NobodySpecific
New member
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2014
- Messages
- 2
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Hello everybody.
So apparently this is THE place to find fiat-related knowledge, so maybe you guys can help me, so I figured I would register and ask here. Although I don't own no Fiats, I am very much a car person, and me and my buddy keep doing weird engine transplants, that seems to be our thing at the moment (for some reason). Vintage cars with more modern engines.
Long story short, we have this new 'victim' which is an old front-drive car, and we want to make it commonrail diesel. The usual favorite candidate for easy front-drive commonrail diesel conversions is the GM Dmax V6 (you guys in the Euro market would know it from the 3.0 CDTI Vectra) but it just won't fit into this car's engine bay, Its too big in the car's longitudinal axis. In the transverse axis there is plenty of space, but the distance between the firewall and the grill is just not enough.
So we started looking around at GM and it's various related and ex-related brands and came across the Fiat 2.4 JTD unit. It's narrow enough to fit and on paper it looks very impressive, with its 400Nm and 210ps, it actually has more torque than the Dmax! So I found a Alfa fitted with this spec engine and drove it, and I was suitably impressed, considering its only a 2.4. I think this one is the winner! And since I can get a whole Alfa as a donor and not just the motor, it should be somewhat easier. The particular car I found at the moment is a Alfa 166 from the early 2000s, but I can look for others if there is a more friendly version fitted into another model/spec.
Ok, now the hard part. I need to find out how to get this thing to run as a standalone install. It seems its very hard to find this kind of information since it requires people who really know these engines and their ecu architecture, and these people don't seem to be very common. And since I personally don't know anything at all about these motors (its probably the first time I ever even seen one), I am totally starting from nothing, hence I need some help.
Fitting it physically is reasonably easy and we are used to that, but keeping the ECU happy is the hard part.
The problem is that various manufacturers ECUs have very different tolerances for running outside of their intended vehicle. For example, some GM ECUs will basically run as long as they are plugged into all the sensors on the motor, and they don't seem to care about much else. You can even use a resistor on the post-cat sensor so it don't even care or log problems if it don't got a cat. However, some Ford systems will put the ECU into failure mode if they don't see any of the other on-board systems like the airbags, the dash, the brake/traction/stability systems, the body/comfort module etc. And when they are in fault mode they will not run the motor at all. Which means that basically the ECU will not even fire the motor unless it thinks its connected to a whole car's worth of subsystems, and its very hard to fool it into thinking that (which is why Ford suck and everyone in the car tuning community hates them).
So, I appreciate this is a very open-ended and reasonably complex questions, but can anybody suggest how I can go about gathering this kind of information? In the end, I need to come up with a definitive answer to the following question: "I have a JTD 2.4, a fuel system, a gas pedal and a ECU on the test bench. What do I need to do to make it run"?
This question can be broken down into several smaller ones, such as (but not limited to):
-Will the ECU automatically go into failure mode if it doesn't see the dash? Some systems still have a 'dumb' dash way into the 2000s, but some systems have a smart dash and if the ECU doesn't see a link to it, it will freak out and think that there is a fault and therefore go into failure mode and not run the motor.
-Will the ECU automatically go into failure mode if it doesn't see some of the other subsystems, such as the brakes/stability/traction system, the seatbelt/airbag system and the body/comfort system? If so, is there a solution on the market (whether re-programming the ECU or tricking it with add-on modules) to make the ECU ignore all that stuff?
-Is there a easy aftermarket solution to losing all the emission control junk, a lot of ECUs can either be re-programmed or fooled with an add-on module to ignore the post-cat/post filter sensors and the EGR system, otherwise of course a stock ECU will freak out and go into failure mode thinking the cat/filter and egr systems are broken if it doesn't see them.
-What about the key? This Alfa that I tried seems to have a proper oldschool metal key, not a wireless system or a card. Does the key still have a chip in it which needs to be near the steering column otherwise it won't run? If so, is there a aftermarket solution to making it have a 'dumb' starting system with no security at all, so it can be connected to the receiving vehicles old fashioned dumb ignition switch?
-Is the check-engine light possible to install as a stand-alone lamp linked directly to the ECU without a dash? If it just has a lamp on the dash, it doesn't really need much else since if the lamp lights you can just plug a diagnostics machine into the ecu and figure out whats up with it, so it doesn't really need the dash readout and stuff, but just a lamp will be useful.
So, yeah, basically if anybody can suggest any answers, or at least how I can go about finding answers, it would be really cool.
I am sure somebody must know this info, because for example in the Volkswagen scene everybody knows pretty much everything about the VR6 and 2.5TDI motors, since they are the biggest commonly available motors and always end up in 1st/2nd gen Golfs and such. And with the French car scene, the bigger HDis are very well documented too because they end up in small French cars. So I assume it's much the same with Fiats? If Fiat enthusiasts are anything like any other car enthusiasts, there must be a lot of JTD converted Unos and Puntos and Pandas and various other old models running around, so somebody must know all this info?
Any help appreciated.
Thanks
So apparently this is THE place to find fiat-related knowledge, so maybe you guys can help me, so I figured I would register and ask here. Although I don't own no Fiats, I am very much a car person, and me and my buddy keep doing weird engine transplants, that seems to be our thing at the moment (for some reason). Vintage cars with more modern engines.
Long story short, we have this new 'victim' which is an old front-drive car, and we want to make it commonrail diesel. The usual favorite candidate for easy front-drive commonrail diesel conversions is the GM Dmax V6 (you guys in the Euro market would know it from the 3.0 CDTI Vectra) but it just won't fit into this car's engine bay, Its too big in the car's longitudinal axis. In the transverse axis there is plenty of space, but the distance between the firewall and the grill is just not enough.
So we started looking around at GM and it's various related and ex-related brands and came across the Fiat 2.4 JTD unit. It's narrow enough to fit and on paper it looks very impressive, with its 400Nm and 210ps, it actually has more torque than the Dmax! So I found a Alfa fitted with this spec engine and drove it, and I was suitably impressed, considering its only a 2.4. I think this one is the winner! And since I can get a whole Alfa as a donor and not just the motor, it should be somewhat easier. The particular car I found at the moment is a Alfa 166 from the early 2000s, but I can look for others if there is a more friendly version fitted into another model/spec.
Ok, now the hard part. I need to find out how to get this thing to run as a standalone install. It seems its very hard to find this kind of information since it requires people who really know these engines and their ecu architecture, and these people don't seem to be very common. And since I personally don't know anything at all about these motors (its probably the first time I ever even seen one), I am totally starting from nothing, hence I need some help.
Fitting it physically is reasonably easy and we are used to that, but keeping the ECU happy is the hard part.
The problem is that various manufacturers ECUs have very different tolerances for running outside of their intended vehicle. For example, some GM ECUs will basically run as long as they are plugged into all the sensors on the motor, and they don't seem to care about much else. You can even use a resistor on the post-cat sensor so it don't even care or log problems if it don't got a cat. However, some Ford systems will put the ECU into failure mode if they don't see any of the other on-board systems like the airbags, the dash, the brake/traction/stability systems, the body/comfort module etc. And when they are in fault mode they will not run the motor at all. Which means that basically the ECU will not even fire the motor unless it thinks its connected to a whole car's worth of subsystems, and its very hard to fool it into thinking that (which is why Ford suck and everyone in the car tuning community hates them).
So, I appreciate this is a very open-ended and reasonably complex questions, but can anybody suggest how I can go about gathering this kind of information? In the end, I need to come up with a definitive answer to the following question: "I have a JTD 2.4, a fuel system, a gas pedal and a ECU on the test bench. What do I need to do to make it run"?
This question can be broken down into several smaller ones, such as (but not limited to):
-Will the ECU automatically go into failure mode if it doesn't see the dash? Some systems still have a 'dumb' dash way into the 2000s, but some systems have a smart dash and if the ECU doesn't see a link to it, it will freak out and think that there is a fault and therefore go into failure mode and not run the motor.
-Will the ECU automatically go into failure mode if it doesn't see some of the other subsystems, such as the brakes/stability/traction system, the seatbelt/airbag system and the body/comfort system? If so, is there a solution on the market (whether re-programming the ECU or tricking it with add-on modules) to make the ECU ignore all that stuff?
-Is there a easy aftermarket solution to losing all the emission control junk, a lot of ECUs can either be re-programmed or fooled with an add-on module to ignore the post-cat/post filter sensors and the EGR system, otherwise of course a stock ECU will freak out and go into failure mode thinking the cat/filter and egr systems are broken if it doesn't see them.
-What about the key? This Alfa that I tried seems to have a proper oldschool metal key, not a wireless system or a card. Does the key still have a chip in it which needs to be near the steering column otherwise it won't run? If so, is there a aftermarket solution to making it have a 'dumb' starting system with no security at all, so it can be connected to the receiving vehicles old fashioned dumb ignition switch?
-Is the check-engine light possible to install as a stand-alone lamp linked directly to the ECU without a dash? If it just has a lamp on the dash, it doesn't really need much else since if the lamp lights you can just plug a diagnostics machine into the ecu and figure out whats up with it, so it doesn't really need the dash readout and stuff, but just a lamp will be useful.
So, yeah, basically if anybody can suggest any answers, or at least how I can go about finding answers, it would be really cool.
I am sure somebody must know this info, because for example in the Volkswagen scene everybody knows pretty much everything about the VR6 and 2.5TDI motors, since they are the biggest commonly available motors and always end up in 1st/2nd gen Golfs and such. And with the French car scene, the bigger HDis are very well documented too because they end up in small French cars. So I assume it's much the same with Fiats? If Fiat enthusiasts are anything like any other car enthusiasts, there must be a lot of JTD converted Unos and Puntos and Pandas and various other old models running around, so somebody must know all this info?
Any help appreciated.
Thanks
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