As you can imagine, there is a lot of wiring to do on a project like this.
One challenge was to figure out gauges for this truck. However, we got lucky with this one. Dakota Digital makes a VHX series dash for the 1969 Ford F100, and with their CAN bus and OBDII Interface module, it actually plugs into the OBDII port from the Lightning to receive engine data from the ford EEC-V ECM.
Here you can see the Dakota Digital VHX controller and the OBD-II interface and the custom harness we made that uses weatherpak connectors. The VHX system is very flexible in that it allows you to use various engine sensors and connect them to the controller, which then drives the gauges.
The dash cluster:
And at night…
Of course, you can install this unit in a stock truck, but we were happy to have a way to read what the 2002 ECM was saying.
We mounted the controllers in the glove box.
The real estate was running thin in the dash, so we created a relay and power center that will live under the seat.
This bank of relays handle the electric fuel pump, the A/C power, the ECM power, and others.
We added an OBDII connector to the harness, and used a Diablosport InTune hand-held device to communicate with the ECM. This will allow us to scan and clear codes, and perform minor tuning and calibration changes. It will also allow us to upload a complete performance tune later.
