I _think_ that knock is related to the 0.72 lambda I'm seeing above 4500 RPM, so I'm going to try leaning it up a bit and see if I can get it under control. If that doesn't work out, I may just leave that connudrum for the tuner to deal with.

For the tach (and maybe the ac), do you just need a "pull up" resistor?

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

Nah, The ECU can't drive the same signal that an ignitor would put out, no matter what I change in the ECU's settings. I already tried changing the resistor on the tach itself, to no avail. There's a part of me that wonders if I even have the right damn wire (despite the color and position matching exactly what the diagram said it should be)