Dumping my Accel Thruster EFI ECU - Part 2

In my last post I discussed why I decided to dump my Accel Thruster EFI ECU and switch to a Megasquirt MS3-Pro. As I began removing the Accel wiring harness I discovered some troubling things stuffed inside the tightly wrapped convoluted tubing. When I started peeling back the wrap from around the convoluted tubing I first found a damaged ground wire on the ECU power relay. Most of the strands in the wire are broken. If this wasn't causing some of the problems I was having with the system before it would certainly have been an issue once I was able to drive the truck. Once things started jiggling around as the truck went down the road this would have certainly broken off completely in a short amount of time. Half an inch more of heat shrink tubing would have helped avoid this wire from being bent right at the connection. Next I found a power wire with exposed bare wires which could cause a nice short circuit, especially with ground wires breaking off in the harness. Again an additional half inch of heat shrink would have prevented this. Shame on Accel for this. I suppose it is just cost cutting on their part but we are talking about pennies worth of heat shrink tubing.

Broken ground wire

Exposed power wire

As I got further down the harness I discovered another gem. The harness contains a connector that lets you interrupt the ECU from controlling ignition timing and lets the HEI module just uses static timing. This is useful for setting the initial timing but most of the time it should be connected so the computer can control the timing. The connector was wrapped up in plastic tape and when I unwrapped it I discovered one end of the connector was completely missing it's housing. Without its plastic housing the pin inside the connector could easily fall out. I'm sure that would be a real head scratcher if fell out and the engine suddenly had no power.

All of this is making me more confident about my decision to pull out this Accel Thruster ECU.