On System Redesign….

Happens twice or three times a night sometimes… :)

I do try to think things through far enough ahead to avoid starting work on major segments before I have a decent plan. Reality almost always intercedes, however, and system redesign is the result. I prefer to think of it as refinement.

Recent work on the trike has been engine wiring, which meant choosing a place to put the ECU, which is not actually designed to be outside the passenger compartment of a car. I have placed the ECU in a sealed box, then proceeded to drill a big hole in the lid for wires.

But, I think it will be well protected because I put a plate for mounting various electrics in a place that is centrally located under the fiberglass body, above the transaxle. The ECU is mounted to the “bottom” of the sealed box, but the box is suspended upside down on the bottom of the mounting plate (though it is not yet secured in the linked picture). This puts the hole for the wiring at the lowest point of the box and the ECU is inside the box at the highest point. Combined with sealant around the wire bundle, incidental spray should not be able to enter the box. The biggest compromise to this location is that it is immediately in front of the cooling fan intake. At highway speeds in the rain, it’s actually fairly likely that spray will be drawn to this area. No other mounting location is otherwise as desirable, so I hope that I have addressed all the problems.

You will note in that picture that I have mounted two fuse blocks. The one on the left is for engine and EFI stuff, the one on the right will be for chassis stuff, mostly lighting and instrumentation.

The row of relay sockets shown will be shortened somewhat. The forwardmost socket will interfere with the body. At this writing, only two of the sockets are in use, one for the main engine power and one for the fuel pump and O2 sensor power, as recommended in the wiring diagram in the MegaManual. The rest of the relays are mostly to allow me to use small gauge wiring to the handlebar switch pod.

I have also layed out the location for the EDIS stuff. Note the mockup of the plug wires. There is a tiny bit of concern about having the coil pack physically near the ECU, but I’m willing to try it. The alternative locations for the coilpack all involve building some kind of bracket for it and/or dodging some moving part or hot air flow.

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