Anyone here do a Holley EFI package on any cars ever?

Thirdgen89GTA

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95LT1 OBD1, T56.

So, went to put the battery in the GTA today, yeah, I waited a REALLY long time this year to even start it.

But when I opened the hood to look, I noticed some coppery glinty stuff. Took a closer look and yep, insulation stripped off the power wires to a relay. Took a look around, Injector #7 wire chewed right in half. Can't find the other half of the AFPR vacuum fitting. And more minor things.

Now, what I see is all fixable, I haven't dug deep to see if they chewed anything else yet, I kind of just put the battery back on the shelf.

I've never been happy with the harness in the car. It has crazy problematic voltage drops that don't make sense at all, cold PCM sees 14v @ 900rpm, warm PCM sees like 11.5v @ 900rpm. Clearly there is some kind of issue with grounding somewhere and its probably related to closed loop operation. And honestly, not really a fan of the Painless harness stuff as for my application I'd have to hack it up as they only sell automatic versions. Plus, tuning the 95 OBD1 LT1 PCM is a pain as its extremely sensitive to false knock.

I'm not stuck on a Terminator X, if there are other models, or other brands I should look into I'm open to it. Just want something with support that will actually make the car run.

For the basics, I know I need a Torquehead 24x conversion kit, some LS coils, the Terminator X, and other things. But that's enough to get the car running with CNP ignition, and modern WBO2...etc.

I just want the car to actually run right, its not a super wild combo that needs crazy shit to run right. But I'm frustrated with the current harness, and at the minimum I need to replace it entirely.
 

Thirdgen89GTA

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The more I look, the more I'm kind of annoyed that it doesn't have dual WB02 inputs and only supports 1. I'd have to go to a dominator to get 2x WBO2s, and then I have a TON of features I probably won't ever use.

That said, assuming I don't sell the car, If I have a Holley HP, or Dominator, I can run pretty much any engine out there.

Looking more and more like I might end up with a Holley HP system, or if I decide to pay the extra Grand for a Dominator so I can use dual WBo2s.

Priced out some stuff from EFI Connection, not cheap. But will probably happen either late this year, or early next year.
 
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01bluesnake

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The terminator is a nice system, but entry level, so very limited. HP is the minimum I try to get people to go with, unless its an all motor, very simple car where a terminator would be fine. The Hp gives full functionality in programming, just not as many input and outputs as the Dominator, which some need. As far as specifics for GM, that's out of my wheel house as I'm a Ford guy.
 
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LikeABauce302

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I have an HP in my SBF powered fox body. I installed it myself around 2014 before there was a ton of tech info out there. Wiring was pretty easy and straightforward. I've been really happy with it, although I will probably end up buying a Dominator at some point. My build has gone off the deep end and I could use more input and output capacity.

I wouldn't worry about only having one O2 sensor. There are plenty of 1,000+ horsepower cars running on HPs with a single wideband and no issues. If you're concerned, get a standalone wideband for the other bank so you can monitor things.

If you have plans to eventually build something wild that would need to utilize inputs and outputs for things like boost control solenoids, trans brake, bump box, nitrous, traction control, additional fans, etc then the Dominator is the way to go. If you can survive with just 4 inputs and 4 outputs, the HP will work great.
 

bs009

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I'm running the Terminator X on my turbo 3800 with their CAN IO module to give me an extra 8 inputs and outputs. Only have about 2 months on it but so far I've been very happy with it aside from some weird issues I've had with the IAC.

It's such a huge value with all of the stuff it can do: boost control, anti-lag, 'self-learning' fuel tuning, and like you mentioned you can use it on any other engine if you go a different route in the future and you can expand the crap out of it with the Holley CAN bus
The Terminator may not be as full featured as an HP or a Dominator but it's miles beyond what the stock ECUs can do especially compared to a 90's ECU. Plus if you decide you need more features you can pretty much just swap ECUs because the wiring harnesses are the same.
The very bottom of this page is a really good breakdown of what you can or can't do with each ECU:

You're probably still going to want to go through all of your other wiring to make sure there's nothing funky going on with the interior or chassis wiring. The Holley wants really good grounds and power distribution so that's something to keep in mind. It needs to be plugged directly into the battery and they don't want you to jump start the car or charge the battery with the Holley plugged in. Not a huge deal but it's a bit of an annoyance
 

Thirdgen89GTA

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The fact that I MAY swap in a LS motor later and do something else with the car pushes me to consider just spending the coin now for the Dominator so that no matter what I want to do, I can.

But, if I ever sell the car, its not likely I'll be parting it out, but instead selling it as a whole thing, so I'd lose any investment with that system. Though, I suppose I could "downgrade" it by buying a HP or Terminator and sell the car with the lesser ECU.

I probably will never need transmission control, as the car will stay manual. The only way I could see needing trans control is if I ever decided to go off the deepend and somehow swap in a DCT using the GCU from HGT.

If I parted the car out, I'd certainly keep the ECU and wiring harness for whatever project that comes along after that.

Either way, its a big outlay. Even with the HP, I'm looking at around $3800 to convert to a Holley ECU. Thats everthing needed, and would give me Cam/Crank trigger with Coil Near Plug.

Power wise, Thirdgen's are a mess, too small wiring, so I'd probably wire in an entirely new fuse box and relays for engine relating things like fuel-pump, fans, electric water pump....
 

LikeABauce302

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As someone mentioned above, there is an add on input/output module that works with the HP and Terminator via CAN. I have one but haven't used it or installed it yet. I know it has limited capabilities. It can't run things like boost control or accessories that have their own ICF (individual configuration file).

The I/O module would be fine for freeing up ECU inputs and outputs from basic things like fans and such.
 

Boostie

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I have the terminator X kit on my car paired with the 7" digital dash. Some say its entry level but with my Turbo LS setup using Flex fuel sensor, trans brake/bump, boost control, On board air, electric water pump, electric fan and a bunch of sensors like Trans temp, Air tank pressure, Wastegate dome, ect its been plenty. Sure I would love to go to a dominator but as of now I have been able to cover everything with the Terminator ECU.

Ive worked with both the terminator and the hp/dominator software and they are both super easy to navigate if you have half a brain. I datalog every pass and its been super helpful for tuning purposes
 

Thirdgen89GTA

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So, just now getting into the old harness on the car that got chewed. After more deeply inspecting the harness significantly more wires got chewed than I originally saw..

The original C100 connector from the thirdgen harness that contains things like Tach, 12v switched, oil pressure, coolant temp..aka, all the engine related stuff was chewed completely through in about 4 wires. I had to pull it out. Finished splicing and soldering those joints today. That took almost 2 hours to do out in the parking lot, since many of the wires were chewed less than 2" from the C100, so not much to work with unless I de-pin and replace it.

A yellow wire that goes to the PCM was chewed, and I can't find the other end of it. Which is really frustrating me hard core. There are only a few pure yellow wires on the PCM. My VOM is dead, so I either have to buy a new one and perform continuity tests to see which pin it is, or de-loom until I know for sure which one it is.
  • A1 - Crank Pos Sensor (OBD2 Only, so at least its not this one since my car is OBD1)
  • A32 - VSS Signal
  • B13 - MAF Sensor Signal
  • C25 - ECT Sensor Signal

The opti harness was chewed about 1" away from the 4 pin connector. I'm going to have to take the connector off and de-pin it to have enough room to extend and re-connect the wires with proper solder joints since that signal absolutely MUST be clean or I'll have all sorts of issues.

Injector #7 had 1 wire chewed through about 1/2" from the plug. Ordered a replacement from EFI connection, will have to replace it. Annoys me because now all the injectors will be labeled 1-8, but 7 will be missing. Not that matters, easy enough to tell where they go without labels.

Coil ignition gray/black plugs are not holding fast to the coil any longer, the fingers are warped/spread. Have to cut-replace both of those so they firmly clip onto the coil.

I'm considering breaking down and just buying the Holley HP setup, and towing the car to my friends garage so we can rip the entire drivetrain out and wire the car up properly. With the engine out, I can cut/splice/fix any older wiring much more easily. Prob is friend uses garage as a work-shop side biz, so I'd have to get the car in, and out in a single weekend.

But he has a lift and air-tools, so it would be much easier to just drop the K-member out from under the car with the engine/transmission. I'd also drop the rear axle to yank the tank and replace the bad sending unit that keeps me from knowing how much gas is actually in the car.

I probably have to spend at least another 2-3 hours fixing this harness before I'd even be willing to plug a battery in and fire it up. And with my luck those asshole rodents will chew up MORE wires.

Anything I've touched has been wrapped in several layers of electrical tape, and I'm gonna put plastic loom on it to further protect it. But man this pisses me off.
 
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Mr_Roboto

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Check and see if there's a fusible link going to the alternator from the harness. If so that's a good suspect to start with the joints are known for not always being as water tight as they can be. Grounds as you said are another good suspect. I'll just typically take a jumper cable to the block and go to the battery terminal to test that one honestly.

In terms of the wiring, if it's new wiring I wonder if it's got the corn based insulation on it. Supposedly mice love that shit. Since you have the T56 I wouldn't be scare of a more entry level box unless you plan on swapping auto later. To me that's the big breaking point between going entry level or higher in the line in many cases. It's also where they take the screws to you $$$ wise.

ED:yellow is almost certainly the cts maybe a mat. don't know if that helps or not.
 

Thirdgen89GTA

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Check and see if there's a fusible link going to the alternator from the harness. If so that's a good suspect to start with the joints are known for not always being as water tight as they can be. Grounds as you said are another good suspect. I'll just typically take a jumper cable to the block and go to the battery terminal to test that one honestly.

In terms of the wiring, if it's new wiring I wonder if it's got the corn based insulation on it. Supposedly mice love that shit. Since you have the T56 I wouldn't be scare of a more entry level box unless you plan on swapping auto later. To me that's the big breaking point between going entry level or higher in the line in many cases. It's also where they take the screws to you $$$ wise.

ED:yellow is almost certainly the cts maybe a mat. don't know if that helps or not.
I got the PCM pin outs, so its just a matter of tracing the wire to find out which pin it goes to. Thats how I know its gonna be A32, B13, or C25.

My last VOM was a cheapie Harbor freight, maybe this time I spend a bit more. Then I can just do a continuity test from the plug cavity to the other end of the yellow wires and see which one pops up. Easier than de-looming it.

Its a tiny wire, probably 18 or 22 gauge, so it doesn't carry anything more than a signal.
 

Thirdgen89GTA

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Fuckin A. I got that goddamn to wire up from under the car. Now that shit soldered and back in the loom.

The OPTi four pin connector is toast though. I’ll have to order a new pigtail the wires are just too short.

I think the OPTI spark connector is the last of it I don’t see any more wires chewed but I suppose I’ll find out when I put a battery in it and try and start it.


Oh and I have to replace the vacuum tube that goes to the fuel pressure regulator. But I don’t have a boot for that so I gotta go visit Autozone to buy 30 of them.
 

Thirdgen89GTA

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Got the hopefully last of the wires spliced in. Just have to change the oil (not nessesary, but its been a while, so it needs a change), put the battery back into the car and key on to check for issues, then start the car time.

Ended up using a bunch of these. Honestly like them as far as ease of use if you don't have a garage where you can properly solder connections.

Never used these before, but remember seeing them before. But after having to do a bunch on the GTA to fix the damage, I really like these. If I can't get them on a solder bench to really get the solder into the joint these rock.

 

Mr_Roboto

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ED:Fack, indeed wrong thread.

Contributing something meaningful to this discussion at hand from what I've read and been told you should NOT actually be doing soldering in cars for wires. The solder wicks up the wire and causes it to work fracture over time. Not sure how true that is but I heard it on the Internet.

The crimp connectors with built in glue/shrink are fucking awesome. I think Denmah has even used those babies in gas tanks before from what I remember. I bet your wire will go to shit before they do.
 
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