1800 8 valve motor from 1985 GTE in to 1991 1.6 merit

[Davidr]

Hi

I've put an 1800 8 valve GTE motor< but running on a weber carb, into my road rally car which was originally a 1991 1.6 merit, and I have some wiring differences between the car loom and the engine loom! The looms have different plugs on them so I've cut the plug off the original 1.6 engine loom and I'm trying to connect it to the GTE engine loom but after connecting the ones that are the same colour I have some that don't match! on the engine side I have 3 wires of reasonable thickness that don't have a match in the car loom . there is a red one, a black one with yellow trace and a blue one with yellow trace, can anyone tell me what they do? on the car loom I have 3 very thin wires unused which I assume are not important! they are all brown with different colour traces.
The engine runs but the ignition light doesn't go out even though it appears to be charging.

the other problem I have is that the I can't get the indicators to work! should the flasher unit be 3 pin or 4 pin? the one that came with the car was 3 pin but there are 4 wires connected to the back of the relay in the fuse box

Hope someone can help as I'm confused and I was hoping tio use the car on a rally on 9th April!

Davidr

[DarrenH]

why is their a GTE engine loom at all if its no longer a 1.8 injection ?

i guess it just has the starter charging loom, alternator thick red, alternator exciter wire (white blue trace) and pressure sender wires (blue with green trace, blue with yellow trace)

[Davidr]

The engine loom from the 1600 small block engine had an ECU, MAP sensor and a distributor and ignition module with different amounts of pins, so I thought it easier to use the loom that matched the engine? also the ECU with the 1600 engine would not be historic legal, the cutoff date for historic road rallies is 31.12.1985. I also have most of the injection system which I am going to fit eventually but I need to find an air box, because it must be standard for road rallies

[DarrenH]

yeah got you. the 1.8 injection loom sole purpose is to control the injectors, which you have completely replaced with a carb, so then the 1.8 loom has no purpose. i think i am right in saying its the 18E engine (m1 astra and very early mk2 gte) which uses distributor, hall sensor, ignition amp, coil, separate to the engine loom ? so same question, what is the 1.8 looms purpose.

[Davidr]

I know what you are saying, but I don't have the original engine loom! it was sold with the engine, so now I just need what to connect the red, black with yellow trace and blue with yellow trace to!

The engine is running now so obviously these wires aren't needed until I come to put the injection on, the ignition light is sorted now, it was a bad connection. I'm guessing the red one would be power to the injection system and one of the others would be from the relay to the fuel pump and perhaps the other one could be rev counter? The loom in the car came from a 1991 J reg automatic and the engine loom came from a B reg 1.8 GTE and the main difference was the plug on the engine loom was round pins and the socket on the car loom has blade type pins, I have a Haynes manual but I can't make any sense of the wiring diagrams! so I wondered if anybody had a diagram showing each cable in the engine loom and what it does?

cheers David

[DarrenH]

ah, i have a 1990 3 speed 1.6 auto on the drive. could prove handy !

normally the injection cars the engine loom is self contained. car loom self contained. there is a barrel shaped connector by the passenger side suspension turret (official name is X5 connector in haynes) this handles the cabin controlled bits of the engine (sometimes called starting charging loom) so it runs to the alternator and starter, has a spur direct to the battery, has wires for the oil pressure sensors and dash light for charging, wire for the starter solenoid. on injected cars this starter charging loom there is a 7 pin connector just above the gearbox which hooks to matching 7 pin connector on the engine loom, gives power to the engine loom plus other services like speedo (blue with red trace), output to fuel pump (thick blue), rev counter (grass green), ecu light for fault codes (brown with blue trace, but 18E engine doesnt have this) switched live (black with yellow trace), permanent live (thick red)

late 1600 carb engine does not have that 7 pin spur to integrate the car and engine looms, i've probably just long winded your original question ! 1600 loom just goes from the X5 barrel connector to the starter and alternator and oil pressure switch, carb heater, fuel stop solenoid etc, also has a fork up to its 2D ecu on the bulkhead for the mapped ignition.

so in short, you need a starter charging loom from an injected engine