The Project Pad

Those look great.

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While I wait for the motor mounts to get tabbed, I am working to fit some other stuff.

Firstly the coolant caps on the ABH heads needed to be trimmed even more than the pic above. I had to bevel the bottom edge too.

Then the ABZ Intake Manifold fits on too and clears the hood.

The next thing is the brake booster swap. I am omitting the bomb and replacing it with a vacuum booster and deleting the ABS while I'm at it.
boy is it tight!


So that leads to a couple questions…

Firstly, the brake reservoir sits a little cocked to the right…


is this a problem? I think as long as it's full it should be okay. It's leaning to the clutch hose side.

Also, the Power steering hose that should start at the pump and end at the rack is going to prove difficult. How have the rest of you V8 swappers dealt with this?

Lastly, the hose that used to go to the bomb, can I just fill the end of the hose and close it off or do I need to have a new hose made without the tee for the bomb?


I'm pretty close to getting the motor installed for good. I have to find a fabricator for the mounts and then install the PP and Clutch (I have it off to ease the engine install/removal cycle that I've been doing for the last few weeks)

Once that's done, I need to get the wiring harness for the ABZ run to the inside of the cabin. Where is the best spot for the VEMS box on this car?

Great progress!

Something is not right with your brake booster/MC setup that it is clocked like that. The reservoir shout be positioned so that the top is flat. From what I recall, I had to swap out firewall spacers and push rods when I did mine (IIRC the vacuum booster I used came out of an 80). I would not run it like that- beside looking like crap, if your cap leaks at all it's going to make a mess, screw your paint, and potentially cause a dangerous situation if it gets low enough. Better to make it right now.

For the power steering hoses, I took all of mine to a hydraulic shop and just had them remove the rotten old rubber hose and replace it with new (re-using the steel ends). $15-$20 a hose, you don't have to worry about them failing, and you can get lengths adjusted to exactly what you want. on the two low pressure lines (to and from the reservoir) I had them leave the hose long then trimmed them to length once I had them in and routed. I omitted the T that used to go to the bomb when they replaced the hose on the high pressure line. In terms of making them all fit, I seem to remember having to tweak the end that connect to the rack a bit, but nothing major.

Here is what my high-pressure line looks like after having the rubber replaced. For this one I waited until the engine was in so I could see exactly how long I wanted it before having it made.

For the t that went to the bomb, I cut the fitting /tube nut thingy off the old line and just plug welded it and screwed it in. Simple blank. Can't help on the ps hose side as I ended up using an electric pump as I couldn't find a way to tension the belt without the ac compressor.

Finally had some time to make some progress on the car today. I am currently opening a restaurant in Columbus Ohio (about 100 miles from home) so I am extremely busy.

I saw that an 89 80 showed up in one of the local pull and pays and I wanted to check out its brake setup. I was able to grab the vacuum booster (which is slightly smaller than the one I had) and the master cylinder - which is a non-ABS version.

About the ABS delete...
As I understand it the master cylinder Acts like this...


There are two circuits that push fluid out to somewhere. The PRE-ABS versions would group one front wheel and the opposite rear wheel on one circuit and the other front and other rear on the second circuit. This presumably is so that if one circuit fails you don't lose all front brakes or all rear brakes. Makes sense right?
So with ABS, that's a lot more complicated.
From the Bentley, the Coupe's ABS has 3 outputs:

I have traced the lines on my coupe and believe there is a misprint in the book, the Connection "L" really goes to the FRONT left caliper, not REAR as it states.
There are separate lines from the ABS box to each of the front brakes and a single line that splits and goes to both Rear Brakes.

So how should I hook this up for the best braking? both fronts on one circuit of the MC and the Rear on the other (capping the second output)?

Either way, I got the Vac Booster and MC hooked up - now clocked properly:


Also, on a whim, I grabbed all the Power Steering components from the 89 80. I figure that the reservoir would be more properly sized to not have a bomb. Also, it had a single hose from the steering rack back to the reservoir. Got it all back and I can at least use that part. I now no longer need to have someone make it. Here they are side by side, the Coupe's hose has the T for the Bomb, the 80 doesn't...


Also, I pulled the trigger on the VEMS box yesterday! It's on the way and I'm working on the wiring schematics for the ABZ/ABH hybrid. I'm using the ABZ harness but adding a wire for the Crank Position sensor.

Sweet! glad you got the booster & MC figured out. All the ports should have the same pressure so theoretically it shouldn't matter which you connect to, however I would put the fronts on the same end (either both on the front or rear ports of the MC) so you get even braking if there is any sticktion in the MC.

Did you keep the proportioning valve for the front/rear circuit? I made a drawing somewhere when I deleted abs on mine, and I'd say keeping the valve is probably a good idea. If I find it I'll post it up but it's fairly straightforward once you have it and have a think.

kieron_32v wrote:Did you keep the proportioning valve for the front/rear circuit? I made a drawing somewhere when I deleted abs on mine, and I'd say keeping the valve is probably a good idea. If I find it I'll post it up but it's fairly straightforward once you have it and have a think.

I should have it. Thanks!

Doesn't it make more sense to eliminate the OEM prop valve? As I recall, its bias is determined by the angle of body roll.

Replacing with an adjustable valve would more easily allow fine tuning to set ideal bias between front and rear.

My VEMS setup arrived the other day and I've started working on the harness. (Thanks Marc!)

I took the ABZ harness and will be removing everything not associated with the engine off - leaving me with a VEMS harness only. I've labelled every sensor from the wiring diagrams I found online and traced everything to the 4 plugs. I can cut each of the wires off and put into the VEMS 36 and 18 pin harnesses.

Then, I'll take the coupe's harness and remove all the engine bits from it so that the power goes through to the other systems right?

Here's the carnage...

Where are my exhaust videos!?

I've finally made some progress on the harness and I have some questions. Remember, I'm using an ABH block and heads with ABZ intake and coils.

EGR is part of the ABH engine but can I just eliminate it for the VEMS box?

I have some great info on the ABH engine with pinouts from the Motronic AAN/ABH book I found online.
The MAF's are different though from the ABH to the ABZ - I have the 4 wire ABZ. Does anyone know the pinout of the ABZ version?

The G4 and G28 sensors for the Flywheel pin and speed sensor get voltage from the ABZ and ABH boxes - is this 5v like the G40 Hall sensor or is it 12v?

thanks!

I have wiring diagrams for the ABZ- PM me your email and I'll send them to you

All righty, I have a bunch of questions now that I'm getting closer to finalizing the harness.

I referenced this awesome Motronic guide to get the function and wiring for what I'm starting with for the block http://www.vems.hu/files/Norbitron/V8t/Motronicv8.pdf
Then I got a couple pretty great resources on the ABZ harness to at least see how things are connected - but it doesn't show functions of specific wires...
http://www.castor-troy.com/v8/ABZ%204.2V8%20Wiring.pdf and http://12v.org/urs/ABZ%20Motronic%20Wiring.pdf

So I put this together that is where I believe most everything goes (pdf attached too)...

(removed in favor of a newer version below)

So the current list of questions is...

On the ABZ harness some things go to ground on the chassis and others go to ground via the ECU pins. What's the difference if any?
Also, the Knock Sensors have grounds at the chassis and the ECU - the plot thickens... (edit - I am using pin EC36-26 for these)

TPS Supply is 5v from the ABZ harness but has a separate output on the VEMS box - should I use it or the 5v output?
Also, the ABZ TPS has a Closed Throttle Signal built in. The VEMS doesn't have this - how do I proceed?

Do I just delete the EGR pulse output and run the engine without?

I have the entire Intake from the ABZ and I can't figure out exactly the wiring for the MAF in regards to which wires send signals and which signals are sent. Either way, the VEMS has a MAP built in. Do I just connect a hose from the nipple on the VEMS box to the manifold and ignore the MAF?

I think that's it for now. Winter, no garage and opening a restaurant a few weeks ago have kept the rest of my progress minimal.

no voltage from the ecu on the G4 or G28 sensors, only the G40 cam sensor needs 5v power. the 3 pins are shield, ground, and signal. you tie the shield back at the ecu to the EC36-26 signal ground.

the G4 and G28 are "VR" type sensors. that means they GENERATE a voltage, which is read by the ecu.

Got it. Thanks. I see where I screwed that up.

I updated the above files and image to show the corrected G4 and G28 as well as updating all "Ground to ECU" to use pin 26 as the signal ground.

What do you guys think about the other questions? I've dug through the VEMS Wiki but it's pretty strangely put together. I have a hard time finding info from there. I did get my Audi Trigger setup from there which was really helpful.

This is the part where Marc says, "Hey jackass, read the 30 page document that I gave you"

I confess, I forgot I had it. Now that I'm reading through it, I have some more direct questions.

Should the VR Sensors ground and shield both go to pin 26? Marc's comment above would lead me to believe they shouldn't but in the secondary trigger install for VR sensors it says to tie them together.

I was able to verify the IAT, CLT, all injectors.

I found this VEMS Users guide on VEMS.us also http://vems.us/downloads/V3installandsetupmanual.pdf
it goes into some detail on the Knock Sensors. They recommend grounding them at EC18-3 but that shows as an analog channel on my legend. Should I use EC36-26 instead?

Also, I think there is a need for swapping pins on one of the VR sensors in AAN applications. is that so here as well?

I will be running this wasted spark - a couple questions around that...

the example in the paperwork uses a firing order of 1-8-7-3-6-5-4-2 and the ABH is actually 1-5-4-8-6-3-7-2
Am I correct to assume the pairing I want for the wasted spark is 1&6, 5&3, 4&7, 8&2?

Lastly, should I be running the steppers to the POS units on the harness or omitting them and wiring the coils direct to the ECU?

Yeah I chased trigger related issues, caused by poor grounding, caused by me not reading that 30 page document that Marc sends to all us idiots that think we don't need to read it, on my econoseal VEMS install for like 6 months. Definitely follow what it says.

I made a bunch more progress today going through the docs and wiring diagrams for the ABH and ABZ.

I think I'm close here.

I have a VEMS 3.6 with 2+6 setup.

Here's how I'm planning to wire the harness so far...
(removed in favor of a newer version below)


I am assuming that I am omitting the EGR and the MAF from the harness and the ECU
I'll be running Wasted Spark

Here is a comprehensive list of my questions...

1. Is the EGR Temp Sensor helpful to hook up?
2. My understanding is that I need to use the POS's that are on the ABZ harness to power the coils. Can the 5v outputs from the Logic Level outputs do this? Otherwise I'd need to use the Steppers right?
3. How will I be able to run the ISV? The ABH/ABZ uses a pulsed ground and Pin 1 is always hot. Will I want to pulse the 12v instead from one of the Steppers? Or would one of the 2 IGBT Outputs work for this (especially if the steppers get taken up by the Coils)
4. The intake Changeover Valve is the same story. Uses Pulsed ground in the ABZ setup. Also anyone know the RPM level that it kicks over? I know it's 4100 on the 12v V6
5. Same for the N80 charcoal Filter.

mostly looks ok. couple of things from a quick look at your list:

1) the shields from the crank pin and rpm sensors shouldn't go to chassis ground. they should tie to the ec36-26 (so yes, thats two wires from the sensor going to ec36/26).

2) you probably dont need that 2nd ground on the tps

3) you dont need to wire the MAF

4) dont forget the flyback wire (EC36/23). it needs to be "teed" into the power feed to the injectors.

Thanks Marc.

And to answer one of my own questions, I see now that the logic level 5v outputs will work to activate the POS's and coils. What I didn't realize is that the POS takes 5v in on one side and that 5v activates a ground path on the other side. The power to energize the spark plugs doesn't go through them.

Got the harness totally figured out. All labeled and ready to go.


One weird thing is the engine speed sensor had two different sets of wires. One integral to the harness with the old style 3 pin connector and another that was wired to the ECU connector with a newer style connector. I need the old style for my ABH sensors so I'm all good.

I got the Harness wrapped up today. I'll post a pinout and translation to the ABZ harness later.

It was in the 50's today so after a nice drive in the Cabriolet with the top down I decided to drain the gas out of the Coupe. I have smelled a varnishy quality to whatever has leaked out of fuel lines in the past so I knew I wanted to start fresh.

Here's what I found...



Crusty chunks I pulled out...


Here's the color of the gas...


So is the tank salvagable? It seems pretty easy to remove completely and clean out assuming that would do any good.

Also, will I need a bigger fuel pump for the V8 anyway?