Cliff,

You would need a male and female plug just like the ones that connect the harness to the DME, these are large plugs and most likely not cheap. But I have NO idea if these would even be available? We would need a contact at Bosch to find these. For the most part Bosch has not been very helpful with information about these old DME boxes.

But great idea, if we could find these plugs it would be easy to build the harness to adapt to the TechEdge device(s) or any device (like the LM-1) for that matter.

Early in my work I thought about something like this. I thought of getting an OLD DME box with about 2' of the harness from a reck then build a breakout box from this. But I could not locate this cheaply. But this breakout box idea is great for a repair shop.

Sal

A cheap source of plugs might found in the salvage yards that contain any of the '80s BMW, Mercedes, Volvo, etc, anything that used Motronic.

My guess is Bosch sourced them from a separate manufacturer.

First step is to find out the name and model number of the plugs then do an internet search.

I bet there are a few Pelican members that have the information already.

Early BMW boxes can be had for around 10$ - 15$ shipped on Ebay if you have some patience. And then look for a cut up harness from the same car or a 924 or similar at a junk yard. All Bosch 35 pin DME connectors have the same dimension. Some early ones have some pins missing though. Sourcing this shouldn't take more than 30$ plus the cost for banana sockets.

The early 027 boxes are ideal because they have two covers screwed to a solid Aluminum frame. This makes it very easily to drill one of the covers for the twenty some banana sockets and wire everything up.

I was thinking of making one of those but simply haven't found the time yet to put it all together.

Ingo

Cliff,
I have a complete breakout box..using the correct needed connector/etc.
Do you want to borrow it and hook into a PC?
-Henry

The idea of a breakout box is a great idea and simple way to get to all the signals you will need for wiring the WBO2 controller. The only external signal would be for vehicle speed (MPH) which has to come from the Speedometer, other than this signal everything else would come from the breakout box and keep the install clean and simple.

Here is a sample graph from new WinLog software, this log view utility lets you view the results of a logged run. You can setup the graph X and Y axis anyway you want as well as what signals to graph. This was from a Wide Open Throttle street run that started in 2nd gear then hit 3rd gear just for a second. You can see the gear shifts by looking at the WideOpenThrottle line on the graph. Soon I'll have Speed in MPH on the graph as well:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1220622635.jpg

Some of the interesting signals are not real easy to "monitor" e.g.:
- pwm driving the injectors
- engine speed - you will see a square wave for each tooth
- there is also a single pulse for ignition timing - you could use that for engine speed but it won't be too accurate at idle
- pulses going to the coil - might be able to figure out timing

Sal,
great graph...
-Henry

I love the idea of the breakout box even without any WBO2 controller. With a breakout box you could observe any signal you wish if you simply had a DigitalVoltMeter and an oscilloscope, I use a scope often to look at signals but at the end points like the injectors, coil or Flywheel sensors. The breakout box would be very usefull tool to be able to diagnose everything from one place (under the seat). Then if you so desired you could also hook up a WBO2 device for recording data from street runs.

Henry

Thanks for the offer but I think Sal would be the person to make use of the hardware.

Sal has the software loaded on his PC and most importantly has the knowledge to make it work.

Henry and Cliff,

I really don't need the breakout box right now since I already installed my logger and piggy backed the controller onto the DME but this does require DME alteration.

I just think that the breakout box approach is yet another way to install a WBO2 logger without altering the stock harness or the DME, if I did this over I think I would have done it with a breakout box instead since it requires NO change to the Harness or DME, great idea.

UPDATE!

I now have my setup recording Vehicle Speed in MPH. I had to build a custom circuit to condition the signal from the Transmision Speed Sensor. All wiring was done right at the back of the speedometer without altering any stock harness.

First here is the schematic for the circuit, it uses a LM324 op-amp and few other cheap parts. You can get everything from RadioShack.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1222356206.jpg

Here are pics of the assembly:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1222356235.jpg

The red, black and yellow wires plug right into the back of the speedo. They simply have female spade on one end and male on the other, so you unplug the stock harness and simply plug these into the speedo and then the stock harness plugs into these. Sort of inline splice but without altering the stock harness.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1222356252.jpg

Next I'll fuse the entire circuit into a Epoxy Brick and attach it (glue, silicone, velcro?) to the back of the speedo. I'll post more pics when I have it finished.

This circuit should work for just about any magnetic speed sensor.

More on the Speedo circuit:

Turns out the round printed circuit board fit perfectly into a 35mm film can! WOW sometimes I get lucky, I wish I planned it this way but I didn't.

I simply cut the film can down inserted the circuit and them poured in 2 part modeling epoxy.
Now I wait till dry and finish the install.

Here are some pics:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1222358332.jpg

Almost looks like a stock relay, guess you could use an old relay as well.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1222358350.jpg

I'll post pics of the circuit on the back of the Speedo soon.

very nice...... I can already see the next owner of your car posting all sorts of questions about a mysterious box connected to his speedometer. It that a police speed tracker and could it be the reason for my poor satelite video phone reception :D

Well, I'll be nice about the box. I plan to put a DYMO label on it stating what the box is for. If you think the box on the back of the speedo is bad wait till someone sees all the wires drilled through the DME! ;)

Here are pics of the Speedo conditioner circuit installed on the back of the speedo

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1222461746.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1222461758.jpg

This is truly cutting-edge stuff and will be invaluable to anyone who wishes to extract maximum performance from their engine management systems. Thanks Sal for your efforts in this area. If for one will truly benefit from your research.

Sal, just checking in.. very impressive... glad to have an EE handy... I guess the idea is to have a strip chart of all the important signals against rpm and mph? Right?

Hi Henry,

Yes the idea is to graph these signals against each other. Recording MPH signal is not really needed for tuning but it is nice to have as it will tell you times like 0-60 and this is a good baseline to evaluate your performace. In my oppionion Dyno runs are fine but in the end my goal is to improve my 0-60 time as well as throttle response. In reality I don't use 0-60 for testing because it requires a gear shift from 1st to 2nd gear and I want the human error element remove. So, I simply do all my runs from a 2nd gear take off and record the 1500-6500RPM range then I simply look at how long it took to get from say 2000-6000RPMs in seconds, I use the same stretch of road for this to try and keep the variables constant. The only variable that changes is Outside Air Conditions (Temp and Humidity). Also I use a stretch of road that has about a 8deg incline so I can get more load on the engine than on a level surface. In the end I have seen my times really improve at WOT.

One other thing this software lets you do is something called Matrix graphing which takes thousands of recorded Part Throttle mappings and does mean, max and avg. calculations on the AFR so it creates a table with RPM on one axis and AirFlow on the other then it plugs in the calculated AFR values into the cells. This is very useful for PartThrottle map tuning. I will post explanations and pictures of these tables soon. You really need to see one to understand it. Tuning part throttle fuel maps is much harder than WideOpenThrottle and Matrix charting is a great tool to help with this.

Sal,
I forgot... are you able to edit the chip maps like SW does?
-Henry