after maybe 20 mins of digging around i found a cheap, decent, rtek compatable pda...

only 28 something plus shipping.

http://www.gizmos2go.com/xcart/produ...cat=382&page=1

 

I can't wait until this thing comes out for N/A's

 

[QUOTE=coxxoc]What makes the s5 harness better than the s4 other than it being a couple years newer?
And, if you hate the old harness, how hard is it to make a NEW one? Just measure the old lengths.[QUOTE]
The S4 has horrible cold solder points and grounding problems from the factory, whereas the S5 is better. Not sure to what extent, but it is better. If I had an S5. I would probably just save up for a JDM pimpdaddy powerfc for s5 fc.
Have you looked at the stock harness? It's very thick and lots of stuff. I would not want to recreate that thing at all. It's entirely possible, but would be a huge PITA


The rtek 2.0 runs the ORIGINAL map from your turbo ii's computer, all you are doing is modifying it by a % plus or minus the original figure. When you reset the rtek to 0, its the stock map.


-Ben Martin

 

What, exactly, do cold solder joints on circuit boards have to do with wires?
Cold solder joints on the printed boards exist just as readily on S5's as they do on S4's.
If anything, the S5's were a little worse.


I don't really understand how you can say the stock harness is so bad. What vehicles of the same time period are you comparing it to? Testing MANY stock harnesses, both N/A and TII, S4 and S5, they have all come up fine on both a Megger and Ohmeter/diode test.
I have never seen a wiring harness failure that was not caused by owner error.
The most common electrical problems are caused by cyclic heat failure of the plastic connectors and by poor grouding connections, both are far more easily repaired that building a new harness.

Now, then, let's ask ourselves how many aftermarket EMS's have had failures due to aftermarket wiring harnesses.
I can count several just by myself.
Sure, its possible to build a great aftermarket harness, but are you more capable of doing that than Mazda's electrical engineers and assembly line?
Based on your responses, I doubt it.

Please tell me exactly why the stock harness is so poorly built. I'd like to know which wires you megged out, what the results were, and to what gauge you would change them to, which wires you would add shielding to, what spec wire you would use to in building a new harness, etc.

Otherwise, you're just being ignorant.

 

well now i didnt know that!!!
it runs strait out of the box with the stock tII ECU map??!! thats great!! i was just scared of the timing.. i never really tuned my car except with my SAFCII..
im liking this thing more and more everyday!!

 

D'oh, you got me. Guess I'm just another fine example of why you take anyone on these forums with a grain of salt.

My bad :-\

 

The reason why the stock harness sucks is because of it's age. I bet back in the first few years it was perfect.

After 15+ years they have now gotten a lot of heat cycling and other conditions(water/etc..)
Most grounds are very bad and some wires are very brittle.

If someone made a new replacement harness I would buy it. If I could source the same plugs then I'd just make one myself.

 

why argue about s4 or s5 harness differances when the rtek is only for the s4:-( Is there any thing similar for use s5 guys. They sayed an rtek chip for the s5 was in the working for years now.

 

seriously, do they realize there is an S5 out there?

 

oaky time for me to chime in and ask some questions. I have a street ported s4 t2 engine with 550cc injectors all around.( I plan on moving to 720 cc in the future. My mods are
Street ported intkae and opended up primanry. and SP secondarys. Intake and opne DP till I have acahs for fulle exhuiast . I also have a crazy big ported wastegate. I plan on running 9psi on my stock turno. Well what retek would be best for me ras of right now? I havea f-conn too .

 

I'm looking at the website . So I can runthe 1.7 and still use 550cc all around?

 

^^^no... the 1.7 is for 720's only.. it said on the site you will run lean and blow your motor runnin 550 secondaries...
its made for 720 secondaries.

 

so which obne can i usre

 

You can use the 1.5 version which has some of the features from the 1.7, then upgrade to the 1.7 later, since a % of the money you spend on the 1.5 is credited to the 1.7, and a percentage of the 1.7 credited to the 2.0.

 

if you go from 1.5-2.0 that's about the same about as a standalone

 

you could use typing lessons

 

just my 2 cents....

the stock wiring in our cars is horrible. it's the most poor quality wire I've ever delt with. I'm currently finishing up biulding my own custom harness to use with my megasquirt, because my car would barely even run anymore due to stock harness issues. plus it gives you a chance to get rid of all the wires that you don't need anymore because they go to stuff you've removed.

it's probably because of a lot of reasons, one of which is the added heat rx-7s put out, and how old our cars are, but I still think it was just bad quality to begin with.

but the rtek 2.0 looks nice
it looks like a really nice, low budget, safe way to not blow up your car. which is always good

 

Yeah but your off by a few hundred. The 1.5 is $95 to $115. The upgrade to the 1.7 is $25. Thats $135 at most so far. the upgrade from Stage 1 (1.x) to stage 2 (2.0) is $299.

Grand total $434...so yeah, your off by a few hundred.

 

$434...hm...just slightly under a plug-n-play megasquirt, and about even with a regular megasquirt..hm..



And you still have the AFM.

 

More expensive than my MT setup, hell more than double the cost actually.

 

If you do MS you have to modify/replace some of your sensors to work right. Also the tuning interface for the rtek can be bought for 30 bucks or so (ANY old palm) and can be tuned in the car w/ aux input for wideband. MS you'd have to buy a laptop to tune and there will be NO presets to work off of. You do it 100% on your own.

For a guy doing it yourself w/o access to a dyno to tune w/, get RTEK 2. Get MS if you want the novelty of building (and finding all of the parts to build) yourself. Both will be capable of a good amount of tuning.

 

You will still need a dyno to dial the RTEK in.

You also can get prebuilt megasquirts (for a little less), and there's enough people running now that you can get a decenet basemap to start, so it's not starting from scratch.

 

I'm using all of my original sensors with my MS

and you can get laptops for cheap, my current one I got for free from a friend

 

The RTEK7 2.0 comes set to the factory timing and fuel maps. With the MS, you kinda really are starting from scratch, and that is why the MS losses points, for me atleast. The 2.0's install and setup are extremely simple...just 3 plugs, and the car runs. Also, no one needs a dyno to dial in anything, just a wideband.


EDIT: Also, the RTEK7 has 3 different injector presets, thus, I don't have to look for a 550/720 basemap for my MS.

 

As I said, it wouldn't take much more than 30 minutes to find a suitable base-map. Also, any standalone can be tuned using a wideband and an empty street, it's far from ideal but just as capable as any other (though an EGT would be rather beneficial for both occasions). Yes, the simplicity of the install is a benefit, however at the same time poses the negative of keeping the crusty original engine harness.