Using a '93 3SGTE ECU on a '91 3SGTE Engine and Harness Options

[Dr_Tweak]

Some weeks back I had a customer doing a 3SGTE swap into a '91 Celica that I did a wiring conversion for. After he got it back and installed, I asked him for the part number on his ECU since I've seen many situations where the importers send the wrong ECU for the year of the harness. Sure enough, he had a '91 Harness but a '93 ECU. I advised him to get a '91 ECU, but he was having a hard time locating one.

About the same time, I started gathering parts and doing research for making jumper harnesses for various Toyota applications. I located the supplier for the female ECU plugs for a few different Toyota harnesses. When I got one in that matched the 3SGTE harnesses, I though, why not make a jumper harness that goes from a '91 harness to a '93 ECU, or a '93 harness to a '91 ECU? Then customers who run into this situation don't have to find another ECU or repin the whole harness.

Since I had this customer, Bryant, who had this very situation at hand, and since I happened to be going near where he lived on a recent road trip, I decided to whip up a prototype and give it a try.







There it is plugged into a 3SGE ECU as an example. This first one came out a little rough, the production model will be cleaner.

And here it is plugged into the car:



The jumper harness worked PERFECTLY. It fired up the first try and is running great, no codes and no problems at all

If anyone wants one of these jumper harnesses let me know, I'm currently building them to order.

Other applications for this setup include plug and play jumper harnesses for standalone units that don't already have a plug and play setup, like perhaps 3SGTE/Autronic, and so on.

-Doc

[Dr_Tweak]

No dude, I'm serious. I really want you to make one and put together a total cost. If you could consistently do it as the same quality using all brand-new parts, then I'll buy them from you. You think that you can consistently get brand-new parts for $50 each and it only takes two hours to make? And your time is obviously worth less than $75 an hour from your post, so what is your time worth? $10 an hour? $15? Seriously.

Considering that most shops charge an hourly rate of $60 - $80+ an hour, a shop is already overbudget if it takes you two hours and the parts cost you $50, not to mention that you would make zero profit because PROFIT what you SELL the item for minus the COST of the parts AND the COST OF MAKING IT.

Now sure, if you're big on doing it yourself, you could go find a Toyota ECU and hack the PCB connector off, find a harness and hack the plugs off, and then spend half a day trying to solder the wires to the right pins without melting the plastic housing and dislocating any of the pins, then yes, you could do the whole project for... pretty much nothing. People like that would never buy this product and wouldn't need help making one, so it's a moot point anyway.

What REALLY irritates me is that all day long I read people complaining that there aren't enough products for our cars out there and they wish someone would step up and make this or or that or this, and EVERY TIME I come out and actually produce a product or service and provide it to the community at a price that is reasonable while putting some food on my table, I get someone like you or Lagos saying, "Oh well, I guess Tweak is making a mint off of selling these/doing these swaps/wiring that engine...., you guys shouldn't buy this, or have him do your swap, you should just do the swap yourself or find some crappy used parts and solder them together and it'll be just as good..."

Here's a big to you!

-Doc

This post has been edited by Dr_Tweak: Jan 2, 2008 - 1:39 PM

[WannabeGT4]

No dude, I'm serious. I really want you to make one and put together a total cost. If you could consistently do it as the same quality using all brand-new parts, then I'll buy them from you. You think that you can consistently get brand-new parts for $50 each and it only takes two hours to make? And your time is obviously worth less than $75 an hour from your post, so what is your time worth? $10 an hour? $15? Seriously.

Considering that most shops charge an hourly rate of $60 - $80+ an hour, a shop is already overbudget if it takes you two hours and the parts cost you $50, not to mention that you would make zero profit because PROFIT what you SELL the item for minus the COST of the parts AND the COST OF MAKING IT.

Now sure, if you're big on doing it yourself, you could go find a Toyota ECU and hack the PCB connector off, find a harness and hack the plugs off, and then spend half a day trying to solder the wires to the right pins without melting the plastic housing and dislocating any of the pins, then yes, you could do the whole project for... pretty much nothing. People like that would never buy this product and wouldn't need help making one, so it's a moot point anyway.

What REALLY irritates me is that all day long I read people complaining that there aren't enough products for our cars out there and they wish someone would step up and make this or or that or this, and EVERY TIME I come out and actually produce a product or service and provide it to the community at a price that is reasonable while putting some food on my table, I get someone like you or Lagos saying, "Oh well, I guess Tweak is making a mint off of selling these/doing these swaps/wiring that engine...., you guys shouldn't buy this, or have him do your swap, you should just do the swap yourself or find some crappy used parts and solder them together and it'll be just as good..."

Here's a big to you!

-Doc

You ever stop and think that maybe it's your attitude that may be what's motivating us?

I said unless you think your time is worth more than $75 an hour this is quite profitable. If you're making these yourself there is no shop overhead to factor into the hourly rate. Just a flate rate of $75 per hour. It's just like you had a job doing work for $75 per hour.

If you disagree with the prices why don't you put up an itemized price list... Yeah, didn't think you were going to do that.

This post has been edited by WannabeGT4: Jan 3, 2008 - 7:39 AM