On Saturday I went round all the seams underneath and in the front wheel arches with seam sealer (something ford must of accidentally forgot about doing
)
after all that had hardened I gave it all a nice thick coat of underseal
while the underseal was drying I thought about what to do next as I’ve spanked all my money this month and have to wait until payday before I can get some more paint for the front suspension components. So I had a look at the ecu
Thank you ford for putting a chastity belt on it. Makes life that little bit more interesting hahaha.
angle grinder.... no, sparks will burn the carpet.
Weld a nut on the security bolt.... no, same as above
hmmm... sharp chisel and mole grips it is then.
after a bit of fafing about I managed to get it off
I started to think about where I was going to mount the me442 ecu.
My initial idea was to put it under or behind the glove box. But that would mean running a loom under the dash to the stock ecu then following the wires through the bulkhead to the inner wing, which let’s face it is a bit of a pain in the arse.
After a bit of head scratching and looking about I decided I’ll probably be best off mounting to the back of the obd trim as it’s held up by quite a few screws and there’s plenty of room there. Also it’s right next to the stock ecu, so no huge lengths of wire to get the majority wired in.
I also chopped a bit of the sound deadening out around where the stock ecu was to be able to access the loom alittle easier. Some of the unnecessary wires will be cut off the ecu and pulled out to make way for wires for a few extra sensors and solenoids.
On Sunday I pulled out a old loom I had laying about and decided to pillage it for the wires needed to hook up the 442.
After what seemed like forever cutting and cleaning the sticky residue I was left with this bunch of wires that all match up to the stock wiring colours bar 3 of them (which aren’t far off any way)
Then went on to crimping all the ends with the complete wrong tool for the job haha, still managed to do it ok (the proper tool would have taken minutes but couldn’t justify the cost tbh)
After crimping I decided for super anal safety I’ll solder them as well. I know how finicky electronics can be with connections.
You wouldnt think that a hand full of wires took most of the day to sort out and think through some what haha.
Still I’m enjoying it so I wouldn’t want to spend a nice Sunday doing anything else tbh.
Also grabbed a list of stock ecu pin outs and jotted down what I want to chop and change, also any colour changes in wires that’ll take place. I still have to research a couple of pins here and there but I think that’s the majority thought through
