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Ok, I did hook the white wire up to the blue wire & the red and black as needed. The unit flashes as it should. Went to start & nothing. So I then took the blue wire & connected it to ground for the 30 setting and it flashed differently as it should. Went to start and nothing. I need to walk away. I have too much time into this POS. I appreciate & thank you for all the help. I’m just done for now. You may see it up for sale or on a trip to the scrap yard.
thanks!
Did you try grounding the green wire, and then green and blue? There's four modes and a chart in the instructions.
Junkhead did you deal with the starter relay? This widget is only to enable the fuel pump which is controlled by the ecm. The passkey module controls the starter relay directly.
see top of page:
Option 1: Ground the field coil locally at the start relay. Cut the small (16 gauge) DARK GREEN wire on earlier cars (BLACK / YELLOW wire on later cars) and ground it to chassis. Start relay is located behind the driver side kick panel, often down near the carpet line.
Option 2: Ground the start relay at the VATS module. Jump together terminals A3 and B1 at the VATS module electrical connector. A3 is the wire from start relay, and B1 is the ground path that the VATS module would have used if still working.
Junkhead did you deal with the starter relay? This widget is only to enable the fuel pump which is controlled by the ecm. The passkey module controls the starter relay directly.
see top of page:
this device tells the ecm to enable injector pulse. Ecm will still control fp relay.
I have an '89 Firebird with the dashboard taken out. Is there any good reason to NOT gut-out all of the VATS wiring? It's just taking up space at this point.
If I jump the terminals on the start-enable relay, it starts anyway (I'm getting rid of that, by the way. Just more sh*t to go wrong.)
I have an '89 Firebird with the dashboard taken out. Is there any good reason to NOT gut-out all of the VATS wiring?
Depends whether you still have a stock ECM that is looking for permission from Passkey module to enable injectors. If you have a different engine management system then the Passkey module no longer serves any purpose in your vehicle and you can yank it.
The SECURITY light on your dash will cease to function (which is better situation than never turning off ) And there are a few live wires at the plug that will be left dangling behind your dash, Might be wise to cap the plug so those don't accidentally touch anything.
Pin A1: +12V switched from ECM-IGN fuse
Pin A4: +12V from SECURITY light bulb in dash
Pin B8: Constant +12V
I actually put a new starter rely on the car to eliminate the possibility its no good. I`m pretty much DONE with this car. Wayyyyyyy too much time invested. I have a few other cars I`m working on & in the middle of a diesel engine rebuild , just waiting on parts. The car is NOT worth any more of my time or $$$$. Sometimes you just have to know saw that`s it. Every part of this B.S. Vats system fights you and every part has possible solutions that take time and money.
Thanks again for your suggestions and help!
Would be curious to know if it’s a good product or not. Painless also offers a hz module but a vats delete chip is a cheaper better option if the timer shop doesn’t work.
Unless they’re faking a lot of Amazon reviews it should work to solve the specific problem it purports to solve.
more I learn though and more people I talk to sounds like there are just a lot of edge cases and complexities in the VATS system. I haven’t tested the hz signal, I have no idea if that’s the problem as I also don’t get crank and afaict that’s got nothing to do with the hz signal. So my plan is ground the starter relay and see if that fixes it. If I’m not getting fuel, then try this too. Lmk if I’m off base here.
Ignition is bypassed and I still intermittently get security light and no crank so I figure either
1) passkey module is just on the fritz and periodically doesn’t work right; I cannot determine if it would default to no start in that case but tbh that seems like a bad design, as a software engineer I would default to an error code or something but allow start.
2) there’s an electrical issue somewhere that is causing it to periodically fail
2 seems weird because whether it starts or not seems random and the car is totally stationary throughout.
We have bypassed the starter relay by grounding the 16 gauge yellow and black wire to the chassis, and we now get crank.
we are now moving on to ECM but it is not clear to me exactly what to do.
can anyone say what the next step is here? Do we need to disconnect these connectors from the ECM to add the bypass? Or just cut some wires right here and connect them?
This is the 89-92 tbi pinout. Accessory power pin A6. Cut passkey hz signal wire and hook device signal to pin B6 and then any ground. It needs a 30hz signal I don’t think the 50hz works only for later years.
cut the blue B6 enable wire, this shows accessory power and grounds
Thank you! I apologize if these are dumb questions.
so I cut this blue wire (assume a few inches from the connector, does it matter?) and attach the white wire coming off my bypass to the blue wire that is going into the connector? And cap the other side of the blue wire with electrical tape?
How exactly do I connect the power to the module? You mention the A6 accessory power pin - can I just plug that wire into pin A6?
thank you!
Last edited by 91 Maui Blue; 09-03-2023 at 11:51 AM.
If the security fuse is pulled there will be no voltage on the cut wire. A few inches so you have plenty of working room to solder and shrink tube or solder and electrical tape. Might want to twist everything to test before soldering in place .
to get accessory power strip insolation on the pink/blk wire . A scotch lock would probably work but not ideal.
It worked. Thank you tuned performance and the makers of this thread. You guys saved me hundreds of dollars and enabled a few fun afternoons with my son working on cars.
it all worked as expected. The result is the security light is on and the car starts anyway.
here is the bypass module connected with the blue and black wires grounded to the chassis for 30hz, which indeed was super easy and secure with self tapping screws and eyelets.
I stripped a few mm of insulation from the black / pink wire and wound the red wire around it and affixed with electrical tape. I could not get the connector off the ECM and did not want to try to
solder it in the tight space in the car. Hope it holds up over time but if it fails I know where to look.
My only regret is paying a guy $300 to try to replace the ignition switch to begin with. Should have just done the resistor myself and would have learned that the real problem was at the passkey module itself.
don’t know where you all are but where I am it’s hot and sunny so tops off and I’ll be cruising the rest of the afternoon!
1) I can’t get to the vats decoder module without a lot of effort
2) I enjoy the satisfaction of seeing the security light turn on and the car still starts 👿
q for forum oldsters - as a complete rookie who went through this entire process and had to learn literally everything from zero knowledge, would it be worth writing a “bypass VATS for dummies” with step by step instructions?
Would be a good service to have a "one stop shop" for this deal. Might eliminate the cut-throat carb and distributor swap to ditch the whole EFI setup. But sometimes that just be the best way to go in these old cars. I've thought about it a couple times myself when fighting the system.
Where is the VATS fuse? Fuse box or Convenience Tray?
Hi chazman, on my 1989 Firebird the VATS fuse is in the convenience tray, as shown in this pic. Perhaps it was in different places on different year's cars?
Hi chazman, on my 1989 Firebird the VATS fuse is in the convenience tray, as shown in this pic. Perhaps it was in different places on different year's cars?
Firebirds differ from Camaros, and obviously different Model Years...
The Auxiliary Fuse Panel that clips on to the Main Fuse Panel did not start until the Late-1990 Model for Camaros.
Early-1990 and Older used the Driver's Convenience Center for the VATS Fuse.
Last edited by vorteciroc; 10-30-2023 at 06:44 PM.
Hi chazman, on my 1989 Firebird the VATS fuse is in the convenience tray, as shown in this pic. Perhaps it was in different places on different year's cars?
08-26-2023, 07:55 PM
) And there are a few live wires at the plug that will be left dangling behind your dash, Might be wise to cap the plug so those don't accidentally touch anything.
