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Hello ! I hope I’m in the right place and don’t embarrass myself too much but here it goes :
I am trying to wire in my power steering with a standalone Haltech ECU. I’ve tried digging through the wiring diagram and can’t make sense of how to energize the power steering motor .
Any guidance on the harness going into the power steering ? Is there a minimal approach to trigger power steering as an output from ECU?
Power steering is pump based on this car. The wiring is for speed sensing power steering which adjusts effort with speed. Id imagine you could just leave it unplugged and have no issues.
This is really outside my wheelhouse as I don't have a standalone but I thought the power steering was controlled by the CPU. Which by today's terminology would be a rudimentary body control module of sorts. IIRC the P.S has no connection to the ECU that controls the engine. It's on a seprate harness than the one from the ecu. Maybe I am misunderstanding your question. Are you wanting to control the P.S. with the Haltech instead of the stock CPU?
Power steering is pump based on this car. The wiring is for speed sensing power steering which adjusts effort with speed. Id imagine you could just leave it unplugged and have no issues.
Yeah, I guess I shoulda pointed that out as well. I guess I just took energize as the control from the CPU that varies the amount of assistance provided by the P.S. based on speed.
On another note as to leaving it unplugged. I often thought about figuring out what the electronics that control the pump expects to see from the CPU at various speeds and then setting it to a fixed amount of assistance of my choosing. Mainly because my CPU is a little flaky and the security system no longer works and I have lost P.S. briefly at random before.
Youre right, it does have its own module, because when I removed my P/S for a manual rack my car would scream at me the whole drive home. Its located under the driver kick panel.
a warning buzzer is constantly on (loud), and a mazda mechanic told me that is connected to the p.s. circuit.
...is this true. ( I had previously though that it was connected to the coolant circuit.)
...if it is the p.s. circuit, can anyone suggest a fix?
Do you have P/S still? I switched to manual steering and just unplugged my P/S Module. Its located under the steering column. Worth trying to make sure thats actually the buzzer youre hearing.
Janaka - The only loud buzzer I've encountered so far has been the Add Coolant warning. It's constant and very annoying. All the power steering warning sounds should be intermittent beeps, in intervals of one to three beeps to denote the code, IIRC.
For what it's worth, I'm running a Haltech 550, and I didn't get any power steering issues when I completed the install. It's when I changed to an RX-8 trans that the P/S wasn't happy because there's no speed sensor output on it. I de-soldered the beep speaker from the P/S control unit to save my sanity LOL
Last edited by Hayamate; Mar 19, 2021 at 11:48 AM.
Janaka - The only loud buzzer I've encountered so far has been the Add Coolant warning.
...
I de-soldered the beep speaker from the P/S control unit to save my sanity LOL
Yeah, the coolant buzzer is the super loud one. You can ground out the single bullet connector for the coolant sensor to silence it, but obviously you should replace the sensor in the long term.
The power steering beep is a slightly quieter 1-5 beeps depending on the code. I too have ripped that little speaker out of the power steering computer.
the "buzzer" (which is actually a high pitched alarm sound, and not awfully loud) is definitely connected with the power steering --since sometimes when the power steering decides to work again, the alarm goes out.
...i'm trying to locate the problem, and I understand that there is a standalone control unit --which could be the problem.
...I took some pictures so maybe with a little help I can try to figure out what's what.
...I pulled off the kick panel revealing an elongated rectangular black plastic box housing a printed circuit and a buzzer upper left --which seems to be where the alarm comes from.
...when taking off the plastic back two rows of the soldered pins were all corroded.
...does anyone know if this circuitry has anything to do with the power steering? ...or what all this unit controls? notice the corrosion --which i will attempt to resolder. this is what is printed on the outside. top connector removed.
?? is this the actual Power Steering Control Unit??
The unit in the above photo looks like the ones shown when I do an image search for the P.S. Control Unit.
Yes, the metallic-looking box is the power steering control unit. I don't believe the black one in your quote is part of the power steering system.
...it seems like in the same plastic box is housed the buzzer circuitry for the power steering.
...i.e. two separate circuits.
...the turn signals are working, except silently.
...so will probably re-solder the corroded points.
...then take out the P.S. unit to see if I can discover something wrong with it.
I took apart the P.S. Control Unit and the soldered points all look good but on the component side I'm wondering if the brown 'splotches' are something normal --for example a protective substance put on at manufacture, or is it the result of capacitors having leaked out.
See the pictures.
Is that normal?? the brown ooze is in several places and has the feel of plastic. another example
...another question: what else besides the control unit would cause the power steering to mostly not be working BUT sometimes working??
...I wouldn't want to replace the control unit only to find that that wouldn't change anything.
power steering warning buzzer???
