Tach Does Not Work After K-Swap Unless Avanguard 5.1 Tach Wire Is Disconnected

Hello everyone,

This is my first post, so please excuse me or point me to where i should post, if I did not post in the correct forum.

I have a 1999 integra with a clifford g5 avantguard 5.1 with intellistart 4. It was properly installed by a dealer and worked fine up until I performed a K-swap. I swapped the engine and ecu is a 2006 rsx with rsx wiring.

Since everything remained same, rhe only wire I had to connect was the rpm/tach wire from the intellistart (which was connected to the 1999 integra distributor/test wire. I connected this to the ecu E connector at pin 25 (blue wire). Im sure this is the correct wire from the Honda repair manual and other posts in this forum.

Here is what happens:
1. With the wire connected, the tach needle jumps all over the place, will not go over 3000 rpm, or sits at zero. At idle it will sometimes work. While the intellistart wire is connected to E25 pin, I can program the alarm and remote start and everything functions. While the wire is connected, the ecu sees the rpms, so the car functions without an issue.

2. When I disconnect the intellistart tach monitor wire, the tachometer needle works without a problem. Of course, this means that the features which relies on the rpm does not work.

Has anyone encountered this? What is the cause? Is there a solution? My suspicion is that the intellistart rpm wire is pulling or draining too much of the voltage that the ecu outputs to the tach so there is insufficient volts to operate the tach properly. Your suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Use a different tach source. Fuel injector or Ignition coil control wire.

Thanks for the response and suggestion.

So for the ignition coil, should I use any of the wires at the A13-16 ECU connector (ignition coil 1 through 4)? If not, which coil in particular?
Alternatively, for the injector, the ECU B connector pin 2-5 (injectors 1-4), which do you suggest using as the source?

Thanks.

It doesn't matter, pick one. My personal preference is fuel injector of cylinder 1 but that's just my preference.

Thank you. Much appreciated. I will attempt to get it done and let you know how it works.

Just an update:

I tried it first on the #1 coil (ecu connect A pin 16), but that seemed not to work: I could not engage short stop, auto lock (based on rpm), or remote start.

I then tried it on injector #1 (ECU connector B pin 5): Short stop and remote start works,but I'm not yet sure auto lock works... I will have to test it a bit more.

Many thanks for the suggestions and solution.

Cutback,

After a bit more testing, I confirmed that the autolock and blackjack features did not work. This is very strange, because the short-stop feature (which I assume requires an rpm signal) worked. When I connect the wire back to the e25 pin, all of the avantguard and intellistart features work; of course, my tachometer does not.

I'm wondering if the clifford avantguard requires some kind of tach signal filter to work on a 2006 rsx (ecu or coil). Any ideas?

Did you relearn the tach and was it sucessful?

Good question:
On both my connections to the injector and coil, I tried to relearn the tach. The same thing happened. I entered the section of the program grid successfully,but when I press the "arm/disarm" button, nothing happens, that is, the lights do not blink. I tried this with two other intellistart units (I have three including a brand new one) with the same result. However, on all three units, when I connect the tach signal wire to the E25 pin wire, all the features work without programming the tach.

So to answer you question, I tried to relearn the tach on the I jester and coil wire connections, but I don't think it is successful. I'm curious, however, why the features work on each of the intellistart units when it is connected to the e25 pin wire even without relearning tach. This is why I posed my prior question. Of course, I'm stumped, so I'm hoping that you have a suggestion yo aid me in this regard.

Thanks in advance.

Interesting, the AvantGuard 5.1 is supposed to flash the parking lights twice for a successful tach learn or once for an unsuccessful learn.

From my research, Pin 26 of Connector E is the Tach Output *Referenced Here and here*

Outside of the above, all I can suggest is to test and validate the wires. The Clifford install manual has it's procedure for testing the tach wire. The tach output wire (given above) or the any one of the fuel injector wires (not yellow/black) are the tach connections listed for installer data.

Yeah, I think this failure to flash the lights as a bit weird too.

The E26 pin for tach is on 01-04 rsx. I'm using an O5-06 rsx type s wiring and ecu, so it is on E25. I can send a pic of honda manual page later.

Tonight I tested the output on the coil, CKP (crank position sensor), and injector wires as a tach source. First, the e25 wire tested at 6.4 bolts. The injector wire is outputting 13.4 volts(battery voltage); and the ckp and coil are outputting about 2.5 volts. I watched a few YouTube videos for testing the tach wire for remote start security systems and they all show about 6.5 volts. Also, when I rev the engine to increase the rpm, the voltage on all of the above wires drop by about 1 volt...

So perhaps we have an Ah ha moment. It appears that this is why the alarm and the tach both work on the e25 wire, but not together. 6.5 seems to be thr goldilocks number. Also, if I rev the engine to increase the rpm, isnt the voltage output on those wire suppose to increase? I'm a bit puzzled, but it may explain why my tach jumps all over the place if I tap into it and rev the engine. Any thoughts on the test results?

Thanks.

So I promised to upload the pics of the rsx 2005-2006 wiring, so here they are:



This is the pic of the ecu E Plug pinout. E25 is the tach for these years.

I have a followup question to make sure I did what you suggested correctly. If I used the coil signal to obtain the tach signal, should I have tapped into the #1 wire of A13, A14, A15 or A16 at the ECU; OR should I have tapped into the BLK/WHT wire at the individual coil? I have attached the wire schematic and ecu pinout below:

So you're using an aftermarket tach? Probably not enough drive out of the ECU to run both the Tach and the remote start.

There isn't actually a goldilocks number. 6.4 volts is just an average of what a basic multi-meter will show for a 50% duty-cycle square wave signal (6.4v is half of 12.8v). The remote start is monitoring the pulses not the voltage; which is why it has to learn the tach - it learns the tach signal (pulse count) at idle speed.

Reading 13.4 volts on the fuel injector wire all the time (even during heavy acceleration) could mean you are not on the correct wire. Other than using a labscope to confirm what the signal looks like, unplugging the fuel injector and seeing the 13.4 voltage drop to no volts is another confirmation check.

The ignition system is of a low-voltage signal design here. I wouldn't use it for tach signal on this type of system.

While all you have left is tach signal, something seems to be wrong with your Avantguard install if it doesn't operate as the installation and/or owners manual dictates it should. Whether it be user error or some other installation problem, not being able to get into tach learning mode and receive a success or unsuccessful response is the real problem here. Because the remote start is working by default (without tach learning) on pin 25 - thus we know it's a good signal - does the tach learn process work properly there? If not, something is definitely wrong with your Avantguard install (seeing how you've tried multiple modules thus it's very unlike the module itself is at fault).

Hello,

Thanks for the response.

To clarify, I'm not using an aftermarket tach. I'm using the oem tach in the 1999 integra. The issue I'm having is that the tach works fine if I don't tap into the oem wires to supply a tach signal to the intellistart unit. When I tap into the oem wire to supply a tach signal to the intellistart unit, (remember the only tach signal wire is on the harness to the intellistart because the h1/4 pin wire is blank) the tach either does not work or bounces all over the place. (Perhaps the solution is to figure out what is causing this becausebit worked find before the engine swap)

Now, while the tach is not working with the intellistart tach wire connected, all the features of the the avantguard and intellistart work, including blackjack and autolock, etc. So that is another oddity - the unit seems to remember the old tach programming.

As for entering program grids and learn, I can enter the grids and various column and rows, but I don't get a light response (flash) as confirmation that the system has accepted or rejected the programming. No doubt something is wrong, but I have double checked the wiring too many times to count and compared it to my other two cars (same make and model) with the avantguard 5.1 unit, and there is no difference. I take your suggestion, however, that there is a likely wiring issue and will take another look at it again - I have it apart now so no difficulty.

Last night I was doing some reading on this and other forums and found this post:
. The poster pinned the h1/4 and used that to supply the tach signal because he was notnusing the intellistart unit. I have a spare unit with spare pins that I will pin into the h1/4 location to test. Other than this and rechecking the wiring, I'm thinking that the remotes are not properly programmed in the first place, which is why the system is able to enter the grid from the key pad, but unable to accept changes from the remote - nothing happens.

On the injector signal, which wire from the schematics I uploaded would you tap into? I was sure I located and tapped into the correct wire at the ecu. I will check that again today - do a continuity test.

Thanks for the response and clarifications.

Sorry, I misposted the link to the other post:

running tach from H1/4 pin

Today's development:

I installed a wire in pin h1/4 and connected that wire first to the ECU E25 pin. I tried the learn function, but the same result - I'm able to enter the function grid, but I receive no confirmation either way.

Then I connected the h1/4 wire to the coil wire (ECU A16) AND connected the e25 to the original intellistart tach wire. I tried to learn again and nothing happened, but after restart the features (auto lock, remote start, blackjack) worked. I then disconnected the ecu e25 tach signal from the intellistart and restarted the car with only the A16 connected to the h1/4. IT WORK!!! The features all worked... I re-check the features several time after several restarts, and it continued to work on the h1/4 pin and A16 ecu (coil no 1 pulse signal).

I'm going to keep it that way to see if it keeps functioning until I receive the cliffnet wizard cable to check the settings through the software - I ordered the cable but itbis on back order. I agree that something is wrong with, but being a novice at this stuff, I'm stumped, so I'm going to wait for the software to help point me to the problems.

I appreciate all the help.

So I received the cliffnet wizard kit a couple months ago - had to get it from the UK - and finally go around to connecting it today. It requires a pc with a serial port.

I was able to fix several issues immediately, but upon driving the car it seemed to have lost the tach signal. I came back home to troubleshoot but can't get it to learn the feature either in the software or manually. The software "fails" and the manual feature flashes the lights only once instead of twice. Can anyone give me any ideas? Now that I have the software, I can upload screenshots if needed. Thanks is advance.

I was able to fix all of the issues above related to the tach. Now I have two issues related to the install that has to do with the ground of the H1/1 wire (primary harness) and the H3/7 wire (intellistart). These two wires are showing battery voltage, so as I attempt to connect them to ground, they spark. Everything about the alarm seem to work perfectly, but I am concerned that this is not suppose to happen.

The H1/1 wire is connected to the H1/5 (green/white) wire. The H3/7 wire is not connected to any other wire. They both show about 11 volts independently.

Any input as to whether this is supposed to happen or not and the possible cause, assuming it is a problem, is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.