Anyone put a clifford rsx 3.5 on their 6.0 psd??? i have an 07 and had it installed about a week ago.....i am having a few problems and concerns.....the unit only starts the truck about half the time....it cranks all the time but only actually starts up about half the time......the installer said you cant use the tach wire cuz its "dirty" so its on crank time...i think this is bull....i talk to the clifford people and they said it should work everytime and i agree....they seem satisfied with it working about half the time....

also they dont have it hooked to the wait to start wire like i want it.....the installer again said that it cannot be used on my truck because it drains on the battery or some bull...any truth???? i just want this dang thing to work it seems like an awesome alarm and remote start if it works regularly like it should.......it also as a turbo timer on it which i think is sweet....thanx in advance.

 

Do the Clifford folks have any technical support? They should be able you get you hooked up properly.

 

What you basically have is a Viper 791xv. Your installer is right that you can't tap into the Wait-to-Start (although, I suspect he doesn't know why), but your Clifford has a built-in timer to deal with no wait-to-start input. Unfortunately, if he never set the timer up correctly in the unit's menu (default is use the wait-to-start wire), then your truck is trying to start without the glowplugs having had time to heat the combustion chamber, this is actually what sounds like is happening. The easiest way to determine this is to answer a simple question: Does the truck immediately try to start when you remote start it? Or does the RS system wait for at least fifteen seconds after turning on the ignition before it try's to start the truck?

The tach wire is a different story, he's just wrong. Ford was nice enough to give customer's access to a CTO (clean tach out) wire (Actually, it was meant more for a PTO than a RS). It is a Lt.Green/White wire in the same bundle of wires that the 4 "Pass-Through" wires are in, located right behind the fusebox, near the parking brake release.

 

I forgot to mention that it could also be as simple as the programmed crank time. Default is 0.6 seconds, which for our trucks is way to short. Compared to other vehicles (gas or diesel, it doesn't matter), the 6.0L has a long crank time. So much so, that there have been numerous threads from people that think there's something wrong with their truck because it seems like the starter is cranking forever before the truck starts. It might have to be upped to 1.2 seconds. It's kind of a matter of trial-and-error. Or you could start your truck a few times with the key (when it's cold) and time how long it takes between turning the key to "START" and when the engine actually starts. This would give you a better baseline.

 

I had the same problem. The tach signal (lt gn/wt wire) on some 6.0's is no good. I even added a Ford tach amplifier designed to fix the problem. It didn't amplify it much, with the amp it was only 0.5v ac signal riding on 5v dc. My DEI 791xv still would't recognize the tach (tho it would say it learned it with the amp, it never would). Solution was a DEI module 451T attached to the alternator.
http://www.directedstore.com/cgi-bin/commerce*****?preadd=action&key=454T&reference=/cgi-bin/commerce*****%3Fsearch%3Daction%26keywords%3Dtach%2 6searchstart%3D0%26template%3DPDGCommTemplates\Ful lNav\SearchResult.asp%26category%3D%26sku%3D
and then adding a separate relay to sequence the ignition circuits on the same way the key would. Still not 100%, but works most of the time.
Yes you can't access the wait to start, I used a 10 sec delay timer built in the alarm and set the crank time for 4 sec. You can't over crank since Ford has a built in anti-grind circuit.

 

Netfly, I think you meant a 454T. I remember that problem with the low tach signal (the RS unit needs to see between 1V-6V AC to get a proper read) on '03-'04's and some '05's, but I haven't heard about a problem with any '06 and '07's. The truth of it is, for all practical purposes, the tach wire isn't really needed. The RS unit can be set to monitor the voltage across the starter wire to determine if the vehicle's started to keep from grinding, and like Netfly mentioned, the truck itself has an anti-grind feature. The only other purpose the tack wire serves is to shutdown the truck if it over-revs, which in our trucks is highly unlikely. If it is just your crank time that needs to be adjusted, your truck will work just fine without a tach signal to the RS.

 

EnviroCon thanks yes its 454T. I'm only familiar with the '05. The best reason I know for wanting a tach input is so the alarm knows its started. Otherwise it may just assume it started and its sits with the glow plugs and ignition on without retrying. If it knows it didn't start it tries 2 more times.

 

so then setting the crank time to max shouldnt hurt it cuz the truck wont let it grind??? i guess its too bad about the wait to start it sucks having to wait 15 sec for it to start if its warm outside......anyone know the reason why it cannot be used??? i think the installer is ordering that part so hopefully that solves the tach problem because it should start EVERY time regardless of what some shady installer says diesel or not.....

 

I don't recommend setting the crank time to max. Not because it may hurt the truck, but because it's causing unnecessary wear on the remote starts satellite relay.

The wait-to-start light on our 6.0's is an LED that's soldered on to the circuit board of the instrument cluster and the whole cluster is controlled by the PCM via a data bus cable. So there's no point-to-point wire to tap into.

 

I have the Clifford, and mine starts most of the time...90% maybe. It does not try to restart if it didn't fire the first time, that would be a feature that I would be interested in. I don't know much about the alarms, that's why I had it installed elsewhere, but I know that mine is set to 11 or 12 seconds to let the glowplugs do their thing, but it still doesn't always fire. I guess I could up the time on the crank. Does it cause any excessive wear when it does not fire, or does it not really matter?

 

The Viper Will Restart And Viper Owns Clifford You May Want To See If There Is A Upgrade For It

 

I agree with the above. I have the Clifford and have mine set to wait 15 sec to start and had to install the tach gen to fix the restarting issue. But it does work everytime that I can think of anyway.

 

If the truck doesn't start and the system is not programmed for "Engine Checking" (the default setting is ON), meaning that it uses one of the 2 methods, Tach or Voltage, to determine whether it started, then it's just like leaving the key in the "ON" position without the truck running, for however long the RS is set to run for. Default is 12 minutes. A little more about tach and voltage. Cliffords and Vipers use either a tach input or voltage sensing to determine whether the truck started. The default setting for the unit is tach input. So if you don't have a tach wire hooked-up and haven't taught the system the signal, then the unit has no way of knowing whether the truck started or not, and will just crank the starter for the programmed time, and then assumes the truck's running. The other method is voltage sensing, this one's not quite as reliable as the tach input, but it also doesn't require any special wire to be hooked-up. What the unit does is use the voltage across the ignition wire to try and sense if the truck has started after the programmed crank time. But the unit needs to be set to "Voltage Sense" in "Menu #3" to do this. The unit doesn't automatically switch from the default of tach input to voltage sense. If you're not familiar with programming one of these systems, I don't reccomend doing it yourself. If you lose track of where you are and what option you're programming, it could be a big problem. But this info should give you something to talk about with an installer.