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Installing a MSD Shift Light on a 99+ GT/Cobra! By Joseph Monaghen
Because
of the new Coil-Over Plug ignition used on the 1999-2001 Mustangs, the
old way of connecting RPM activated Shift-Light is no longer used. The
individual coils are connected to the EEC harness via 8 different pins,
and they each carry the signal for individual cylinders. You need to use
a pickup device that recognizes this fact, and is able to interpret/multiply
them in order to get a proper RPM signal. Single cylinder pickup, in essence
receives one pulse and interprets this as a full cycle(8 cylinders).
NOTE: I do
not hold any guarantees to this install, and therefore assume no liability
for the actions contained herein. You are installing at your own risk,
and accept all liabilities on your own. This is merely how I successfully
installed and operated the Shift-Lite.
Well, on to
the installation instructions...
I
used an Autometer Mini Pro-Lite #3239, and an MSD RPM Activation Switch #8950.
Step One:
Purchase them.
Step Two:
Send the MSD
unit back to MSD to have it properly calibrated to single cylinder pickup.
MSD RPM Activation switches, out of the package, do not support this function,
the unit must be calibrated to read this.
MSD calibrated
mine and sent it back in 7 days.(not bad!). This is to calibrate the unit
to use the individual "Integrated Coil on Plug Cylinder #1" pin at the
EEC harness.
note: You
can use any of the 8 cylinder pins, I chose #1 Cylinder.
Step three: (after
receiving the re-calibrated MSD unit)
The MSD box
has 5 wires, White (signal in) Yellow
(signal out to light), Red (power),
Black (ground) and Gray (unused).
The White wire
connects to PIN 26 (light green w/ white
strip) at the EEC harness.
The Red wire
connects to pin 71 or 97 (both are power leads).
The Black is
grounded by either a chasis ground (which I used) or pin 3 or pin
51 (both pins are grounds).
Step Four:
Running wires
up to under the dash where I mounted the Pro-Lite on the center of the
steering column, attach the MSD Yellow signal
wire to the Black (signal in) wire from the light.
The White wire
(power) from the light attaches to pin 71 or 97 at the harness (both
pins are power leads).
Step Five:
Screw the Light
down, put in the proper pill you want, close up everything and go race.
It works like
a charm, and didn't cost me $300 for the activation box. Goes to show,
it can be done, even when people in the know, don't want to tell you anything
except who to make the check to...
Good luck,
RavenGT - SuperStallions of the Net! |