SPAWN

damn man...sounds frustrating....try kicking it

Fabrik8

I'm not talking about pin termination, I'm talking about splices. They're actually AMP/Tyco open barrel crimp splices, you probably rep them and don't know it... You'll find a lot of spliced wires on most cars/motorcycles from the factory, and they all use this type of crimp splice. You will be hard pressed to find a single solder joint on an automotive harness because of the mechanical reliability problems, especially the stress concentration at the end of the solder joint where the solder has wicked up the wire strands.. I work for an ECU manufacturer, and all of our customer's harnessing uses crimp splices, as well as our sister company's harnessing. There are various SAE whitepapers on this subject too, but they're boring and long winded. Yes, you can save time by crimping over soldering, but that's not why they're spliced. I know this is going way off topic, and I'm sorry. I'm not giving any ground on this though.

By the way, what rep do you work for? I'm not asking because I don't believe you, I'm asking because I'm curious and have dealt with a lot of connector reps and distributors over the last decade and change of working. I'm always looking for new ways to get the cool and hard to find AMP/Tyco waterproof connectors that don't exist on the public market, for my motorsport projects. I wish I could get them through work, but they go direct to our manufacturing sources.

DORKO

ok guys lets get back on topic here.

i appreciate your help, but your conflicts of interest about soldering, and crimping are not helping?


any tips?

try a shielded wire?

Fabrik8

I thought you were already using a shielded wire? Yes, that's quite important, you should be using a shielded wire if you aren't already. The shield should be terminated to the power ground of the ECU (I think). Or is it the transducer (sensor) ground. I don't remember. Anyway, maybe someone can clarify that for you, but I will say for sure that the shield should only be terminated on the ECU end only, so there are no differences in potential from one end of the shield to the other. That means no ground loops.

DORKO

no its insulated, not shielded.

i mean its a fucking 14ga. wire that i got in a roll from autozone?

i mean i think the rest of the harness is the same type of wire, why not use it for the knock sensor?


am i missing something?

Fabrik8

The knock sensor is a transducer, sort of like a microphone. It puts out a voltage based on what it "hears", and this is a fairly low voltage signal and quite prone to interference from induced noise. This is why the shielding is important. Do you still get a knock sensor CEL when the engine is off and the ECU has been reset?

DORKO

yes.

it wont set the CEL, but it flashes in the ECU.

i can turn the car off, reset the ECU, and the light will stay off (in the ECU) for about 5-10 min or so. After driving the light in the ecu will start to flash. But the CEL wont illuminate.

i mean i can ignore it if its not a big deal, but if im sacrificing power for a fucking KS then im going to try and fix it.