How to install a Aftermarket Tach on a 2.0Duratec

[honhon]

Hey All, this post/thread will be dedicated to the topic:

How to install an Aftermarket tach on a 2.0L Duratec.

This install on my tachless zx3 took about a total of 2 weeknights, because i knew i would need alittle help from my dad whom works 7am to 7pm bout every day, so it doesnt leave that much time to do work, but if you total everything up, it took us about 4 to 5hrs. and it might seem alittle long, but we did everything to a very very high expectation, MY expectation. which stands up to high standards and 2nd to none, no exceptions.

The Parts:

Autometer 2 5/8th's 8,000 RPM limit Sport Comp Tach

Ford Racing Tach Driver - (yes i know theres a rumor and/or proof you can use a tach with the new focus ignition without the driver, but to me this felt more of an easier solution)

Various wire cutters, strippers screw drivers, and then guts, so of the stuff my dad did i would have hit him, but in this case i had to trust him. thing that made me the most upset was when he cut my crank position sensor off my car, he did this so he could splice the wires alittle easier. more on that in a min.

and heres the steps that we did to hook this up, i will pull everything as much as i can from memory so things might be alittle mixed up but hopefully you will be able to understand it.

Ok, starting i had the tach and tach driver, and the first thing i did, which i did myself was i pulled off the plastic a-pillar cover and mounted the tach to the pillar with the included screws and also used some hot glue to make sure the screws would never pull out, and i also drilled a hole in the a-pillar and used some sleeving from my previous 4-wheeler to hide the wires, check the pics below to see how well that came out, i love it, it came out so cleanly!

next the 2nd hardest part. my dad and i got under my car, and started to work on mounting the tach driver up, as stated above he cut the crank position sensor off my car (PLEASE ONLY DO THIS IF YOU HAVE ENOUGH FAITH IN YOURSELF TO BE ABLE TO MAKE SURE IT'LL WORK AFTER YOU PUT IT BACK TOGETHER, I OR MY FATHER ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU MESS YOUR CAR UP, now thats out of the way) after he cut it off, he spliced the 2 shielded wires to the sensor's wires and then back to the crank, we taped and secured it back up, looks like we were never there (part of my standards) and then my dad mounted the tach driver to the little black bottom bumper shroud (pics below)

then day number 2, while my dad was at work i bought some black conduit thats already on the car from the local parts store. and i ran the wires from the passenger side crank area around the front of the car, hiding the wires in the conduit and wrapping my conduit with the car's already in place other conduit, and then wrapping all of it tightly in electrical tape, further securing the wires and further hiding the fact that we had added anything to the car itself, also at this pointed i remounted the tach driver to the same location, but to further protect it from the elecments i wrapped it tightly also in electrical tape to seal it alittle more.

ok so now at this point, the tach is mounted and the wires are somewhat run to their final spots. and then the tach driver is mounted and the wires are also ran but not hooked up yet.

Now was the hardest part, hooking everything up to make it work. i ground the tach driver on a pre-existing ground on the car. and then left my dad to hook up the power(red wire) to a fuse section (pictured below) that provides power to the tach driver when the ignition is turned on.

after this, still waiting for my dad to come home, i decided to tare into the tach. i grounded the tach to an existing ground in the dash, and i also got the green wire (signal wire) ready to go through the firewall, and the final thing, i used a small wire tap to put the tach's white wire to its use. i un-hooked the lighting plug and tapped a wire on that so the tach's light bulb could have power and be turned on with the rest of the lights/dash lights.(also cool thing too, when i activate my alarm/de-activate my alarm, it blinks with the rest of the lights lol)

dad comes home:

ok, so now my dad is home and we can finish this project up, my dad pushed the hood release wire's gromet through the firewall and we feed the green wire into the engine bay and splice that to the green wire on the tach driver. my dad uses his volt and holy crap meter ($340.00 new ) to find a good ignition fuse in the inside of the fuse box, and we hook up the tach's power up, and thats finished.

we test it. IT WORKS!

we clean everything up, close the car in the garage and go to bed.

i wake up the next day, and check and tuck. wrap and clean up everything from the previous night.

i also picked up some automotive caulk black in color, and zip tied the green wire to the hood release wire and then put a bunch of the black caulk around the little hold where the gromet was pushed through so it would seal it up.

IF you need detailed pictures under the dash, where the green wire goes through or where everything is hooked up, i.e. fuses post and i can get them for ya.


i hope this helps alot of people out with this!


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Pictures, the part everyone loves! while i took pictures i also took a few exterior fun "family ford" pictures im sorry if the pictures are alittle blurry or you can make out where they are on the car, but ill explain each one as much as possible.


from the base of the windshield, you can somewhat see the little plastic black tubing covering that hides the tach wires:

Driver's View

Close up of Tach

Conduit going to the Crank Position sensor

Conduit coming from the right side of the picture and then being zip tied up to the top of the picture and then the wire going down to the tach driver itself

Best picture i could get of the tach driver without burning my fingers/camera on my hott engine when pictures where taken, its towards the bottom left, you can see its wrapped in electrical tape

the conduit coming from the tach driver going towards the driver's side, i blended this conduit in very well

overall shot of the wire's where the conduit ended and everything from the tach and tach driver got spliced and/or hooked up, cant really notice anything out of place, the way i wanted it.

the wire going into the fuse box hookup for the tach driver

that same wire shown how its hooked up in the fuse box


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hope this helps. and if anyone needs other pictures of the install, i.e. under the dash. i can try to get them

[Sponsor]

[honhon]

updated pictures, transfered them to photobucket

[honhon]

~BUMP~ for noobs

[microtonal]

Nice job and write up.
About time someone had the balls to do this and document it.


Questions:

1.
When you say cut the CPS wires, EXACTLY at what point in the CPS wire harnest did you make the cut ?

2.
Does the tach seem to be stable(not jumpy) and accurate (with the digital tach in the Odometer in test mode) ?

[p0sitivevibez]

NICE

Mod should sticky this...

[honhon]

Originally posted by microtonal
Nice job and write up.
About time someone had the balls to do this and document it.


Questions:

1.
When you say cut the CPS wires, EXACTLY at what point in the CPS wire harnest did you make the cut ?

2.
Does the tach seem to be stable(not jumpy) and accurate (with the digital tach in the Odometer in test mode) ?

#1: my dad pulled alittle bit of the cloth-like sleeving and electric tape away to expose the 2 wires going to the sensor, and then cut one about 1inch from the sensor on one wire and the other about 1.5 to stagger the wire's cut's and to i guess make the tap alittle stronger, we didnt use the stupid little side taps ford racing sent, we just used regular straight splicers, and twisted the tach driver wires with the main sensor wires and then then spliced it together.

#2: the tach seems very stable, doesnt jump at all and is consistant to any day/time heat/cold, i am going to test it vs the digital one in diagnostics mode


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i hope i explained it good, if you think of a sraight splicer (primarily used to attach 2 wires together to make one long wire) you can pretty much understand how we hooked it up.


ill go take a picture of some extra wire we have with some splicers to show ya


im hopin to get this stickied, probably need a few underdash shots to add to it and it'll be a 110% thread.

[honhon]

heres the picture:

think of the red wires being the factory wires from ford. and the green wires are coming from the tach driver, and the bottom part of the picture is where the crank position sensor would be.

[LittleCinqCoupe]

You are the awesomest person to EVAR live.

My a-pillar gauge pods arrived today, and my tach shows up tomorrow. I was SO worried that it was going to be impossible, and I was going to hack up my car for nothing. Your timing is perfect!

<---One more vote to make this a sticky.

[honhon]

your welcome. and ~bump~ again to try for stickie position =D

[Lil PZEV]

honhon, PM Chad/S2 so he can add this to the HowTo Archive page.

Nice work, write-up, pics, etc... that Ford doesn't give tachs, especially to mtx cars, is just plain weird.

Oh yeah, votes for Sticky have been counted