What I did to my car today

[giblet]

Door switch not contacting or turbo timer over riding ignition .

No turbo timer fitted, will check the door switches tomorrow. I've owned 3 ruddy VR4s and 12 other cars over the years and never drained my battery by leaving the lights on. Yet in the past month I've managed it twice.

[Davezj]

Dave - he tested the boot switch. I was having issues with that which meant my alarm wouldn't activate. It just gave a long continous beep when armed and then the alarm would go off.

This is how the alarm is supposed to work. the long beep indicates a door, Binet, boot lid has been left open. Normally it is the current drain of the light that indicates the door is open to the alarm.
Which is probably why the boot light was disconnect in the first place.

[Louis]

Small update to my hi Vis dash display post

[Davezj]

Intersecting thing to do.
Are going to prewire LEDs to all the new waring lamps and bring the wiring to a convenient place/connector then you can make use of them as and when required without having to remove the dash each time.

[Louis]

Pulling the dash out isn't that much hassle really ( it doesn't seem like it now!, its a spare I have and that I trial fit and work on it etc).
I have located the pins on the multi plugs at the rear of the dash on the car and will run a live wire from each source to here and the original dash bulb will light and Earth in the normal manner.
There are originals sockets for bulbs behind all these spare areas.
All I have done is strip the face plate and make the holes, (you could scrape the black coating off each side and get the same result, but it would be difficult to keep it looking tidy, clean etc). ( poss use letraset letters and symbols, but they need to be in reverse!!, you need the light to go through the the letter or symbol !).( the light will show through any scrapes or un blackened areas.
Then I traced the printed circuit board on the rear of the unit to see what was live and neutral and what went where. And I have marked the pins and on the corresponding multi plug at the rear.
I have run a wire from my (now factory) rear fog light switch to the multi pin socket behind the dash (these sockets stay in the car when the dash is removed) and fitted the wire a with a connector pin into the socket so when the dash is fitted in the norm way the warning light is connected and ready for work. ( I just used spare dash bulbs and holders).
I am thinking Blue star will be Meth inj in operation ( lights on when it's happening, this also will show boost, as meth is triggered by certain boost level). Red warning circle in centre low ( with all other warning lights), will be meth low level warning, so I know it needs topped up.
And purple circle top left I have spare at moment.
Plus my fog light top centre works with rear foglight switch.

[Louis]

During final fitting I will run wires from each new warning light in the dash (3 off them), to 3 single wire connector plugs, and run all 3 to an accessible location under dash ( behind mirror control or behind centre console), then I can change the use of the warning lights to other things as and when required. ( possibbly map change or nitrous).
I have had warning led's for this stuff before, and although I kept them subtle, like behind clock panel and only showing when lit, it starts to look a bit cluttered and spread out.
Did you notice I purpled my VR-4 lettering on the speedo

[Davezj]

it is a nice looking bespoke dash, just changed enough to make you notice there is a difference but it could still be stock, but not enough to sand out like a sore thumb.
i like it a lot.

[Louis]

When I get a chance I will post some photos and connector PIN numbers that correspond to each of the unused lights.
Also had a thought, if you have a manual car but an auto dash, ( manual conversion) you can black out the PRND and 12345 centre part.
Also if you do not have ASC, you will have two more spare lights where the ASC and skiddy car lights would be.
If you were stuck for space you could change the "open door" warning light and use it for something else!!.
Quite a bit of scope for messing about lol

[Davezj]

There is, it is nice to have all the warning lights in the same place. If you were using switchable maps you could have a map reference light showing you which map was being used at what time. I know this is not strictly necessary but it would be useful for diagnostic purposes.

[Nick Mann]

Very interesting. So does the multiplug behind the dash need a 12v source or a switched ground?

[Louis]

I have not looked through them all, but the ones I have used are a live send to the plug - to the light - then the other side of the light socket is a ground. (same as the foglight warning light)
On the printed circuit board you can see a lot of the circuits have a single trace from multiplug connector to one side of the light socket, and the other side is linked to other light sockets as a common ground.
I'm not sure how you would get one to work as a knock light!. At the mo I have knock on EML, (thanks Dave), but I don't know at the moment how I would get a signal from the ecu to send to a separate bulb when knock is detected!.

[Louis]

STar dash rear.jpg

this is a photo of the blue star warning light from the back of the dash.
You will see that the top side of the bulb circuit sockets are separate , but the bottom is the same circuit linking all, (shared earth).

(live send has dots on circuit so I could trace it )

[Louis]

Connect hi beam.jpg

You can see the connector here, the this socket is on the rear of the unit, the plug for this is behind the dash on the car.

you can see the 3rd bulb to the right is NOT live and common ground as the rest are, this is the main beam light, so, some of the circuits are wired differently,
and one of the unused ones has a circuit trace going to it but no earth or anything on the other side, but you can link it to the earth circuit to make it usable.

[Nick Mann]

Cool. I had looked at the back when I put the swinks overlay in, realised that the track for the rear fog symbol lead back to the multiplug where there was no pin for that track and then got no further. I now have a bit of loom with a few pins but haven't taken it all apart again to try it out!
Thanks for the info.

[Louis]

Check out post 9 in this thread:

http://www.clubvr4.com/forum/showthr...-the-VR-4-dash

[swinks]

Rear fog is easy to do. I did this using Galant n/a double fog light switch.
Speedo circuit has already associated hole and electric path to rear plug. Used live feed from rear foglight and fitted into plug as Nick suggested. Earthing is common for all 4 lights at top of speedo, just like shown in Luis image. Some speedo facias have allready printed rear fogs orange icon just blanked by sticky tape, some (fl models maybe?) have no rear fogs icon so it has to be done.

[galantnight]

this is what i have done over the Christmas period from thisIMG_3313.png

to this IMG_20151226_104327 (1).jpg

to end up with thisIMG_20151231_113716.jpgIMG_20151231_113622.jpg

Just got to move the fuel pipe now to clean it up but looks better thanks to all for any help/advice

[galantnight]

ALSO HAPPY NEW YEAR

[mcosworth]

this is what i have done over the Christmas period from thisIMG_3313.png

to this IMG_20151226_104327 (1).jpg

to end up with thisIMG_20151231_113716.jpgIMG_20151231_113622.jpg

Just got to move the fuel pipe now to clean it up but looks better thanks to all for any help/advice

Nice, clean and tidy. I really like it. Sweeet.
Happy new year!
Mac

[galantnight]

a updated picture of how it looks now


frmReadMail_Attachment.jpg

photo is rubbish will take again lolengine bay 9116.jpg

Now better photo just that the blue should be darker like a Chelsea blue (NOT THAT I SUPPORT CHELSEA)

it's just that color