carlos64030

iTrader: (1)

Post some photos of what you're inquiring about and I'll take a look at my donor car to see what's what.

eseibel67

Sure, be glad to.

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

Thanks guys, it's these ones here that I'm holding. Ones a purple one with a spade terminal, the other has two wires and has a clip sort of thing


then there's this black one, looks like an air line


this is a bit of a concern to me, there's no plug on the digital hvac harness to go into that terminal that you see on that ac box, the analog one had one though. Not too sure about this either

carlos64030

iTrader: (1)

For the blower motor, one of the wires on my digital donor car is purple:




That airline is probably a vacuum line and plugs in on the rear side of the intake/plenum... refer to the red arrow in this picture:

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

Thanks! that helped clear quite a bit up. Still unsure of were that spade and clip plugin go still and it also looks like my harness doesn't have the plug for the blower motor for some reason

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

UPDATE: did some research and it turns out I have the wrong blower motor, I need one with a spade terminal on it. carlos are those pictures from your analog car or digital car? be sure to swap over your blower motor from your digital car too so you have the right connections

carlos64030

iTrader: (1)

Those pictures are from my '88 digital donor car.

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

That's bizarre, looks like some harnesses got the spade connector for the blower motor and others got the big plug

carlos64030

iTrader: (1)

I put in a new blower motor on my '91 a few years ago and I'm almost positive it uses a spade connector as well. In fact, I've never seen a connector like the one you have for anything under the hood of a 3rd gen F-body. I would go check my '91 just to be 100% positive, but I left town and won't be back for 2 weeks. I wonder if your setup is from an '86 or '87 car?

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

I started this thread asking for help and they said that some only have a spade connector https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/elec...ml#post5527068

eseibel67

The purple connector is definitely for the blower motor the black one in pic #1 is also for the blower motor - it's a ground. The harness is corect - the blower motor is wrong, someone spliced it in. Four Seasons makes the exact correct blower motor - part # 35334.

The vacuum connector is for the HVAC, there are 2 of them. One connects the the intake to provide vacuum to the motors, the other one (in the pic) goes to the heater diverter valve. It shuts off the hot water while in A/C mode.

eseibel67

6SIX6

iTrader: (35)

I can look to see if i kept the blower motor if you need one. Thats the blower motor that came out of it like eseibel67 sent you the pic of

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

It's all good, I picked one up at a local parts store. Thanks though! and thatnks for that picture eseibel67, that really cleared everything up for me and you were right about the black tube connecting to the heater diverter valve. For the two black ground wires that connect to the blower motor via a clip can I just fabricate a mental prong that can connect to the motor since it's just a ground? or does anyone know where I can buy that clip?

eseibel67

Make one, as long as it makes ground contact.

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

I got the blower motor installed and got the interior HVAC ducts back in the car. On the casing there is a spot to mount the door blend motor and I have it attached in this picture:


but there's this other module and I have no clue as to where it mounts to. Any ideas?

eseibel67

That's your vacuum control. I forget exactly where it mounts, but it goes on the heater box somewhere. I would suggest that you find 2 mounting holes who's spread is exactly the same as the holes on the bracket that's in your hand. Manouver it around until all the connectors reach, and that's where I would guess it should go.

6SIX6

iTrader: (35)

i think it went on the back of where the blend door mounts as it was behind the ECU

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

I found this beautiful diagram that shows where it goes I never would of guessed that it would be on the front of the casing

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

I just thought of something that I'm slightly concerned about. My car with the original harness is VATS equipped and it appears as though the donor car with the digital harness I have now is not. Will everything work if I'm using a non vats harness on a vats car with the resistor chip in the key and vats wire on the steering column?

LHernandezJr

...

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

Haha thanks! doing this swap definitely has been a journey. I'm glad I'm finally at the stage now were I can almost just start plugging in everything and getting it finished.

LHernandezJr

...

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

I think after all this work and when it's finished I'll hire a camera crew and a live TV audience to build the suspense for when I first turn the key

eseibel67

I don't have an answer but I have a guess, it's been a few years since I've ripped out a digital dash.

If your donor dash is a 1987 non-VATS, it will not have the "security" warning lamp in the instruments (seriously it will have a "choke" light instead). I don't see this as a problem, but if you are keeping the VATS, a single singal wire must connect the VATS module (located on the heater box) to the ECM. I just don't remember if that wire is part of the dash harness or not. Worst case scenario is that you would have to run the enable signal wire from the VATS module to pin B6 on connector #1 on the ECM.

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

That's a good idea, wouldn't I also have to take out the wires with the plug that connects to the ignition tumbler too though?

eseibel67

If the VATS is working now, it should also work after the swap as long as the ECM gets the enable signal from the module.

Unless of course you want to eliminate the VATS, but I don't see the need to in your case.

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

So the orange wire that goes from the ignition tumbler to detect the key resistance doesn't need a connection if the VATS is connected to the ecm?

eseibel67

It DOES need that wire to read resistance is the VATS is still active.

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

The harness I put in doesn't have the connector that plugs into the orange cable, maybe I could splice it?

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

I cut the vats wiring off the harness. When doing so I noticed some of the wires plugged into the accessory fuse block and normal fuseblock in the "ecm ign" I know you said only one wire needs to go to the ecm but do you know if the module needs to be powered by these other wires to be functional?

eseibel67

Of course all the wires need to be hooked up to be functional. I made 2 wrong assumtions, first one was that your existing VATS harness was unrelated to the dash harness. Second, I didn't know there is also a starter enable relay controlled by VATS, I thought the only output was to the ECM to enable the injectors. Sorry for the misinformation, this wiring diagram should clear it up:

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

I've found something strange, I'm installing the dash into my car and noticed on the harness there's a white and orange plug that connects into the one attached to my ignition tumbler but there's no standard connector anywhere on the harness that would plug into a vats module. any ideas?

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

Sorry for double post but I checked also on the dashboard and there is a security light feature

eseibel67

Again, I don't have all the answers because it's been so long. But I think the VATS connector is on another harness, not the dash harness. Good news is that if your donor dash has the "security" light, it's out of an 88 GTA - which was the first third to be equipped with VATS.

83HO-T/A

so glad my 87 has digital factory, had an 86 with digital dash too. to think this was someones job to do back in the day. still pretty cool

LHernandezJr

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Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

Lots! sorry for the lack of updates, I've been taking a ton of progress photos so I can get you guys up to speed as to where I'm at hopefully some point today

LHernandezJr

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Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

Okay this update was long overdue, I almost forgot where I left off. So let's start with prepping the dash:

At first I was going to install the harness into the car and then pug the dash in, then I realized that I would be setting myself up for a lot of issues and realized it would be better to attach the gauges to the dash and harness and install it that way.
Prepping

Here's the dash attached to the cluster


Plugging in the harness


After the harness was plugged in and attached, the HVAC ducts were then attached which holds everything together nice and tight


Installation

This part can be very tricky to do by yourself so I highly recommend having another person help you so you don't damage anything as the dash can be quite heavy to install and line up by yourself.

Lining the dash up into place in the car (I put gloves over the shift stick and e-brake handle to stop the dash from getting potentially scratched/damaged by it during installation.)



After this point it's a whole lot of plugging and bolting everything in, I have pictures of this process that I used for reference but I'm not going to upload them due to the fact that it would take up a whole page on this thread.

I would say the trickiest part to do was installing the big bulk connector that goes into the firewall as I was doing it by myself and kept falling out. (make sure it's connected nice and tight as it is the source of power to the whole dash)

For the VATS issue I had before, I decided just to get a custom chip burned that deleted VATS and she started right up

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

Success!

All sensors worked perfectly, the buildup to this part was killing me with suspense and seeing everything work as it should was a huge relief (sorry for blurry picture)

The next day I tried starting the engine for the first time in 5 months and when it turned on I saw this little guy crawl up the A pillar from somewhere, looking absolutely petrified


So there you have it! a complete analog to digital dash swap, I'll upload more pictures of it installed and a video of it running hopefully tomorrow

6SIX6

iTrader: (35)

Good to see you got it done

Firechicken86

iTrader: (1)

Couldn't of done it without you man. That reminds me I want to give a big shoutout to 6SIX6, he was the one I bought the dash off of and I honestly couldn't of asked for better customer service. Any snag that I went through during this swap I asked him and he helped me through it until it was solved. If you're looking for any parts I would highly recommend looking into buying from him.

LHernandezJr

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carlos64030

iTrader: (1)

Good job! Now you can do my swap for me. I haven't even touched my car in the past 2 months. LOL!!!

eseibel67

Great news, congrats. This was a huge undertaking. Make sure you put up that video when you get a chance. I just love the digital dash.

Pontiac_Pete

Well if you decide to go analog I will trade ya!

Pontiac_Pete

You can programs out the VATs, which is highly recommended!

Jersey89GTA

iTrader: (1)

Nice job, way to stay with it !

Holy crap that was alot of work Firechicken.

The big question - Would you do it again ??

Thanks for posting this up, I definately crossed it off my bucket list

Pontiac_Pete

Great posting. I have always liked the look of the digi dash. Enjoy!