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I know there are at least a couple of guys on here that have installed a PiMPx ECU in their trucks.
This question is for you.
Did you just drill a hole in the firewall for the MAP hose?
This is going in a '91. There may be more room in a '92-'95...not sure.
See the picture below. It looks like I need to drill a small hole above the ECU for the MAP hose.
I don't mind drilling a hole, but I thought I'd ask what y'all did before I start drilling.
This picture shows what it looks like where the factory ECU sticks through the firewall.
This picture shows the PiMPx ECU with the rubber gasket around it.
I drilled a hole in the gasket for the MAP sensor just to get an idea for fitment.
(Note that this is in the part of the gasket that will be behind the firewall, so it's not as simple as just drilling through the rubber.)
All 3 of my PimpX ECUs were made prior to Stinger realizing it was a hassle to install these on the F series pickups due to the placement of the ECU, the map hose, and the plug location for the cable from the ECU to your laptop. My MAP hoses are all on the bottom side of the ECU. With that said, it looks like the design you have caters to the 92-96 style ECU location and position. I don't think you'll be able to make that work without cutting the firewall to clearance for that MAP hose nipple.
I will add this, I don't know if the plug on the bottom has been moved at all for the cable I talked about above. If it is not, you will need to bash in the wall directly below the ECU within the cab to clear the plug. It is a royal PITA. I think I bashed mine with a ball peen.
Thank you. I was hoping you'd answer.
The USB cable position is still on the bottom.
Did yours come with a straight USB cable or a 90 degree USB cable?
Now they provide a 90 degree USB cable to try to allow for clearance. Hopefully that will mean no bashing...time will tell.
It looks like I'll have to cut away some of the ECU support bracket to allow access to the USB plug.
I'm taking pictures of the process, and I plan to do a write-up on here when I'm done.
I'll make sure to include pictures of any cutting, drilling, or bashing that is required.
All of mine had a straight cable. I also had to remove that small support bracket. I just wiggled it back and forth with a vice grip pliers until the single spot weld broke. It is still being held up by the clamp in the rear so it doesn't seem to be an issue, but again, not entirely ideal.
I'm sure the pictures would help anyone else getting into this. At least it would give them a place to direct them when they have questions.
I didn't have to drill a hole in the firewall for the MAP hose, only made a small hole/slit in the rubber piece that bolts to the firewall. I included a picture of mine (a '94 model) and it appears to be much different than yours. The second pic is of the inside where I used a die grinder to shave down the support bracket that the the ENORMOUS aluminum bracket bolts to on the bottom. My ECU came with the updated 90 degree cable. You can also use the expansion harness instead and avoid all those clearance issues if you upgraded it at time of purchase.
Thank you for sharing. Wow that ECU support bracket is huge! Thankfully mine is much smaller and is just a folded piece of sheet metal.
I think I should be able to clearance it pretty easily with a cutoff wheel in a Dremel tool.
Looks like I'm going to have to drill a hole for the MAP vacuum nipple. I wonder if I need to put some kind of water deflector above it to make sure I don't have water run into that hole... or maybe I could find a very small rubber grommet.
We might be talking about two different brackets? My ECU bracket is just a thin piece of metal that I clearance as described in the start up instructions provided by Stinger. In
that picture I’m trying to show where I used the die grinder to notch the bracket that partially supports the huge aluminum bracket that the emergency brake bolts to. I’m not familiar with the pre ‘92 models so yours may be entirely different.
Yes, I think using a rubber grommet in your firewall would be wise.
The ECU bracketry is totally different between the aeronose and bricknose trucks. It's obvious that the attempt was made to make the ECU fit better on the aeronose truck, but this seems to have made it even more of a hassle on the bricknose units, unfortunately. Might be worth mentioning this to Shannon.
I posted this info on the PiMPx forum as well...
I'll also be including all this info when I get finished and do my PiMPx install thread here.
Just an update for anyone following along... Here's the things I had to modify to make the PiMPx fit in my '91 (I assume this would be the same for '87 - '91).
Drill a hole in the firewall for the MAP vacuum hose.
Cut out a notch in the ECU support plate for the USB cable.
(Note this whole ECU plate can easily be unbolted so you can cut the notch easily on a work bench.)
Not a modification, but worth noting... The ECU retaining bracket covers up the expansion port.
Even if it didn't the way that the ECU dips into the mounting location covers a significant portion of the expansion port. So, using an expansion harness is out of the question without getting pretty creative.
This isn't a problem for me as I wasn't planning to use an expansion harness anyway. I just wanted to note it for anyone else trying to make a game plan for their '87 - '91.
I am using the expansion plug with a single wire. The plug fits, snugly. If you were using every single wire in the expansion plug, that might be an issue. I think I'm only using the input for a flex fuel content sensor.
